2000 AD #1540
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeProg 1540 is the debut issue of Titus Defoe — the zombie-hunting ex-Leveller soldier created by Pat Mills and Leigh Gallagher — making it the first appearance of one of 2000 AD's most distinctive horror-action characters of the Rebellion era. The prog simultaneously launched two brand-new Mills strips, with Greysuit (drawn by Watchmen colourist John Higgins) debuting alongside Defoe, giving the issue unusual density as a launching pad. Defoe in particular stands apart in the 2000 AD canon for transplanting the anthology's signature satirical and working-class sensibility into an alternate-history 17th-century England overrun by the undead, a genre mashup that proved durable enough to sustain eight serialised arcs across more than a decade. The issue therefore marks a meaningful creative pivot point in Rebellion-era 2000 AD, demonstrating the publisher's appetite for period horror alongside its science-fiction mainstays.
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Both Defoe and Greysuit were written by Pat Mills — the co-founder of 2000 AD itself — and launched together in the same prog, an unusual double debut for one writer. Mills conceived Defoe around the figure of a Leveller, the radical democratic movement of the English Civil War, deliberately positioning the character as a working-class hero in contrast to the aristocratic leads he saw dominating popular fiction; he has discussed this political framing in multiple interviews. Artist Leigh Gallagher, who brought a detailed, gritty line to the alternate-London setting, went on to draw the first five collected books of the strip before Colin MacNeil took over art duties for the sixth arc in 2017. The prog appeared in June 2007, roughly three months after 2000 AD's landmark 30th-anniversary issue (Prog 1526), placing it in a notably productive creative stretch for the weekly.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Titus Defoe, created by writer Pat Mills and artist Leigh Gallagher; cover-dated 6 June 2007.
- First appearance of Greysuit (John Blake), also created by Pat Mills, with art by John Higgins — both new series launched in the same prog.
- Defoe is set in an alternate 17th-century London where a comet impact in 1666 triggered the Great Fire and raised the dead; Titus Defoe is a former Leveller and Cromwellian soldier turned zombie hunter.
- John Higgins, the artist on Greysuit, is widely known as the colourist for Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen (DC, 1986–87).
- Nikolai Dante (by Robbie Morrison and Simon Fraser) and Judge Dredd are continuing strips also present in this issue; Dante debuted in 1997 and Dredd in 1977 — neither originates here.
- The Defoe serial beginning in Prog 1540 ('Defoe: 1666', progs 1540–1549) was later collected in the trade paperback Defoe: 1666 by Rebellion.
- Leigh Gallagher drew the first five collected Defoe arcs before Colin MacNeil took over artwork starting with the sixth arc in 2017.
- Pat Mills is the co-creator of 2000 AD itself (launched 1977); Prog 1540 represents one of his most productive single-issue contributions to the weekly as a Rebellion-era creator, launching two new strips simultaneously.
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