2000 AD #240
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join free2000 AD prog 240 sits at the precise midpoint of 'Block Mania,' the prologue story that introduced Orlok the Assassin — the East-Meg One operative whose poisoning of Mega-City One's water supply would detonate into the landmark 'Apocalypse War' saga. At the same time, the issue carries the concluding episode of Rogue Trooper's early story 'The Rookies,' part of the beloved inaugural run by Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons that had only launched twelve issues earlier in prog 228. Running three of 2000 AD's most consequential strips simultaneously — Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, and Nemesis the Warlock — this prog exemplifies the creative peak the anthology reached in late 1981. It also carries a small editorial footnote: editor Tharg announced in prog 240 that the long-running reader-poll debate between 'Earthlets' and 'Terrans' as terms for the readership had ended in a draw, cementing 'Terran' as an accepted address — a telling sign of how genuinely interactive 2000 AD's relationship with its audience was.
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By late 1981, editor Steve MacManus was overseeing a deliberate escalation of the Judge Dredd universe: writer John Wagner had been building toward an all-out war storyline, and 'Block Mania' (progs 236–244) — featuring a rotating art team of Mike McMahon, Ron Smith, Steve Dillon, and Brian Bolland — served as its tightly plotted prologue. Meanwhile, Rogue Trooper, conceived after a reader survey showed strong appetite for future-war stories, had been devised by Finley-Day, MacManus, and Gibbons; by prog 240 Gibbons was still on art duties, shortly before he handed the strip to Colin Wilson. Nemesis the Warlock, created by Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill, had been running since prog 167 (1980) and was deepening its satirical anti-fascist mythology throughout this period.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Prog 240 falls within 'Block Mania' (progs 236–244), the introductory story for Orlok the Assassin — East-Meg One's master operative, written by John Wagner with art rotating across Mike McMahon, Ron Smith, Steve Dillon, and Brian Bolland.
- Orlok is introduced in 'Block Mania' as the Sov agent who contaminates Mega-City One's water supply with a block-war-inducing drug, directly triggering the events of 'The Apocalypse War' (progs 245–270).
- Prog 240 also carries the concluding episode of Rogue Trooper's 'The Rookies' (progs 239–240), written by Gerry Finley-Day with art by Dave Gibbons — part of the character's original 1981 debut run that began in prog 228.
- Rogue Trooper was created by writer Gerry Finley-Day and artist Dave Gibbons, developed alongside editor Steve MacManus in response to a reader survey that identified future-war fiction as a top interest.
- Nemesis the Warlock, created by Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill, appears as an ongoing strip; its title character is a demonic alien freedom fighter opposing the genocidal human Grand Master Torquemada, ruler of the far-future Earth empire of Termight.
- Chief Judge Griffin appears in the Judge Dredd strip during this period; Griffin would later be killed during 'The Apocalypse War' after being brainwashed by East-Meg One, with Dredd himself carrying out the execution.
- Prog 240 is the issue in which Tharg (the comic's fictional alien editor) announced that the reader poll over whether fans should be called 'Earthlets' or 'Terrans' had ended in a draw, making 'Terran' an officially accepted term in the Nerve Centre letters page.
- The original Rogue Trooper stories from progs 228–265 (which include prog 240) were later collected by Rebellion in the trade paperback 'The Future of War' (2007) and also in 'Tales of Nu-Earth Vol. 1' (2010).
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