2000 AD #388

Prog 388 of 2000 AD, dated 20 October 1984, serves up a genuinely unsettling cover by Cam Kennedy, as a grotesque, leering alien face looms over a chessboard where small soldiers — labeled Gunnar, Bagman, Rogue, and Helm — are arranged like game pieces, while a massive fist shatters one of them with a menacing "My move, G.I.!" The "Future War Games on Nu Earth" banner ties it all neatly to the Rogue Trooper corner of the 2000 AD universe, and the whole image crackles with that dark, sardonic energy the weekly did so well in 1984. Inside, Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill continue their Nemesis the Warlock saga with Book IV: The Gothic Empire, making this a particularly rich prog for fans of British comics at their most inventive.