2000 AD and Starlord #119
Prog 119 of 2000 AD and Starlord (cover-dated 30 June 1979) marks the debut of ABC Warriors, one of the longest-running and most creatively ambitious strips in British comics history — a series that has continued, intermittently, into the 21st century. Written by Pat Mills and drawn for the opening episode by Kevin O'Neill, the strip introduced Joe Pineapples and Happy Shrapnel alongside series lead Hammerstein, completing the nucleus of what the story itself cheekily dubbed the 'Meknificent Seven.' The issue also bridges two distinct lineages of IPC's shared Thrill-Power universe, since the ABC Warriors were explicitly billed in their debut as a new Ro-Busters adventure, knitting together threads from Starlord (Ro-Busters, Bill Savage's Invasion!) into a single ambitious mythology. That interconnected world-building — robots, war, satire, and science-fiction Western in one prog — was precisely the creative DNA that distinguished 2000 AD from its contemporaries.
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Pat Mills developed ABC Warriors as a natural evolution — and a personal escape — from Ro-Busters, a strip he had grown creatively restless with; a popular Ro-Busters sequence in which Hammerstein recounted his Volgan War memories gave him the launch-pad for a 'Magnificent Seven'-style ensemble. Mills partnered with Kevin O'Neill, whose pre-professional work had already included self-published robot strips, to design and launch the new series. Deadlines proved punishing from the outset: O'Neill could only complete the first episode and one later instalment before handing off to a rotating roster that eventually included Mike McMahon, Brett Ewins, Brendan McCarthy, Dave Gibbons, and Carlos Ezquerra — an inadvertent stroke of fortune that gave the strip an unusually diverse artistic identity across its first run of progs 119–139. The prog still carried the dual '2000 AD and Starlord' masthead at this point, a branding that would persist only until the August 1979 merger with Tornado.
Trivia · 8 facts
- FIRST APPEARANCE — ABC Warriors: The strip debuted in prog 119 (cover date 30 June 1979), written by Pat Mills with art by Kevin O'Neill, and has run intermittently in 2000 AD ever since.
- FIRST APPEARANCES — Joe Pineapples & Happy Shrapnel: Both characters made their debut in this opening episode, joining established character Hammerstein as the original core of the warrior squad.
- CREATIVE TEAM (opening episode): Writer Pat Mills; artist Kevin O'Neill — co-creators of the ABC Warriors concept. Due to deadline pressures, O'Neill was only able to complete episode 1 of the first series run (and one later instalment), with McMahon, Ewins, McCarthy, Gibbons, and Ezquerra filling subsequent episodes.
- NARRATIVE HOOK: The debut episode was subheaded as a new Ro-Busters adventure, directly linking the new strip to its Starlord-born predecessor and placing Hammerstein's mission — recruiting a squad of war robots to tame a lawless Mars — within the shared Volgan War mythology that also encompassed Bill Savage's Invasion! strip.
- SHARED UNIVERSE CONNECTIVE TISSUE: Prog 119 sits at the junction of multiple ongoing IPC narratives; the ABC Warriors strip retroactively positioned its robotic soldiers within the same fictional Volgan War referenced in Invasion! (Bill Savage) and Ro-Busters (Hammerstein), deepening 2000 AD's already-interlocking continuity.
- JUDGE DREDD STRIP: A Judge Dredd story also appeared in this prog, scripted by John Wagner with art by Brendan McCarthy, featuring recurring supporting characters including Walter the Wobot.
- MASTHEAD CONTEXT: Prog 119 was still published under the combined '2000 AD and Starlord' title — the branding introduced when Starlord merged into 2000 AD in October 1978 — which persisted until issue 127 in August 1979 when a merger with Tornado necessitated another change.
- FILM ADAPTATION: Hammerstein, the lead character introduced and developed from this prog onward, is the only ABC Warrior to appear on film, making a cameo in the 1995 Sylvester Stallone Judge Dredd movie. The entire first ABC Warriors series (progs 119–139) has been collected by Rebellion in the A.B.C. Warriors: The Mek Files 01 trade paperback.
Cast · 8 characters
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Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
Dredd is forced to send Walter the wobot to prison, where he drives an inmate crazy with praise for Dredd.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).