Starlord #13th May 1978 (1)

History

Starlord was conceived and edited by Kelvin Gosnell — then simultaneously editing 2000 AD — at the direction of IPC managing director John Sanders, who applied a 'me too' policy of duplicating a successful title to capture the booming post-Star Wars science-fiction market before a rival publisher could. Originally envisioned as a fortnightly publication with longer stories, richer colour pages, and higher-grade paper aimed at an older readership, the format was scaled back to a weekly shortly before launch, leaving the editorial team scrambling to fill extra pages — which is how the shelved 'Planet of the Damned' strip, originally conceived by Pat Mills for the 2000 AD launch a year earlier, was pulled from the archive and reworked for this debut issue. 'Strontium Dog' was scripted by John Wagner (under his T. B. Grover pseudonym) and illustrated by Carlos Ezquerra, who had parted from 'Judge Dredd' in acrimonious circumstances and partly took the assignment as a creative fresh start; 'Ro-Busters' was written by Pat Mills with the characters designed by Kevin O'Neill, neither of whom had taken up the staff roles Gosnell had originally offered them. The cover-mounted free gift — one of six randomly assigned 'Starlord Trooper' metallic badges — was a deliberate hook to get readers collecting all variants.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Johnny Alpha (real name John Kreelman), mutant bounty hunter and lead of 'Strontium Dog,' created by writer John Wagner (as T. B. Grover) and artist Carlos Ezquerra.
• First appearance of Wulf Sternhammer, a time-displaced Viking warrior who becomes Johnny Alpha's partner; both characters debuted together as a team in this single issue.
• First appearance of the 'Ro-Busters' strip, written by Pat Mills and drawn by Carlos Pino, featuring robot disaster-responders Hammerstein and Ro-Jaws — forerunners of the long-running 'ABC Warriors' series in 2000 AD.
• First appearance of 'Planet of the Damned' (writer credited as R. E. Wright, an alias; the strip was originally devised by Pat Mills for the 2000 AD launch in 1977 but discarded, then revived for Starlord's debut) with art by Horacio Lalia.
• First appearance of 'Timequake,' a time-travel serial written by Chris Lowder (as Jack Adrian) with art by Ian Kennedy, also debuting in this issue.
• Each copy of the first issue came with one of six randomly assigned cover-mounted 'Starlord Trooper' free badges, designating ranks such as Laser Specialist, Pilot, Tank Commander, Time Warden, Mek War Controller Robot Regiment, and Skateboard Strike Force.
• The comic was printed on higher-quality paper with eight full-colour pages per issue, a notable premium over 2000 AD's newsprint production at the time.
• Following the title's merger into 2000 AD (prog 86, 14 October 1978) after just 22 issues, Strontium Dog and Ro-Busters transferred and became cornerstone strips; three Starlord Annuals (cover-dated 1980, 1981, and 1982) and a 1978 Summer Special also extended the brand.

Cast · 2 characters

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