Starlord (comics)

Stories included:

• Strontium Dog, a series about a mutant bounty hunter created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra.
• Ro-Busters, a robot disaster squad created by writer Pat Mills and artist Kevin O'Neill, although it was more usually drawn by Carlos Pino or Dave Gibbons.
• Mind Wars, a series about two psychic teenagers in the middle of a galactic war, written by Alan Hebden and drawn by Jesus Redondo (concluded in #22, but briefly returned for a sequel in the 1981 Starlord Annual)
• Timequake, featuring a tramp steamer skipper reluctantly recruited into Time Control, an agency which fought to prevent anyone tampering with time.
• Planet of the Damned, a passenger jet vanishes in the Bermuda Triangle and the passengers find themselves on a hostile alien world. Written by Pat Mills (as RE Wright).[1]
• Holocaust, Carl Hunter, a private detective, discovers a government cover-up of an alien invasion. Written by Alan Hebden.

As well as 22 regular issues, there were also three Annuals dated 1980–1982 (each published at the end of the previous year) and one Summer Special in 1978.

IPC found that publishing two science fiction titles split the market. Starlord was actually the better selling of the two titles, and normal policy was to end the poorer-performing title and merge it into the more popular comic. However, group editor John Sanders preferred 2000 AD and so he decided to end Starlord instead. Starlord was cancelled after 22 issues and merged with 2000 AD in issue 86 of that title. Its last issue was dated 7 October 1978. Sales of 2000 AD steadily increased.[2]

2000 AD's line-up was strengthened by the merger: Strontium Dog became one of its most popular and long-running series; and Ro-Busters continued on in 2000 AD for a while and led to an enduring spin-off, ABC Warriors, which still features today. Timequake also briefly featured in issues 148 to 151. By that time the title Starlord had been dropped from the cover of 2000 AD with issue 127 in August 1979.

Two series, those that carried on into 2000 AD, have been collected by Rebellion Developments into trade paperbacks:

• Strontium Dog Search/Destroy Agency Case Files: File 01 (336 pages, January 2007, ISBN 1-905437-15-3)[3]
• The Complete Ro-Busters (336 pages, November 2008, ISBN 1-905437-82-X)

The series Mind Wars was reprinted in the supplements to issues 408 and 409 of the Judge Dredd Megazine in 2019. The episode in the Annual was reprinted in the supplement to #411.

Starlord was edited by Kelvin Gosnell, who was also editor of 2000 AD, although he mostly concentrated on Starlord and left 2000 AD to assistant editor Nick Landau.[4] After Starlord merged with 2000 AD, Gosnell became editor of new comic Tornado.[5]

Like 2000 AD, Tornado and Scream!, Starlord had a fictional editor, a bouffant-haired superhero also called Starlord, and each issue was supposed to be a primer for survival in the galaxy. When the title was cancelled and merged with 2000 AD, Starlord announced that his mission on Earth had been successfully completed and he was off to battle the evil Interstellar Federation on other worlds, though he urged his readers to "keep watching the stars" (his catchphrase). When a 2000 AD reader asked after Starlord's whereabouts in a 1999 issue though, 2000 AD editor Tharg claimed that "While Starlord has not been sighted on Earth since 1979, rumours that he was seen in a McDonalds in Basingstoke cannot be entirely discounted". On another occasion, it was claimed that he was "out in the Rakkalian Cluster, singing lead soprano with an Alvin Stardust tribute band". Heralding the 40th anniversary of the comic, and satirising the flurry of revelations regarding 1970s children's entertainers, it was suggested in a satirical story that Starlord was in fact a warmongerer who brainwashed children to become child soldiers and had been imprisoned as a war criminal for the past four decades.[6]