Deinonychus, despite being a relatively obscure Dinosaur to non Dino fans has nevertheless made quite a large influence on popular culture. It is the basis for one of the most iconic Dinosaur characters in fiction. The small, crafty, vicious pack hunter with the sickle like claw leaping through the air etc. That comes from this animal rather than its smaller cousin Velociraptor. (Though granted neither would have actually behaved this way.) Still sadly as it was Velociraptor that was given the big break (and admittedly has a much better name) then it stole all of Deinonychus’s limelight. Still the Dinosaur has made a few appearances across various forms of media over the years nonetheless.

Jurassic Park

Deinonychus was the inspiration for the famous, larger and scarier Velociraptors in the Jurassic Park franchise.

In the novel of Jurassic Park the Dinosaurs are actually meant to be Deinonychus. At the time Michael Crichton was writing it was believed that Deinonychus was a member of the Velociraptor genus. The species Deinonychus Antirrhopus was even sometimes called Velociraptor Antirrhopus. The small pack hunting meat eating Dinosaur that terrorises the main characters in Crichton’s novel is called both Deinonychus and Velociraptor at various points. Grant even states that Deinonychus is now considered one of the Velociraptors.

By the time of the film however it was known that Deinonychus was not a member of the Velociraptor family. Nevertheless the makers of the film still decided to refer to the main pack hunting meat eater as Velociraptor because it was a more dynamic name. As a result Velociraptor shot to fame instead of Deinonychus. Still the Raptors in the film were based on reconstructions of Deinonychus at the time in every respect, (though even then it was still somewhat larger than a real life Deinonychus.) Interestingly enough however there would later be a member of the Dromeosaur family that proved to be as large as those from the film canon discovered not long after. This creature would be named Utahraptor.

Deinonychus has srill made a few appearances in some forms of Jurassic Park related media including comic book and video games, though often only in a small role. It was to have been included in Jurassic Park 4, which was to have featured Deinonychus’s being trained by marine’s for op secret missions. Though this idea was reworked into the renamed Jurassic World, ultimately Deinonychus was once again replaced with Velociraptor.

Dinosaur!

Deinonychus appeared in this classic documentary hosted by Superman star Christopher Reeve.

It was only a short sequence where two of them hunt a small ostrich like Dinosaur that they promptly tear apart. It’s an incredibly brutal sequence. Almost like something from a Zombie movie as we see the two predators open its hapless preys guts and smear themselves in its entrails.

The scene absolutely terrified me when I was younger. Aside from the gore, part of what makes it so terrifying is the way the Deinonychus’s suddenly spring out of nowhere. I always remember the image of that Deinonychus head appearing over the branch snarling at its prey. With its bright red eyes amidst the black night, it looked more like a Demon!

It’s just a shame that Phil Tippet, the animator of this sequence came to prominence just as stop motion was about to more or less be rendered obsolete as a mainstream special effect. If only he had come about 20 or so years earlier I think he would be one of the most celebrated Special effects guru’s of all time like Ray Harryahusen or Stan Winston.

Dinosaurs Attack!

This card series was released in 1988 and revolved around Dinosaurs being brought forward in time due to an experiment gone wrong. The Dinosaurs were often portrayed as being larger and far more vicious than their real life counterparts. The series was tremendous fun and Tim Burton in the early 90’s even sought to make a film adaptation. Sadly however the success of Jurassic Park convinced him to make a film based on Mars Attacks, an earlier card series made by the same company instead. Not that Mars Attacks isn’t an all time classic film of course, but I would have loved to have seen a film version of this.

Deinonychus appeared in some cards from this series, including one involving people trapped in the basement, which is one of my favourite in the series. Even by the standards of this series its quite brutal as we see children and even infants cornered by the ravenous Deinonychus’s.

The back of the card is a note from the people in the basement smeared in their blood, indicating that none of them escaped the Dinosaurs.

Primeval

Now in all fairness the Raptors in Primeval are never completely identified as Deinonychus’s on screen. Still not only are they about the size of Deinonychus’s, but they are specifically identified as Deinonychus on the ITV website.

These guys appear frequently throughout the series. They are the focus of a few episodes and are shown to play quite an important role in the overall story of the show. For instance they kill the main villain of the first three series, Helen Cutter.

A lot of episodes ironically show the Raptors taking on surprisingly, but unintentionally heroic roles. With another example being in Series 5 Episode 3 where a Deinonychus kills Henry the psychotic husband of Emily just as he is about to murder Emily. Primeval can be considered trail blazers in this respect, as Jurassic World would similarly feature Dromeosaurs in more heroic roles.

Another reason these Raptors stand out is their design. Normally a lot of people don’t like the idea of feathered Dinosaurs, hence why we don’t see them in popular culture as much. To be fair when when we see a Deinonychus that looks like this

It does kind of loose a bit of its scare factor.

However I think the producers of Primeval found a nice balance by giving it a kind of feathery coating which allowed it to look more like a weird cross between a reptile and a bird.

Carnosaur

Deinonychus appeared in both this novel and its film adaptation. This novel by John Bronson which revolved around Dinosaurs being cloned actually was published about 6 years before Jurassic Park.  Sadly however the film whilst fun, is nowhere near the quality of Jurassic Park and not surprisingly this novel is completely overlooked. I myself sadly have not had a chance to read it yet.

Whilst the Dinosaurs in the first two films in the Carnosaur series are Deinonychus’s the third film establishes them as Velociraptors instead. Velociraptor once again stole Deinonychus’ spotlight, though to be fair I doubt this would have been Deinonychus’ big break anyway.

Thanks for reading.

By far and away my favourite story in the entire Dan Dare 2000AD series. This strip is definitely one of the darkest in the series and also marks arguably the first time Dan Dare ventured into fantasy as well as genuine horror too.

Premise

Journeying through the forbidden zone Dan soon stumbles upon a strange planet with a single heart shaped continent. Its inhabitants who contact them are beautiful humanoids who dress like ancient Romans. They welcome Dan and his team to their planet but ask that they dispose of their weapons first as they have none on their planet.

Dan is somewhat reluctant but nevertheless agrees to their terms. His team however are also distrustful of these supposedly peaceful aliens and two of them continue to carry knifes. When the aliens discover this they are not angry but simply ask that they dispose of them which they are forced to agree to.

The aliens treat Dan and his team to a huge feast and a party. The two members who carried weapons soon leave with two young women. Dan worried that they might get into trouble follows them and later finds them dead, with their hearts torn out.

Dan discovers the awful truth. The inhabitants of this world are Vampires! They lure any ship that passes by down to the planet and then tear them apart with their fangs. The reason they don’t have any weapons is due to their Vampiric strength and razor sharp fangs they don’t need them!

Dan goes to try and warn his men, but finds that many of them have been drugged. With the Vampires ready to rip them limb from limb Dan intervenes and manages to rouse his men.

A fight breaks out and many of Dan’s men are killed horribly by the monsters. Nevertheless they manage to make their way back to ship and narrowly escape the Vampires who pursue them in their own space ships.

After getting clear of the planet Dan quips that nobody is going to be heart broken to say goodbye to this world.

Review

Dan discovers the awful truth about the creatures of this planet!

This story I think demonstrates the edge that the 70’s Dan Dare stories had over the classic strips from the 50’s and 60’s. The 50’s and 60’s strips were definitely more culturally significant and ground breaking and had longer more complex stories, but the 70’s strips were far wilder and more batshit mental!

I honestly could never have imagined a story like this in the older Dan Dare series. A planet of heart eating Vampires would have been too extreme alongside the more straight forward sci fi adventures of the original.

When I first read this I was expecting these guys to be in league with the Mekon or something typical like that. When Dan discovered them ripping two men’s hearts out with their fangs it was quite a shock.

The Vampires in this seem to be the real deal which therefore possibly marks the first time Dan Dare ventured into actual fantasy territory rather than Science Fiction, something the series would later do more prominently after the Lost Worlds story arc.

This story is like a horror movie. In places its genuinely frightening and the art work for the Vampires really makes them look monstrous. Their leader when his true form is revealed is almost like a devil with his massive fangs and bright red skin, snarling at Dan and his crew that he will have their hearts, he truly does seem like a vicious, sadistic monster.

Overall whilst this might not be the longest or the most complex Dan Dare story I’d still rank this as my favourite simply because its just got such an offbeat and crazy premise and it really does seem like a horror movie instead of a Dan Dare comic.

I wonder how the main characters from Blake’s 7 would have coped on the Vampire planet? Since I think that Blake’s 7 and Dan Dare take place in the same universe (and you should too!) then the crew of Scorpio must have just missed it as they clearly travelled into the area of the lost worlds as they visited the Sand planet that Dan landed on. Servalan also visited the Sand planet too remember. At the end of Sand however when they all leave the sand world they head back the way out of the Lost Worlds space and back home. If only they had gone just a bit further out then they would have ended up on this planet.

I reckon Avon would have found a way to escape from the Vampires. He is Avon after all. He’s probably have kicked Tarrant into them and fled. Villa wouldn’t have made it out alive. He’d have got drunk, given in instantly to the lure of one of the female Vampires and had his heart torn out. If Servalan meanwhile had arrived on this planet well I think she would have been converted by the Vampires. After all she’d fit right in with them wouldn’t she? Imagine that if Servalan became a Vampire and went back to the Federation. She could rule over it forever! Also she could turn other members of the empire into Vampires. Hell the whole Federation could have become a blood empire. All made up Vampires taking over planets to herd their population up like cattle so that they could drain their blood on mass and turning the strongest and most intelligent members of each species into Vampires. Pretty terrifying thought. Its probably just as well that Scorpio and Servalan gave this planet a miss!

Notes and Trivia

• This strip bares some similarities to the 1960’s horror film The Fearless Vampire Killers. The final scene of the Vampires chasing them almost recreates the ending of that film. The Fearless Vampire Killers was most likely an influence on this strip.
• If Dan Dare and Doctor Who do share the same canon then it is possible that this planet was visited by the Great Vampires who turned its population. These Vampires unlike those in State of Decay would have survived their masters death as it was shown in Spin off material that some lesser Vampires were able to live on after the Great Vampires demise.

 

 

Okay now this story has no real title. It is simply a part of the larger Lost Worlds story arc. Some fans actually consider it a part of Legion, but personally I’d rather consider this the story after and Legion separate short stories so I am going to review them as such. I will simply refer to this therefore as the Lost Worlds part 1.

Synopsis

Deep into the forbidden space Dan decides to investigate a planet where all of the colonists went missing. Apparently the entire planets population just vanished without a trace despite the fact that the planet was a seemingly uninhabited sand world.

As soon as Dan and a team land on the planet they discover the horrible truth that the planets sand is alive and carnivorous. It consumes several of Dan’s team and traps the ship in a living sand storm. Dan’s death rays are ineffective against the living sand storms that begin attacking and killing his men reducing them to nothing but skeleton’s. 

Fortunately Dan is able to release the water from his ship which releases it from the Sand storm. He then uses the ship to affect the planets atmosphere and make it rain which weakens the sand and allows Dan and his crew to fly off into space.

Review

A short story with an interesting and somewhat wild premise of living sand. After featuring more traditional monsters in Legion I feel that this strip was something of a return to the earlier 2000AD adventures where the villains were a little bit more over the top and frightening. The idea of living sand dragging you under or tossing you about in the air and flaying you alive is a pretty crazy idea that almost borders on the fantastical. Though the strip does have a very smart and logical, scientific conclusion at the same time when Dan makes it rain to beat the living sand.

Some of the artwork such as Dan’s men having their flesh ripped off is quite striking and effective too.

I think this story sets up the pattern of the Lost Worlds story arc quite well for the next couple of issues where Dan and his men will land on a planet and think everything is normal at first, and then something ordinary will turn out to be a carnivorous monster that will eat several of Dan’s team. It does make the Lost Worlds story arc a bit formulaic, but still a lot of fun at the same time.

Overall whilst not a bona fide classic, this is still an interesting, amusing short adventure for Captain Dan nonetheless.

Comparisons with Blake’s 7 episode Sand

Vern the sand world of Blake’s 7.

A much later episode of the final season of Blake’s 7 called Sand features almost exactly the same premise as this story.

It sees the crew of Scorpio arrive on Vern a seemingly uninhabited planet to find out what happened to the colonists there. They discover that the Sand is alive and has eaten them. The sand very nearly kills the main characters until Avon using the ship the Scorpio is able to make it rain and weaken the sand (which managed to trap Scorpio in a sand storm) after which everyone is able to escape.

This episode was written by Tanith Lee who was an acclaimed author outside of her work with Blake’s 7.

This Dan Dare story was most likely an influence on Sand. Of course whilst Sand does have a similar premise to this Dan Dare strip it is still able to take on a life of its own. Sand is more of a character piece focusing on the dynamic of Tarrant and Servalan who are trapped in the base together.

Still its worth noting that this is another example at least of how Dan Dare was a precursor to other prominent works intentionally or not.

Does Dan Dare take place in the same universe as Blake’s 7?

Personally I think that Dan Dare and Blake’s 7 occupy the same fictional universe. There are many similarities between the 70’s Dan Dare and Terry Nation’s classic series.

Both are set in a corrupt dystopian future The organisation’s in both cases is even called the Federation. Both can be seen as parodies of the Federation in Star Trek which was presented a perfect society (much like Space Fleet in the original Eagle Dan Dare series)

Both the Blake’s 7 and Dan Dare Federation’s are shown to perform horrific experiments on people and stamp down on the most minor crimes with the most severe punishments. Both even have whole planets where they dump their criminals.

Then of course there is the fact that both also have planets where the sand is alive and eats people.

Dan Dare 2000AD is set 100 years before Blake’s 7. Dan Dare 2000AD is set in the late 22nd Century, the year 2177 AD to be exact. Blake’s 7 meanwhile according to Terry Nation was set in the late 23rd Century.

In my opinion the already corrupt organisation we see in Dan Dare eventually became over the course of the next 100 years a fully fledged empire and conquered other alien races leading to the events of Blake’s 7. Thus the sand planet in Blake’s 7 is the same as the one in this Dan Dare strip, 100 years later. Presumably records of Dan’s visit to the sand planet later named Vern were lost in the 100 years.

Whilst there was no official crossover between Blake’s 7 and Dan Dare, but they are both linked through Doctor Who. Doctor Who had a crossover with Dan Dare and Blake’s 7 in spin off material. Thus to me all 3 occupy the same canon.

They actually all fit together quite well.

In Classic Who the Daleks invaded the earth in the 22nd century and were repelled by the later part. Thus to me it was the Daleks who brought about the end of the original perfect society in the first Dan Dare comics. After their invasion was repelled the Federation came to power and earth rebuilt itself in a short amount of time (with the aid of those aliens that the Mekon tried to assassinate) and established the Federation.

In the following century the Federation however became more corrupt and those aliens left. The Federation became openly hostile to alien life due to the Dalek invasion and became determined to make earth a strong power base leading to the events of Blake’s 7.

Incidently I wrote about other continuities I think share the same universe as Doctor Who. Check it out if you have the time, but basically I feel that Dan Dare both the original Eagle strips and the 2000AD strips and Doctor Who and Blake’s 7 all occupy the same canon.

Notes and Trivia

• This is the only story in the Lost Worlds arc where Dan mentions searching for survivors. It can therefore be assumed that no other earth ships made it further into the lost world’s territory and from this point on Dan is simply exploring.

 

Legion serves as the first strip in the lost worlds arc which is the longest story in the 2000 AD Dan Dare series. Ultimately however rather than review it all as one series I have decided to examine all of the individual stories one by one.

Synopsis

Dan is given a chance to command a ship once more after he was relieved of his command following the Biog’s invasion. The mission is to explore the Lost Worlds.

The Lost worlds are planets in an area of space where no one has ever returned.

Dan’s job is to find out what what happened to the people and rescue any possible survivors.

Dan accepts the mission and is also allowed to pick his own crew. He selects criminals from the planet Topsoil 3 a free trading post planet that is a popular hangout for criminals and outcasts.

Among those he picks include a strong man nicknamed bear, a hitman who is an incredibly fast shot, and a pilot named Polanski.

Dan tests them all out before offering him a place on his mission. He makes it clear the risks that are involved, yet they still accept for the money.

With his crew ready Dan’s ship which is really more like a flying fortress, called the Eagle travels into the area of the Lost Worlds.

They are soon attacked by a horde of hideous monsters that can survive in the vacuum of space as their wings are like light sensitive panels, and thus serve as solar panels for them.

5 of Dan’s men are lost in the attack, but Dan nevertheless manages to pilot the Eagle out of the their reach and then quickly destroys the Asteroid they came from. With this path to the Lost World cleared Dan and his crew venture forward to face new unknown dangers. 

Review

Legion is not as strong as the previous two Dan Dare 2000AD stories. Its much shorter obviously, and its artwork is not as impressive. Dave Gibbons is a very talented artist in his own right and his artwork certainly isn’t bad, but still it is a shame after the wild and crazy images Belardinelli came up with to go back to what is more straight forward  art work.

Still in all fairness this story doesn’t give Gibbons as much of a chance to really flex his artistic muscle’s as much as the previous two stories did Belardinelli, with most of the characters save the fairly bland monsters at the end just being ordinary people.

Still there are some imaginative designs in this story such as Dan’s new spaceship The Eagle. I also felt it was quite a nice touch to name Dan’s new ship The Eagle after obviously the comic that ran the original Dan stories in the 50’s and the 60’s.

The story also does feature a number of intriguing ideas. The basic idea of the Lost Worlds is interesting. Kind of like a Bermuda Triangle of space where space pilots mysteriously vanish. It also allows this series to break out of the formula of just being Dan vs the Mekon all the time. As much as like the Mekon it is true that at times he could suffer from over use, like any great enemy and thus its good that this series gives Dan a chance to battle other monsters and go on different types of adventures.

The idea of Dan’s new crew being a group of criminal’s to explore is also a brilliant concept. Its basically the Dirty Dozen in space and really helps this series to stand out from its predecessor. In the original Dan Dare series his crew was made up of fine upstanding professionals who were in some cases meant to be role models to the readers like Professor Peabody. Here Dan’s crew are the scum of the galaxy with the implication being that Dan has selected them as much for the fact that no one will miss them if they are gone as for their skills. It is also hinted that this why the Federation sent Dan on this mission as they view him as expendable.

Through the character of Bear we also finally get a character that lasts for than one story. Sadly though Bear is so much blander than Monday, Doctor Rodan, or Rok. Monday was an 8 foot tall fifth generation Martian with long white flowing hair who had a tense, brothers in arms dynamic with Dan, Doctor Rodan was a genius scientist and a possible love interest for Dan, Rok was a Wolfman from space who was  a Dan fanboy and would follow him to the ends of the earth. Bear is just a big strong guy whose dumb, likes to break things and refers to himself in third person a lot. Still I suppose at the same time you could also say that Bear whilst blander is also not just an expy of a character from the original. Doctor Rodan and Rok could be seen as expy’s of Professor Peabody and Sondar. Genius female scientist and proud alien, warrior guy. With the Bear I suppose they were going for a totally different type of character at least.

This story about a Dirty Dozen in space was one year before Blake’s 7 would explore a similar concept of the Dirty Dozen in Space to massive acclaim. In all fairness though I think its probably just a coincidence. After all whilst this was before Blake’s 7, Blake’s 7 would probably have already been in production. Still I nevertheless think its worth comparing this story to Blake’s 7 anyway as I feel it shows how popular sci fi was towards the end of the 70’s drifting towards a darker grittier area, with characters who were more unsympathetic and much more likely to die. We can see that reflected perfectly in Dan Dare and Blake’s 7 from round about this time.

Overall whilst not the most involved or exciting story in the series, Legion still does a decent job of setting up the exciting Lost World’s story arc as well as featuring some interesting ideas itself.

Notes and Trivia

• This is the first 2000AD Dan Dare strip not to feature the Mekon.
• This was originally published on the 3rd of September 1977.

The second Dan Dare adventure in the 2000AD series, this is also the first to feature the Mekon barring his cameo at the end of Beyond the Final Frontier. This story also shed light on how Dan had ended up 200 years in the future and why he looked so different and thus it is a very important story in the Dan Dare canon as it establishes this series as a sequel rather than a reboot.

Synopsis

Having been relieved of his command Dan is still desperate to find out who led the Biogs to earth. Whilst in London he comes into contact with a strange Wolf like alien called Rok. Rok is a big fan f Dan Dare and invites him to be the navigator of his new ship. Dan agrees in the hopes that he can use this ship to find out the identity of the true mastermind of the invasion.

Across the universe meanwhile the Mekon who it is revealed has been in exile from humanity for many years is discovered by a race of hostile aliens. Unfazed by them, the Mekon demands to be taken to their home planet Verath which is a hollow world that has no centre or core.

There he meets their leader a two headed mutant simply called the Two of Verath. The Two of Verath were once two separate vicious criminals who absolutely despised one another that were fused together as a punishment. Their planet is made up of exiles and criminals from the galactic empire.

One of the two of Verath is a savage barbarian whilst the other is a criminal mastermind. The more savage one does not trust the Mekon and orders his men to kill him, but the Mekon effortlessly disposes of them with a weapon built into his flying chair.

The more intelligent member of the two meanwhile agrees to work with him, having heard of the stories of the Mekon, he believes him to be a useful ally and the Mekon soon works out a plan which he says will allow them all to conquer humanity and the Galactic Empire.

The Mekon plans to destroy the Federation’s economy by disrupting its trading industry which it is entirely dependent on. The Mekon claims that it will cause disruptions among their leaders and whilst they argue among themselves then they will strike at them. Without their leaders he argues that the Federation will be vulnerable for take over.

The more savage member of the two is still not convinced, but the more intelligent member agrees to help the Mekon.

The Mekon asks how the Two of Verath can be sure the other brutes and exiles on this planet will serve them loyally and not turn on them and the Two of Verath says that all they want is to kill and as along as they get they opportunity to then they will be happy.

Dan meanwhile pilots Rok’s ship beyond the galactic rim and the Federation’s area of space. Suspecting that this is where the mastermind of the Biog invasion came from, as they came from beyond the Galactic Rim. Dan’s ship is soon attacked by the Mekon’s forces with the Mekon becoming paranoid that the earthlings have found him.

Dan and the crew are soon taken to the Mekon who Dan realises must have been behind the Biog invasion. At first the Mekon doesn’t recognize Dan but after scanning his mind he discovers much to his horror who he really is.

Here we learn how Dan ended up in the future. At some point after the events of the original Dan Dare series Captain Dan was involved in an accident that horribly disfigured him and left him near death. He was placed in suspended animation until medical science reached the stage where it could help him.

Over 100 years later Dan is revived and reconstructive surgery is able to repair his face but not as it was, and he now looks completely different as a result.

The Mekon prepares a particularly gruesome fate for his old archenemy. He seals him in a cage where maggots will slowly eat him alive. Over the course of several days, possibly even years.

As the Mekon laughs at Dan’s pain, the Rok manages to smash the cage and release Dan when he isn’t looking. Dan and Rok manage to escape though sadly the captain of Rok’s ship, O’Grady is killed in the fight. 

After a long fight with the Mekon’s guards and the two of Verath Dan and Rok are able to escape in the Mekon’s own ship.

During the fight the Mekon lets it slip that he needs the two of Verath for his plans and after Dan escapes when they ask him what he means, he hypnotises them both.

In the Mekon’s ship Dan searches his memory banks and discovers what the Mekon is planning with the two. He intends to hypnotise them and implant a bomb within them. He shall then send them on a pointless mission to disrupt the Federations economy which will lead to their capture. Once they are taken to the Galactic High Council then the bomb will go off and destroy it. There would have been no way for the Mekon to attack the Galactic council which is too heavily guarded otherwise.

The Mekon later destroys the communication device on his own ship which will prevent Dan from warning them and also will prevent him from being able to tell anyone who he is. As he is flying an alien ship he will be shot down in seconds.

Dan however is able to out think the Mekon by using Morse code to tell the humans who he is.

He manages to make his way to the Galactic council fighting past their robot guards along the way. When Dan arrives he discovers that the council were already aware of the Mekon’s plan. Ultimately the Mekon underestimated them. They are creatures who have evolved beyond the need of bodies and are beings of pure light. The members of the council also de-hypnotized the two of Verath and told them about the Mekon’s treachery. The two head back to destroy the Mekon and Dan and Rok stow away on board their ship. Dan is able to convince the two to work with him to destroy the Mekon, and they reluctantly agree. Though the Two obviously wants the Mekon dead, both of them also despise Dare as well.

The three hatch a plan to trick the Mekon. The two pretend that they have captured Dare and want to bring him back to the Mekon. The Mekon is skeptical as to why the bomb has not destroyed them, and believes it must have misfired. Nevertheless he remains cautious.

When they arrive the Mekon discovers all of them working together. He orders the creatures on the planet to kill all three of them, but he discovers to his horror that the two of Verath lied. All of the outlaws on this planet are loyal to them after all and thus they turn on the Mekon. Nevertheless the Mekon manages to give them the slip and sabotages the forcefield which holds the hollow planet together.

As the planet begins to rip itself apart Dan and Rok flee whilst the Two of Verath stay behind. The Mekon seals itself in a protective bubble but the Two of Verath jump into the bubble. The Mekon laughs at them saying that if they kill him his chair will explode and they will die. He then taunts them stating that there is nothing to stop them from killing him. They however counteract this by stating that the members of the council did not remove the bomb and if the Mekon shoots them it will explode.

Thus neither are able to kill each other and as the planet breaks apart into nothing, the Mekon and the Two of Verath are left floating in their protective bubble through space, with both promising to find a way to kill the other. 

Dan and Rok meanwhile head back to Rok’s home planet where Dan will be forced take part in a ritual of initiation into Rok’s tribe before he takes a long holiday.

Review

An all around brilliant story, Hollow World not only brings the Mekon into this version of Dan Dare but also establishes this as a sequel to the original.

In the previous issue you could have easily taken this for a reboot set in the future but this establishes it as the same Dan who was simply in suspended animation for 200 years. They even explain why he looks so different too. I often felt that if they ever adapted Dan Dare for television you could have it run for years as you could have Dan change his face and thus his actor, much like the Doctor through regeneration.

I also feel they are able to explore a lot of interesting ideas with the Mekon as a result making it the same character as the original 200 years on.

The Mekon in this story is desperate. He is without his Treens having long since been overthrown in the intervening centuries and is in exile from humanity. He is also somewhat out of his depth. Rather amusingly his plan to destroy the galactic Federation would never have worked. Dan Dare might as well have not bothered turning up.

You might think this undermines the Mekon and Dan’s characters but I think it shows brilliantly how the two are completely out of time. The Mekon having been in exile for 200 years is still thinking like he’s in the 21st century, where he can just disrupt a peace conference with a bomb and that’s that. He is unaware that now the leaders of the Federation are practically gods!

This in turn I feel allows the writers in later stories to develop both Dan and the Mekon to the point where they do become used to this strange new time. The Mekon and Dan are not shown to be incompetent by any means in this story, just strangers in a strange land and I personally find it to be a very interesting new take on both characters. We are used to seeing the Mekon as this powerful figure. Even in stories from the original series where he was on the run he still always had an army of Treens around him and was greatly feared by Spacefleet. Here the heads of the Federation view him as a joke and he is on his own, with nothing more than his glider.

Of course whilst the Mekon is shown to be unsure in this strange new time, he is still depicted as a vicious, ruthless, sadistic monster and he still causes the deaths of billions of people, outwits two vicious criminals and destroys an entire planet just to save his own miserable neck. Indeed here I feel they are able to go a lot further with the darker elements of the character in some ways than they were in the more family friendly Eagle comics as we actually get to see him gun down his servants in graphic ways , cause the death of supporting characters and try and murder Dan by having him eaten alive by maggots.

This is definitely one of the darkest moments in the story when we see the Mekon taunt Dan about how his maggots know how to preserve their food so it will take them months possibly even years to fully consume him.

The Mekon’s character is absolutely spot on here. They capture his ruthlessness, his craven cowardice, yet also manage to portray him as being more unhinged than his more cold and steely precursor due to having lost everything in the 200 years since. At one point he openly admits that whilst he may have elevated himself above emotions he will take a great pleasure in watching Dan’s slow, agonizing death!

His design is also very faithful to the original. The Mekon’s design much like say the Daleks or the Karloff Frankenstein or the Xenomorph is a classic monster look and so Belardinelli wisely doesn’t tamper with it too much. He just spruces it up a bit. He makes his chair larger and more foreboding, and adds minor changes like a big M on the front of his chair which is quite a nice touch.

The Two of Verath is also a brilliant foil to the Mekon. Indeed in some ways this is an edge this story has over many of the Eagle comics I’ve read. Often the Mekon simply has lackey’s who say things like “Praise the Mekon” where as here we actually see him work alongside another villain who is in many ways his equal.

In fact the Two of Verath are actually the ones with the power here as they have what the Mekon once had with the Treens an army of loyal creatures.

Its interesting the way the two heads that make up the Two of Verath have such a different view of the Mekon. The more intelligent one is impressed by his exploits and thinks he can be a useful ally, whilst the other hates him so much even at the end when they have to pretend to serve him in order to get him, he has to be forced to do it at gun point. He later says his life isn’t worth living as he had to pretend to worship that little green runt!

Of course ironically the more simplistic and brutish member of the two is shown to be right as the Mekon later tricks them and nearly kills them. However in a nice twist the Two were also able to trick the Mekon by making him think that their band of outlaws had no real loyalty to them, which was a reasonable conclusion for the Mekon to accept. After all this is a planet of brutal, vicious criminals so why wouldn’t the Mekon believe that, but turns out that there is honour among thieves after all as the Mekon finds out a little too late.

Again its a nice change to actually see the Mekon panic and be visibly frightened. In the old strips the Mekon was facing an enemy who would never have killed him. Dan Dare of the 50’s was like Superman or Spider-Man he wouldn’t ever have even considered killing the Mekon regardless of what horrors he committed, but the Dan of this story is working with two vicious murderers to actually kill him.

Again though I don’t think this undermines the Mekon. In fact I think if anything it allows him to flourish as a villain more as we see him actually have to use his intelligence more and be pushed to greater lengths like destroying a planet to defeat his enemies. The Mekon’s destruction of the Hollow world to save his own skin reminds me of the Master in the Deadly Assassin being willing to slaughter billions of planets just to save his own miserable neck. It really makes you hate the villain more in both cases when you see how they actually put their own lives above entire planets. What’s even more disturbing in the Mekon’s case is that he succeeds.

I don’t know if the Two of Verath appear in any future strips as I haven’t gotten to the Mekon’s next appearance in Dan Dare after this yet, but I really hope he is. Whilst I do miss the Treens (seeing the Mekon without the Treens is odd, its like Davros without the Daleks) the Two of Verath is a brilliant foil for the Mekon and it would be great to see where their relationship goes from here.

The Two of Verath is a brilliant idea for a character all around. Two criminals who despise one another being fused together forever. Again this can be seen as an example of how much more corrupt the Federation in this series is compared to spacefleet from the original as Dan describes the punishment inflicted on these two men as worse than any crime they could have committed. I also like his design. They way they are fused together looks horrible and nasty, with their skin all stretched and at parts broken. You get the impression that they are both in a state of constant pain. I also like the way the more violent of the two even has a punk style haircut, whilst the more cerebral one is given a traditional mad scientist hair do.

I think its a real shame that they never made a Dan Dare series in the 90’s as I would love to have seen Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson play the Two of Verath. Ade would obviously play the more violent one and Rik the one who thinks he is a lot smarter than he actually is. I think they would have had a lot of fun with this character, its just such a shame that that can never happen now.

What would have been the best choices for the two of Verath, RIP Rik.

The strip’s other supporting characters are strong too. Rok is a brilliant sidekick for Dan. Though his characterisation is fairly straight forward. An alien who is a member of a proud warrior race, he is just such a wild idea, a wolf man from outer space that he is lots of fun. There are also some great moments of comedy with him too such as when he offers to lick Dan’s wounds to make him feel better as that is a custom on his planet.

Sadly however like Doctor Rodan from the previous strip, Rok is never mentioned again. If they ever did a tv version of this I think they should make Monday, Doctor Rodan and Rok Dan’s team, though granted that might be difficult in live action. Still I think together they would have been a brilliant team for the new Dan. I could read hundreds of comics that had Dan, Rodan, Monday and Rok battling the Mekon and the Two of Verath.

The other major supporting character in the strip O’Grady I was surprised to see die so suddenly and without warning. I felt that he was being set up as a possible replacement for Digby, as he seemed to be a similar build and seemed a bit bumbling yet perhaps more competent underneath. Also it felt like they were adding more layers to his character such as his cowardice that they might explore in more detail. Then however he just gets crushed and that’s that!

Indeed much like the last strip the deaths are quite explicit and gruesome in this story. Belardinelli the artist on the story once again lets his imagination run rampant dreaming up fabulously over the top deaths for certain characters.

My favourite is a young man who is aged to death when Dan’s ship breaks the speed barrier and he is not given the proper protection. Its really quite a prolonged and and ghastly death as we see him literally rot away on his bones.

I’d say that Belardinelli is possibly my favourite Dan Dare artist as I find that its images from his comics like the one above that tend to stick in my head more. They manage to be utterly grotesque, yet somewhat appealing at the same time. Sadly however this and Beyond the Final Frontier were the only two stories he ever did for Dan Dare.

Overall I would rank this as a classic adventure that does a good job of bringing Dan’s greatest enemy into the new series and features some fun and interesting concepts in its own right, as well as some very dark and frightening moments too. Its such a shame that it was Belardnelli’s last ever contribution to the world of Dan Dare, but it was a great story to go out on nonetheless.

Notes and Trivia

• The Treens are not mentioned once in this story by either Dan or the Mekon.
• The Mekon is in exile from the Galactic Federation in this story and has been for many years. It is not said who exiled him however.
• This story bares some similarities to Blake’s 7. The corrupt empire Dan works for that punishes its dissidents in severe ways including by experimenting on them is called the Federation, whilst there is also a planet where criminals are abandoned. Though Terry Nation actually used the idea of a prison planet 11 years before this story in The Daleks Masterplan.

The second Dan Dare series began in 1977 almost a full decade after the original had ended. Times had of course changed since Dan’s heyday in the 1950’s. The sunny optimism of Captain Dan’s exploits in the 50’s would most likely not have appealed to the new generation.

People no longer wanted perfect stiff upper lip heroes who espoused perfect values. They wanted heroes who were complete bastards who rejected authority of all kind.

Wolverine with his “I’m the best at what I do and what I do ain’t nice” had just taken the comic world by storm. Blake’s 7 which would regularly pull in over 10 million viewers, with its gritty, unsympathetic and even murderous main characters was just around the corner, and the Sex Pistols were at the height of their popularity too.

In the 50’s people were hoping for a better future which is why that version of Dan Dare along with other series throughout the 60’s like Star Trek, even Classic Who in stories like the Tenth Planet which gave us a multi ethnic version of the future were so popular.

The government that would be elected not long after the second Dan Dare was published meanwhile introduced things like the Poll tax and also imposed the first new anti gay law seen in this country for 150 years with section 28. When people say the 80’s set us back 50 years, they are wrong. It set us back 150 years!

Thus the late 70’s Dan Dare was simply a reflection of the times. People had abandoned optimism for the future and were now pissed off that things hadn’t changed when they seemed on the cusp of a huge improvement in the 60’s.

As result of this the 70’s Dan had to be both angry and miserable if it had any hope of appealing to contemporary audiences.

Dan now lived in a dystopia, more similar to the Federation from Blake’s 7 than the one from Star Trek where things were corrupt, rotten to the core and unfair. He was something of an anti authority figure regularly breaking the law and going against regulations. He was even shown to be willing to murder innocent people for the sake of the greater good.

His team was made up of criminals and murderers rather than lovable oafs like Digby, and they regularly met violent, painful, gory, and pointless deaths on Dan’s adventures too.

Dan even looked more like a punk rocker than an RAF pilot.

Naturally all of these changes angered many old school Dan Dare fans, who felt the character was all but unrecognizable .

They were right of course Dan had changed, but these changes were in all fairness probably vital to Dan Dare winning over the next generation.

Dan Dare 2 was a big success. People often forget that because it was overshadowed by 2000AD’s own Judge Dredd, but it was still nevertheless a hit in its own right, though it did come to an end a lot quicker than its predecessor. It’s success nevertheless showed people that there was still an audience for Dan Dare that was essentially seen as a dead brand at that point.

It paved the way for the next version of Dan in the revamped Eagle which started soon after and ran for almost as long as the original, over ten years.

Recently this version of Dan was released as part of two volume trade paperback to great reviews. The positive contemporary reaction to this version of Dan Dare I think showed that removed from the obvious comparisons to the original this series holds up in its own way just as well.

Whilst it may not have made quite the impact on popular culture that Frank Hampson’s pioneering original series did (though it was still influential. It had a big influence on Blake’s 7 in particular) I feel that in terms of its art and stories its just as good as the original series and hopefully any newcomers will see that as I review all of the 70’s strips starting with the first story which is the subject of this article.

This story has no official title. It is simply known as Dan Dare, so I decided to call it beyond the final frontier which is mentioned on the first page, and to me seems like a sub title.

Without any further delay lets get started shall and look at how Dan was brought out of the optimistic 60’s and into the gritty, hard edged, punk rocker late 70’s.

Plot

The year is 2177AD. Its 200 years since the events of the original Dan Dare adventures. At this point no explanation is given as to how Dan is still alive in this time period. Indeed it will not be until the next issue that we will find out how Dan was catapulted close to 200 years in the future, as well as why his persona and physical appearance are so different.

Regardless of how he got to this time Dan clearly does not fit in quite as well as he once did. Whilst he was once a celebrated hero, now few of his superiors trust or even like him. Technology has of course improved greatly since Dan’s time and mankind has made contact with many more alien creatures, but still it is obvious that this society is far from the perfect utopia that Dan left behind.

Dan’s ship whilst travelling past Jupiter is soon sucked into the planet where it is destroyed. Dan is the only survivor, but just before he escapes he manages to spot something alien on the surface of the planet.

Dan tries to warn his superiors that there is a hostile life form on Jupiter that is capable of destroying earth ships, and that if they don’t deal with it instantly thousands more lives will be lost.

They don’t listen to him however and claim that he is just lying to cover up his own mistakes. They blame him for the loss of his own ship and decide to court martial him. Thus Dan decides to take matters into his own hands. Fighting his way past security he stows away on board a ship called the Odyssey that is headed past Jupiter and thus is in danger.

The Odyssey is commanded by Monday a human being who is a descendant of the early human colonists on Mars. He is taller and stronger because of the different gravity on Mars.

Whilst on the Odyssey Dan is forced to murder two guards who try and apprehend him, before being captured. He is taken to Monday who agrees to hear him out before executing him.

Dare tries to warn him about the hostile alien entity on Jupiter but Monday doesn’t believe him, describing Jupiter as a Hellish planet incapable of supporting any life. Just a Dan is about to be executed, the ship is suddenly attacked by a hideous monster that begins killing the crew. Though Monday orders it to be destroyed Dan insists on taking it alive. Knowing that it came from Jupiter he hopes to examine it to find out more about the mysterious creatures on the planet.

The creature has unnatural strength but Dan manages to overpower it and knock it unconscious by attacking its weak spot. Its horns.

The creature is examined by Doctor Ziggy Rodan.

She tells them that the beast’s brain is three times the size of a normal human being’s, that it feeds by absorbing solar energy, that it is telepathic and that it has extra muscles added to its body to make it even more powerful. She declares that it is not an ordinary life form and has been biologically engineered.

Monday orders an expedition be sent down to Jupiter to find out who created this beast which both he and Dan are a part of.

Once they land on the planet (after making their way past a storm) they land on a strange island made of crystal titanium, surrounded by a molten sea.

On the surface of the planet they encounter a hideous gigantic bug like creature that begins to attack them, whilst back on the ship the mutant comes to and begins to attack Doctor Rodan.

The giant bug like creature on Jupiter devours Dan and Monday and all of their men who are swallowed alive, screaming. Once they come too, Dan realizes that the creature is using its stomach to transport them to its master whoever that is. On the ship the creature holds Doctor Rodan hostage and threatens to kill her unless they hand over control of the ship to it. Though she tells them not to put her life above the good of the crew they surrender and the beast decides to rendezvous with its master, the Biogs!

The men try and rescue Dr Rodan but it incinerates all of them. Dan and Monday meanwhile are taken to the leader of the creatures who tells them the origin of its race.

These creatures are called the Shepherds and they serve the Biogs, who come from the planet Zircon. They say that the Biogs grow all of their technology from living tissue and they use living organisms as live fuel. The Shepherds travel the universe looking for living organisms to be converted into fuel for their masters as their home planet cannot produce enough fuel.

The Biogs plan to establish a new base on Jupiter and from there take over the earth. They plan to harness most life on the planet into a fuel source, whilst those who aren’t painfully converted into fuel will be transformed into new Shepherds who will search for more planets to conquer.

Dan naturally refuses to become part of the Shepherd horde and he and Monday manage to escape from the monsters after a gruelling battle.. After leaving Jupiter Dan and Monday discover the Odyssey being dragged into the Biogs living spaceship. 

With the Biogs planning to convert its crew into fuel, Doctor Rodan manages to disable the mutant that held her prisoner by catching it off guard and striking it on its horns its weak spot. With the creature knocked out she manages to seal the ships airlocks before the Biogs can enter and consume them. 

Dan, Monday and their team meanwhile make their way into the living ship. There Dan is able to trick the Biogs by convincing it that he wants to join them. He later along with Monday manages to make his way back the Odyssey where he manages to free the ship from the beats clutches.

Unfortunately after they escape Dan soon sees that the aliens they encountered were just the advance squad and that there is an entire invasion fleet ready to attack the earth.

The Biogs begin slaughtering the earth fleet that tries to defend mankind. They also manage to make their way into the Odyssey where they eat everyone on board the ship except for Dan, Dr Rodan and Monday.

Dan decides to pilot three ships straight into the heart of Biogs space ship before it can launch its final assault on the earth. Unfortunately during the assault Dan’s ship is damaged and he is unable to strike the final blow. Thus Monday decides to sacrifice himself and pilots the Odyssey (of which he is the only crew member left with Rodan having managed to escape) into the Biogs mothership which sends it into the sun.

The Biogs are wiped out, but at a terrible cost as Monday is pulled into the sun as well, with his final words being that it was an honour to serve with Dan.

Mankind is saved but Dan is still strip of his rank and status and court martialed.

Doctor Rodan tries to defend Dan saying that he saved humanity, but his superiors still say the must be punished, with one of them furiously demanding that he be executed!

However he is instead simply dismissed from the service, not out of gratitude but simply to avoid the scandal of executing Dan, whom many others still view as a hero.

Many in charge even blame Dan for the attack by drawing the Biogs attention to earth as he insisted on exploring Jupiter, even though Doctor Rodan defends him by saying that the Biogs were already planning to attack humanity.

Later Dan and Dr Rodan are relaxing, having a drink together in a bar. Doctor Rodan asks Dan what he will do now and he says that he wants to know how the Biogs knew about humanity, with Dan believing that something led them to our solar system.

Sure enough it is revealed to the readers (but not to Dan) that the creatures were led to our solar system by Dan’s old archenemy, The Mekon!

Review

Beyond the Final Frontier is a brilliant story for launching the new and grittier Dan Dare.

We are not told how Dan Dare ended up in the future. Indeed based on this issue one would actually think this was a reboot rather than a direct sequel. Its not until the next issue where it is made clear that this is the same Dan Dare as the one from the 50’s and 60’s.

Still this issue does a great job of letting the readers know right away that this is a very different take on Dan Dare.

Its opening is not too dissimilar to Voyage to Venus involving a threat from a planet in our solar system that is preventing ships from going near it. From that point on however it almost goes out of its way to deconstruct all the tropes from the original Dan Dare.

In Voyage to Venus, Dan is so respected that space fleet instantly take his word and follows his idea to get to Venus. Here its obvious those in charge view him with disdain and consider him a coward who abandoned his men. He is forced to go against the law and risk a death penalty just to try and get people to listen to him!

On top of that Dan who in past would have never used lethal force unless he absolutely had to, actually murders two innocent men in quite a gruesome way. Granted its still just in self defence and he is shown to regret it afterwards, but still to watch Dan burn two men into nothing but dust is like watching Batman gun down two police officers who get in his way!

Many of the main characters also meet violent and horrific deaths. Dan and Doctor Rodan are the only two characters to survive the strip. It would have been unthinkable for any of the main cast to die in the original Dare series. Also in the original whenever a character did die it was often a big glorious sacrifice. In this strip however people die for so simple a reason as something goes wrong with their space suit and they are crushed by the gravity of Jupiter into nothing.

The most striking difference however between this series and the 50’s one is the artwork.

Massimo Beraldini’s art is just completely wild compared to Frank Hampsons. He really embraces what sci fi in comic books has over other mediums like film and tv, the fact that there are no limitations except the artists imagination.

No budget, no wobbly sets and as a result he really lets his imagination run completely rampant and I feel comes up with much more unusual aliens than anything in the Hampson stories. Whilst the Treens may have been fabulous creations they do just look like green men, similarly the Phants are just fish men.

The Biogs however? I honestly don’t know what to compare them to.

I find that Hampsons artwork was often designed to look more attractive too. His use of the bright exotic colours were often what drew young readers in to the world of the pilot of the future, and the landscapes of planets like Venus were often beautiful too.

In this strip however the creatures are designed to look more repulsive. With their long sprawling tentacles and rotten skin they are truly the stuff of nightmares. Also whilst Venus was full of lushous jungles, Jupiter is drawn as a burning hellhole full of molten lakes and fire.

The characters deaths are also depicted as being very gory and brutal. We see people’s skeletons with their flesh dripping down it, an image of a man who has died from sheer terror, even the guards Dan kills bodies slowly burn away into nothing. It would have been unthinkable to have shown such images in the Eagle.

I also like Beraldini’s design of Dan Dare too. Its true he does junk all the aspects of Dan Dare’s classic design like his costume or trademark massive chin. The only thing he keeps are the wavy eyebrows, but still I like the new look for the character. With his red hair, leather coat and slighter frame he looks almost like a punk rocker version of the late great David Bowie! That most likely was Beraldini’s inspiration for the character which would be a nice irony as Bowie was a Dan Dare fan, and even referenced the character in one of his songs.

Whilst all of these differences will have angered more traditional Dan Dare fans at the same time I think it really gets the idea of Dan being a man out of time across really well. Its almost like a nightmare for Dan to be pulled out of his utopia and thrust into this dark age of petty bureaucrats and the most nightmarish monsters.

The Biogs are a truly fantastic creation. They are along with the Daleks from Doctor Who among the few genuinely alien creatures in all of science fiction. I honestly can’t think of anything even remotely human or familiar about the Shepherd that devours Dan and Monday.

They are also a very interesting idea, creatures whose technology is made of flesh and blood and who consume and convert other races. They are a somewhat similar idea to the Cybermen in that they are a race who travel across the universe converting others into members of their own kinds and absorbing whole species into their collective, with the key difference being that these are flesh and blood creatures.

The supporting cast in this story is strong too. Dr Rodan is clearly a substitute for Peabody. Like Peabody she is a strong non sexualized female character who is a genius scientist. She and Dan also have a strictly platonic relationship too. It seems Dan’s asexuality is the main character trait that carries on from incarnation to incarnation. Though their final moment together does seem to suggest that perhaps the two’s relationship is more than platonic as we see them both having a drink together off duty whilst Rodan is dressed in more revealing clothes.

Sadly Rodan only appears in one more strip. I think she would have been an excellent supporting character for Dan. Like Peabody she could have been the brains of Dan’s team and perhaps her and Dan could have developed a romantic relationship with one another. I wouldn’t have minded it even though Dan as a character is as asexual as the Doctor and Sherlock Holmes I think its okay to explore a romance with such a character as long as its handled very delicately such as in the case of Irene Adler.

Physically Rodan is given jet black hair no doubt to help her stand out from Peabody who had blonde hair.

Monday, the fifth Generation Martian is also an interesting character and again its a shame that he is killed off, though in all fairness his death really does give the story quite a powerful ending. I’d have loved to have seen Monday and Rodan joined Dan and become his new team. Had this been the original strip then that’s what would have happened, but again this will become a feature of this strip with the only character being there right the way through being Dan himself.

The cliffhanger to the story sees the return of the Mekon. Its not surprising that they would waste no time in bringing the character back. The Mekon is Dan’s iconic enemy, Joker to his Batman, Moriarty to his Holmes. Wherever Dan is the Mekon will be there. His tiny cameo in this story I feel gives the reader a strong hint that this version of the Mekon is a lot more twisted than before as the Mekons only reason for setting the Biogs on earth would have been vengeance against humanity. He would have been unable to conquer mankind with them.

Overall I’d rank this as a very strong start to the series. Its not quite on the level of Voyage to Venus, but its still a very exciting and at parts quite frightening story in its own right. I’d give it 4 stars.

Comparison to other revivals of long running franchises

An interesting comparison can be made between the 70’s Dan Dare and Modern Doctor Who. The New Doctor Who like the New Dan Dare betrayed a lot of the classic tropes and characteristics of the original and provoked extreme anger from many die hard classic Who fans and still does to this day. Look at some of my rants online!

However the new Dan Dare didn’t bother me as I only came to the Dan Dare franchise recently. Unlike Doctor Who which I grew up with I obviously didn’t have quite the emotional attachment to Dan Dare as I did to the Doctor and thus big changes to the character of Dan don’t bother me quite as much.

Really the changes to Dan Dare are the same as those to Doctor Who. The 70’s Dan Dare strips are shorter than the original. The character is portrayed as more of modern day anti hero. In both cases he is also perhaps no longer asexual as demonstrated by Dan’s possible date with Doctor Rodan and the Doctors relationships with many characters like Rose. His costume and look has changed too. In Dan’s case his iconic big chin is gone as is his RAF pilot costume and he looks more modern with a leather coat. Much like how Eccelston’s Doctor ditched the Doctors traditionally long flowing hair and old fashioned, Edwardian/Victorian era clothing for a modern leather coat.

This coupled with the generally positive reception to the re release of the 70’s Dan Dare makes me think that in say 30 years time New Who will be looked on more favourably. To the next generation they will just see it as another version of Doctor Who, the way I see this as another version of Dan Dare. The generation who grew up with the originals obviously don’t like the vast changes to the concept and character, whilst the people who grow up with the new version perhaps get defensive of it from old fans and that leads to a New Vs Old debate. However 30 years on when the new one has settled in the next generation of fans can take a more balanced view of both of them and enjoy them both for what they are.

At the same time it also makes me wonder if the next version of Doctor Who will be a retro series in the style of Classic Who as after this version of Dan Dare came to a close the next in the revamped Eagle series tried to be more faithful to the original in its depiction of Dan and overall style and tone.

Another franchise that had a similar history to Doctor Who and Dan Dare was the Godzilla franchise. Like Who and Dare it had a second series beginning with Godzilla’s Revenge in 1984 which was very different in tone and style to the original. It ditched the camper elements of the original series like the aliens and it made Godzilla a much darker character, and it changed his iconic design somewhat making him far bulkier and less streamlined.

Just like the 70’s Dan Dare and New Who this earned the scorn of many die hard classic era Godzilla fans and the next version of Godzilla, the millenium series was more faithful to the classics, bringing back elements such as the aliens that had been jettisoned from the 90’s series. Nowadays the 90’s series however is seen as being Godzilla as much as any of the classics.

You can see a similar pattern to Dan Dare, Doctor Who and Godzilla and I think its quite interesting to see how long running franchises can be reinterpreted throughout the years.

There is the original Dan Dare Doctor Who and Godzilla all of which are big hits. In fact they all become culturally significant works that for many people help to define their generation. They also run for many years. The original Dan Dare ran for close to twenty years, the original Godzilla series for 21 years, Doctor Who for 26 years. In all three cases however their popularity began to dwindle towards the end as did their reputation to the point where all three were cancelled. They then went through their wilderness years where people grew to miss them and wanted them back and then when they did come back they were drastically different to how they had been before.

They were all given modern updates in some way to reflect the different times and changes were made to all three of the lead characters in quite large ways. Despite being despised by many purists, they did help introduce a whole new generation to the character and were hits in their own right. In New Who and New Godzilla’s case they enjoyed mainstream attention the likes of which the old one never did. Godzilla vs Mothra from the second series was the most successful Godzilla film ever made, whilst the Doctor Who episode Journey’s End starring David Tennant was the first Doctor Who episode in its 53 year history to reach number 1 in the viewing figures.

Ultimately however none of the second versions lasted as long as the first. Granted New Who is still running, but I doubt it will go on for as long as 26 years. That’s not a comment on the quality of current Who at all, but I just can’t see it running that long as nowadays its hard to imagine anything running that long that’s not a soap opera. I could be wrong but I doubt Who will ever have as long a life as before nor Godzilla as people enjoy rebooting things.

Dan and Godzilla of course later returned with the third versions being much more faithful to the original, which I think may have happened as a response to the different sequel. I think that whenever New Who finishes the next version of Doctor Who will be like the Millenium Godzilla and the Dan Dare of the Revamped Eagle, a retro, faithful adaptation with a Doctor in a frock coat, asexual, calm manipulative Master etc.

Notes and Trivia

• At the end of this strip the Mekon is described as being as old as the universe itself. This is not true however. The Mekon is at most over 300 years old. In Voyage to Venus it established that Mekon’s are Treens that are bred to lead their kind and have a higher intelligence than the rest, hence their enlarged brains and atrophied bodies. It takes hundreds of years to breed them and in Voyage to Venus it is stated that the successor to the current Mekon wont reach maturity for 50 years which is why the value the current one so highly as if he dies then they will be leaderless. Thus there should be two Mekon’s by the time of this strip as the other Mekon will have reached maturity by this point. In the next strip it is established that the Mekon in these comics is the same as the one in the previous Dan Dare series, so therefore its most likely that THE Mekon killed his successor and found a way to prolong his own life. After all he doesn’t seem like one who would be happy to hand over the reigns of power does he?
• This strip is also known by fans simply as The Biogs.
• This strip ran from 26th February 1977 to May 7th 1977.

 

 

Voyage to Venus is the original Dan Dare story and in my opinion one of the greatest works in the comic book medium of all time.

It is the codifier for many iconic tropes in science fiction and it’s influence in so many areas of British popular culture can not be stated enough.

Plot

The year is 1996. Most of the earth’s problems have been solved. There is world peace, all people’s of the earth are treated as equals, inequalities of all kind have been abolished, poverty is gone and all diseases have been cured.

Humanity is for all intents and purposes living in a golden age. One problem however still persists, famine. The “golden age” has seen a rise in the population and the earth simply doesn’t have the resources to feed its ever expanding population.

Space Fleet decides to investigate Venus to see if it may be possible to harness food supplies on this planet. Several space ships are sent to the planet but all are destroyed.

Something on the planet doesn’t want them getting there, and spacefleet is on the verge of giving up until Captain Dan the finest pilot in Space Fleet is able to devise a solution to the problem.

Dan realizes that the reason the ships aren’t making it to Venus is because of the way current space crafts are designed. They work using an impulse engine which a field around Venus causes to explode. Dan proposes that the rockets to Venus need to use actual fuel which the forcefield wont affect.

Dan decides to lead this expedition and his team is made up of his batman Digby, Professor Joecyln Peabody a highly respected scientist and experienced space pilot in her own right, Sir Hubert a mentor figure to Dan and two other experienced members of spacefleet Hank and Pierre.

The team head to Venus in 3 different rockets. Whilst Dan’s theory is correct unfortunately he overlooks the fact that the radios still work by impulse and thus the Venusian forcefield affects it and causes it to explode. 

Dan, Digby, Peabody and Sir Hubert’s ships are affected whilst Hank and Pierre wisely stay behind. Peabody meanwhile taking over from Sir Hubert is able to land her and Sir Hubert’s ship and prevent it from being destroyed, though unfortunately she also lands it in the middle of a large silicon lake.

Dan and Digby meanwhile crash in a lake, but are soon attacked by gigantic undersea reptiles. After barely escaping them they soon stumble upon a group of hostile, primitive blue skinned humanoids. These humanoids they discover are in fact servants of a race of highly advanced yet hostile and emotionless reptile men called the Treens.

The Treens capture Dan and Digby and tell them that the blue people were once human beings who were captured by the Treens many centuries ago and have been kept as a workforce as well as lab rats for their experiments ever since. Apparently the Treens have visited earth in its past many times. This is also how the Treens know the humans language too.

The Treens tell Dan and Digby that they want them for their experiments too and they have a great plan in mind for earth.  They intend to invade it and turn humanity into a slave force to help them in their conquest of other planets across the galaxy.. They also serve a creature known as the Mekon who wishes to conquer other worlds and even whole galaxies simply for his own scientific research. The Treens also regard all other life forms as inferior to them too. 

Peabody and Sir Hubert meanwhile are trapped in their ship and unable to take off due to the ship being damaged. They are also soon attacked by a large monster that lives within the molten lake called the Silicon Mass which can devour anything.

The Treens being aware that there are more humans on Venus through their scanners set out to capture Peabody and Sir Hubert simply to use them in their final experiment. They send one of their number called Sondar and Dan and Digby to rescue them.

Though Sondar, Dan and Digby are successful in rescuing Peabody and Sir Hubert the Silicon Mass manages to attack Sondar’s ship. Dan is able to fight the beast off however and in the ensuing struggle Sondar is overpowered.

Sondar subsequently considers himself defective having shown fear an emotion during the silicon mass’s attack.

Dan, Digby, Peabody and Sir Hubert soon head into the Jungle’s of Venus. There Peabody is able to analyse the food and discovers that it can be ingested by humans. She also claims that if used properly the soil here could be used to grow food for millions of people starving back home. Thus the famine problem is solved, its now just simply a problem of getting the food back to humanity.

The Treens soon track them down and a fight ensues. Dan, Peabody, Hubert, and Digby fight the Treens with their paralyser rays. Unfortunately during the fight Hubert shoots Dan by accident and he falls into a river below.

Hubert, Digby, Sondar and Peabody are soon overwhelmed by the Treens due to their superior numbers.

All 3 are soon shipped back to the Treens city Mekonta where they come face to face with the Mekon.

The Mekon reveals to them that his fleet is almost ready to invade the earth and conquer humanity, but that he wants to run a few final tests on them first. As they are not docile and domesticated like the pet humans he keeps. He wants using these earth humans to test how strong and resilient they are and so he plans to both experiment on and brutally torture them all, possibly to death to test the limits of human endurance. He also plans to fix Sondar’s defective brain for showing emotion

Dan meanwhile luckily is washed near another city where he meets its inhabitants called the Therons. The Therons are brown skinned, blonde haired humans who are peaceful by nature. They contacted Pierre and Hank who are now among them and welcome Dan.

The Therons explain the history of their planet to Dan. The Treens and the Therons two kingdoms are separated from one another by a flame belt. The Therons are similar to human beings having evolved from Mammal like life forms, whilst the Treens evolved from reptiles.

The Therons were highly advanced whilst the Treens were savage warlike creatures who very nearly wiped each other as well as many of the reptiles they lived with out in their wars.

When the Therons visited them they tried to civilize them. They did not conquer them they merely tried to help the Treens by supplying them with advanced technology that they hoped could sort their problems.

Sadly the Treens took advantage of them. After getting all they could from the Therons the Treens attacked and slaughtered their forces that had arrived on their side of the planet and stole their equipment. Though the rest of the Therons were able to survive in their own side of Venus protected by the flame belt the Treens used their technology to slowly advance themselves.

The Therons later visited earth and attempted to help humanity. Hoping perhaps to make up for what had happened with the Treens they visited the mightiest civilisation on earth. Atlantis!

Unfortunately the Treens followed the Therons to earth and began attacking the Atlantines. Hoping to conquer the whole planet earth, they slaughtered many people and shipped other humans back to Venus where they treated them brutally in order to break their will and make them their servants. The Therons though not used to war and suffering many casualties themselves still nevertheless managed to drive the monsters off the earth due to their more advanced technology.

Unfortunately the humans having grown distrustful of all visitors due to the Treens attacked the Therons too. During one such attack they caused one of their machines to explode by tampering with it and not knowing what it was. The explosion destroyed Atlantis completely and set back human development for thousands of years. 

The Treens and the Therons would continue to war with one another for many centuries after this until they eventually formed a truce.

The humans that the Treens had taken from Atlantis meanwhile and their descendants would continue to serve as a slave labour force for the Treens.

They were subjugated to extreme cruelty by the Treens who also performed horrific experiments on them which changed their biology from ordinary human beings. The Treens human slaves have blue skins and large bumps on their foreheads. The Therons call them Atlantines.

The Therons refused after their war with the Treens to ever get involved in dealing with them or any other races ever again and forsake all forms of conflict.

Dan however is able to convince them to help him not only save his friends from the Treens but prevent them from invading the earth and they soon make plans to help him infiltrate the Treens city. Though their two kingdoms are separated by the flame belt the cavern Dan came through is a secret entrance linking the two cities which he can use to enter.

Even then however the Treen city is so heavily guarded that Dan is forced to disguise himself as an Atlantine using Theron technology. He also has to face many of the monsters that live in the underground cavern between the two cities including a giant sea serpent and a triceratops like creature.

Meanwhile in the Treen city Dan’s friends are subject to horrific torture, experimentation, humiliation and degradation at the hands of the Mekon and his Treen scientists, all in an effort to see how much they can endure.

Hank and Pierre plan to leave Venus to warn earth, but unfortunately they are soon spotted by Treen interceptors. Realizing that the Therons must have helped them the Mekon calls an end to their truce and prepares to not simply conquer them but destroy the Therons once and for all.

Dan meanwhile after having made his way past the monsters in the lake and the other hostile reptiles in the Treen jungle’s finds an Atlantine camp.

When he tries to rally them against their Treen masters they turn on him and very nearly kill him until they see he lacks the giant forehead that the Atlantines have. The Atlantines believe him to be a figure from their mythology called Kargaz who lacked the bump. Kargaz was a figure who it was said would destroy the Treens. 

Meanwhile with his horrific experiment on Dan’s friends completed the Mekon tries to murder them by poisoning them with toxic gas. Fortunately Peabody and Hubert manage to cover the ventilation that spews the gas in their cell, prolonging their lives for a while at least.

The war between the Therons and the Treens begins with both sides now completely evenly matched. The Mekon though confident his superior Treens will eventually destroy their enemies believes that the they can’t afford to fight two wars, one with humanity and one on Venus and so he enacts a plan that will allow him to conquer mankind immediately. 

He plans to trick mankind by convincing them that the Treens will help them. He hopes after gaining their trust they will allow him to build Transfer stations on the moon which he will claim shall allow them to live on earth more easily. In truth these will be weapons that will allow the Mekon to control the weather and conditions of earth and thus be able to reek untold devastation on the planet, slaughtering most of humanity. It was always the Mekons intention to build these weapons on the moon but before the humans arrived and the Therons begun attacking them he had planned to build his weapon there by force, but now using his human captives he hopes for a quicker and easier solution.

He forces Peabody, Digby and Hubert to say on film that when they crashed they were injured (explaining their wounds from the torture) but that the Treens have been helping them and wish to help the earth with their famine problem and that Captain Dan was killed in the crash as were Hank and Pierre.

Peabody and Hubert refuse even under the threat of torture and death, but Digby seemingly gives in and convinces the other two to as well by hinting to them that he has a plan.

Dan meanwhile with the aid of an Atlantine guard Dapon sneaks his way into the Mekon’s base. The Mekon has finished recording the messages and plans to send the three humans to a Treen concentration camp where he says they may have a few more years left.

However before he can make good on his promise Dan blasts his chair knocking him off of it and unconscious.

With the Mekon his prisoner Dan is able to force the Treens to release him and his friends and Sondar. Sondar willingly helps them escape by piloting the Treens hovercraft’s which only they can pilot by thought. He warns Dan that if the Mekon who they are holding prisoner wakes up he will be able to control them as his mind is much greater.

As they set off across the ocean Sondar tells him why the seemingly emotionless Treens care so much for their leader the Mekon.

The Mekons are Treens that are genetically engineered to lead the Treens. Their brains are made much larger which makes them significantly more intelligent, though as a result their bodies are atrophied which is why they require their levitating chair.

Mekon’s are produced every 300 years which is roughly how long they live for. The successor to the current Mekon is very young and wont be fit to lead them for the next 50 years meaning if this one dies then they will be leaderless for the next 50 years.

As soon as they reach a Treen rocket the Mekon wakes up and pilots the hovercraft he and Dan are on over the ocean planning to take him back to his base.

Fortunately Dan is able using a device the Therons gave him to disable the craft sending himself and the Mekon into the ocean below.

The Treens who arrive concentrate on saving the Mekon who can’t swim whilst Dan uses the Theron device on any who come after him and manages to make it ashore.

Dan, Digby, Peabody, Sondar, Hubert and Dapon manage to escape in Treen rockets and the Mekon soon dispatches a fleet to bring them back.

Hank and Pierre meanwhile have been forced back to the Therons base. Fortunately when they see a Treen ship being attacked by the others they deduce that it is Dan and ask the Therons to help them.

The Therons are able to save Dan and his friends, though before the Treens can launch a reprisal Dapon flies a captured Treen ship right into the heart of Mekonta damaging the Mekons power base and destroying his superweapon the Telezero beam. Dan and the rest of his friends and the Therons manage to escape back to the Therons base.

Whilst Dan and his team are safe unfortunately they are still unable to leave Venus due to the Treens/Therons war. 

Back on earth meanwhile the Mekon puts his plan into action and sends the footage of Digby and Peabody and Hubert to the earth. Humanity is duped and believes the Treens are there to help them and even hail them as heroes for a short while.

Unfortunately for the Treens just as the Mekon is close to putting his plan into operation Digby’s aunt Anastasia discovers his deception. Digby leaves her a secret message in the video. He says that staying with the Treens reminds him of the holiday he spent in Sunnymouth. Anastasia realizes that its a trick as he was wrongfully imprisoned when he was in Sunnymouth. She soon tells the head of space fleet this and the Treens ruse is blown wide open and the Treens on earth arrested.

Back on Venus things get worse for the Treens. The Therons and the Treens are so evenly matched (though Volstar states that had it not been for Dapon’s sacrifice which slowed the Treens down they would have conquered the Therons by now) that their defensive rays are cancelling each others technology out leading to all of the Treens and the Therons equipment breaking down.

Fortunately before all of their technology is affected the Therons manage to use a ship to send Dan and his friends back to earth.

Their they tell them the full story about what is happening on Venus and how they must strike at the Treens now before the Mekon can break the stalemate.

Dan proposes that they strike at the Treens using more primitive weaponry. Stating that it will still be affective against the Treens who are now completely unarmed. 

Peabody and Dan manage to devise a way for the ships to get to Venus despite the rays cancelling out all advance technology that arrives on the planet by attaching parachutes to the earth ships as soon as they reach the planet which will allow them to land slowly on the surface rather than simply crash.

All the nations of the earth send armies to Venus and begin attacking the Treens. The Treens still manage to put up a decent fight, but they are hopelessly outmatched not only by the sheer number of humans, but also by the Atlantines who jump at their opportunity and begin to attack the Treens.

With Sondar’s help Dan and his team are able to make their way into the Mekon’s main headquarters and destroy the device firing their rays. With this the stalemate is broken and the Theron’s technology begins working again and they are finally able to defeat the Treens.

The Treens are forced to surrender and the Mekon is apparently killed in the final conflict. 

Dan and the earthmen issue terms to the Treens. All of their weapons are to be disarmed (as the Therons will be) and the Atlantine’s are to be freed and treated as their equals and any further aggression against the Therons is to stop.

Dan also asks for the Treens permission to harness some of the food supplies on their world to feed the people back home. The Treen who has assumed command after the Mekon’s death is shocked that the very thing the humans need most they are asking for rather than simply taking even after they have won.

Dan tells the Treen that the earthmen do not take anything by force and that the food on Venus is still theirs and they are under no obligation to share it with humanity. He also tells the Treen that the only condition they have when the war is the same for both the victors and the losers, total disarmament. The Treen leader agrees to this and is even moved by it remarking that he is experiencing his first emotion.

Peace is reached between earth, the Therons, the Atlantines, and the Treens and the food is shipped to earth.

Back on earth Dan and his team are hailed as heroes and Dan’s team along with Volstar throw him a party and a lavish meal using the food supplies from Venus.

Of course little does Dan know that the Mekon has in fact escaped Venus, having faked his death. He has fled along with several of his most loyal Treens into space.

The epilogue of the story shows us an earlier adventure prior to Dan’s mission to Venus where Dan and Digby manage to uncover and foil a terrorist plot to harness supplies of plutonium on Mars.

Review

Voyage to Venus is a truly classic story that on the surface is a fun, exciting page turner of an adventure, yet underneath is a very progressive story that has an incredibly strong humanistic vein.

In terms of just being an enjoyable romp it still holds up almost 7 decades on. It has a fantastic pace. At no moment does it not hold the readers attention. The mystery of why the ships aren’t getting to Venus is intriguing enough to draw the reader into the story, whilst at the same time once they get to Venus, Hampson is able to unveil the full history of this fascinating planet piece by piece and fill it full of so many different and fascinating creatures. From the savage Atlantines, to the cold and logical Treens, to the giant reptiles of the jungles, to the strange silicon mass, to the underwater monsters that attack Dan, to the peaceful Therons and their beautiful civilisation, Venus feels like a fully fleshed out and realized world.

Hampsons artwork is equally as strong. I love his use of really bright and contrasting colours such as the blue skinned Atlantine’s and the green skinned Treens. Its true that the bright, exotic and beautiful colours of Dan Dare are probably a large part of why it was so successful in the 50’s when everything was so dull. In the foreword to Voyage to Venus Dave Gibbons describes the 50’s as “Grey” stating that the colourful world of Dan Dare was practically the only colour he got in an age where tv and films where mostly in black in white, he had to eat “colourless cabbage and stodgy off white potato’s” and watch soldiers march by in their colourless grey uniform’s. The Eagle comic he described as being “like a radioactive gem” with its beautiful colours and I think this was really a large part of why it made such a huge impact.

Hampsons drawing style I think lends itself almost towards caricature in this story the way everything is so exaggerated. The Mekon’s brain, the Atlantine’s forehead, the monsters like the Silicon mass, even Dan’s chin all make it seem more over the top and extreme, but never to the point of actual caricature. Instead it gives it more of a fantastical, almost surrealist look which helps give it its own unique style.

There are plenty of exciting twists and turns in the story. The idea of two races being so evenly matched that in a war neither is able to fire even a shot is a fascinating concept and indeed one that Doctor Who would later explore with the Daleks and the Movellans in Destiny of the Daleks. Its also a nice twist that humanity is able to beat the Treens a race so much more advanced than we are with such primitive technology as ultimately the Treens have become too dependent on it they have lost that resourcefulness that humanity still possess.

I think that the main characters are also very well written in this adventure. In many later strips Dan and his allies would often just be written as straight up good guys, but here I think they add more flaws to them which help them seem more human and relatable.

Dan of course is still just the standard, square jawed hero, but he is likable enough for it not to be too much of a problem. The others meanwhile we get to see other aspects of their personalities.

With Sir Hubert we see what a raving sexist he is as he refuses to accept Peabody at first simply due to her gender. He is depicted as being someone who still has old fashioned values regarding women, but at the same time is still a gentleman first and foremost. He shows a particular hatred towards the Mekon when he treats Peabody in such a brutal fashion, to the point where he attacks the green skinned monster physically.

Digby meanwhile is shown to be reckless often charging head first into danger in order to save his best friend. He is arguably the most useless of the team. He isn’t an experienced space pilot or a pioneering scientist and he is somewhat slow witted and unfit and out of shape, yet he is fiercely loyal to his best friend Dan above all else. In many ways Digby represents the heart of this story that the spirit of man will always prevail as even though he is somewhat more simple than others around him he outwits the Mekon a super genius, because he unlike the cold logical Mekon is able to think outside the box and use something so simple as a bad holiday to save humanity.

Peabody meanwhile is a brave, resourceful genius yet we do get to see a more vulnerable side to her. When she is alone whilst Digby and Hubert are led away to be tortured she begins to break down in tears stating that she is genuinely terrified at hat will happen to her friends. Whilst some people have seen this scene as sexist and I can understand why I personally thought it made the character seem more real.

Dapon similarly is an interesting character who starts out seemingly as a cruel, bitter hateful man with a reputation for brutality among his fellow Atlantine. Yet Dare is able to recognize that underneath his facade he secretely despises his role in serving the Treens and is able to win him over as an ally. Though he does have doubts at first, Dare who believes in the basic goodness of people is proven right and Dapon is eventually able to make the supreme sacrifice for the greater good with Dan later calling him a hero.

I like the way this strip doesn’t hold back. Even though it was aimed mostly at children its not afraid to kill off characters or show us the full brutality of the Treens, with the Treens treating their human slaves no better than animals, the Mekon threatening to torture Peabody to death slowly, and the Mekon even regularly murdering his own henchman for their failure.

The scene where the Mekon tries to gas Peabody, Digby and Hubert in particular is very dark and evokes the then recent images of people being led away to gas chambers.

The Mekon and the Treens are obviously a metaphor for the Nazi’s. Indeed this entire story is World War 2 in space with the Treens racist ideology and their horrific experiments on people they consider lesser than themselves evoking then all too recent horrors of the Second World War.

I also feel however that the Treens perhaps serve as a metaphor for apartheid too. Their racist ideology is also comparable obviously to that of the apartheid regime and the fact that they live in a segregated society away from the Therons (who are shown to have dark skin) whilst treating the similar Atlantine’s as slaves and second class citizens is also a perhaps not too subtle nod to the apartheid regime.

At the end of the story they are forced to treat them both as equals and the human being that leads the final victorious attack against the Treens is a black man!

The Mekon, Dan Dare’s archenemy gets a very strong introduction in this story. Though he actually doesn’t appear until almost the second half his presence as the all powerful leader of the monstrous Treens is built up superbly and when he finally appears he doesn’t disappoint.

He is genuinely inhuman monster who commits the most foul acts against the main characters and even his own people many of whom he sacrifices without a seconds thought in order to try and kill Dan Dare.

He was different to a lot of other villains in comic books at this point the way he was completely cold and emotionless.

Most villains where often very emotional characters like the cackling psychopath the Joker, the vain and arrogant Lex Luthor or the lovestruck Ming the Merciless. The Mekon in contrast was completely devoid of such petty emotions. He did not care about his own personal glory, he seemingly at this point at least had no personal vendetta against Dare like the Joker did against Batman and he didn’t even notice that Peabody was a different gender never mind try and steal her form the hero like Ming and Dale Arden.

Dan and the Mekon surprisingly have very little interaction with each other. In fact they only have one meeting in this story and share one brief exchange, but you can tell how brilliantly they play off of each other none the less.

Like all great heroes/archenemies they are polar opposite’s to one another. Superman is the man of steel whilst  Lex Luthor the greatest criminal genius of his age, Batman is the quiet reserved conflicted, tortured hero and the Joker is a cackling, psychotic, colourful, gleefully evil villain and Dan and the Mekon similarly couldn’t be more different, even just visually.

The hideous little green withered, frail reptile man who has no emotions, seeks to conquer, and cares nothing for his own men up against the dashing, brave, honourable hero who will stop at nothing to save his friends. Seeing two such different characters together, clashing over their different beliefs is always exciting.

Whilst the Mekon may be presented as the ultimate monster at the same time the Treens are presented as not all being inherently evil.

Indeed the Treens are shown to be evil because of the culture they were born in. They have been raised in a world ruled by the Mekon and thus have never been taught anything but a belief that they are superior and races like the Therons are to be crushed. However when introduced to new ideas Treens like Sondar and the Treen leader at the end who is genuinely moved at Dan’s merciful actions are shown to be capable of so much more.

I think this was a good message that the story promoted that no group of people are completely evil. Ideas and beliefs are evil such as the Mekon’s and those like him before who sadly came to dominate the Treens culture, but that does not mean that all Treens should be seen as monsters and I think that was a vital message to promote in a post war world when many because of the Nazi’s would have viewed all Germans as monsters.

Dan and his team show no anger towards the Treens, they treat them as their equals who have every right to exist as much as they do after their defeat. Unlike the monsters in other series such as Doctor Who the Treens are not all destroyed but actually get a happy ending having been freed from the corrupting influence of the Mekon and being given a chance to live in a better world where everyone is treated equally.

The story has a deep humanistic theme running through it. For its time it was incredibly progressive in so many ways.

It depicted a multi cultural and multi ethnic future where everyone was living together in peace and harmony. We had a black man who devised the strategy that defeated the Treens on Venus and was Dan’s superior whom he had the utmost respect for. Its hard to imagine many people in 1950’s United Kingdom viewing black and coloured people as even being the equal of a white person never mind their boss who leads them into glory!

Remember this was 16 years before Star Trek would be seen as highly progressive by many people including Martin Luther King for having a black woman be the receptionist to the main character. In this strip the main character takes orders from a black man and addresses him as “sir”. This is also 8 years before the Black and White Minstrel show began which depicted white people dressed in black face doing racist caricatures on British tv and was one of the most popular television series for 20 years.

In contrast not only does this have black people in positions of power, but it also has the Therons who are shown to be beautiful creatures who are exactly like us who have dark skin too.

Normally in science fiction the idea of perfect humans are shown to still be blonde haired, white and blue eyed such as the Eloi from the Time Machine or the Thals from Doctor Who, whilst the Therons though still having blonde hair are shown to have dark skin.

Dan is also shown to work alongside Russians in his final battle against the Treens and both Britain and China are shown to work very closely together and help each other during the time of famine. Both of these countries were communist countries at this point and again its hard to imagine many works of fiction from that time not depicting them as dirty, underhand villains.

Indeed compare this to the first issue of the Fantastic Four 10 years later where the FF are desperate to get into space first before those evil communists. Then of course there are Flemyings Bond Novels released just a few years later which for the first few novels depicted the Russians as evil, loathsome villains too.

The strip also has a very strong feminist theme too. This was of course back when feminism was a decent and worthy movement that did genuinely fight for equality, as opposed to nowadays where third wave feminism is a truly poisonous, hateful movement. Modern day third wave feminism is more akin to the Treens than second wave feminism.

Peabody is unlike most female characters in comic books from round about that time.

She isn’t simply just a scientist, she is a pioneering scientist. She is hand picked by Space Fleet as the best possible person to lead the mission to Venus, she has invented equipment that allows them to determine what food is safe to eat and how it can be harnessed for the human beings back home. She is actually the one who solves the famine crisis and she does it on her own with an invention that she dreamed up by herself in her spare time almost as a hobby!

She is also a very capable pilot managing to land the ship and keep her cool when Hubert panics and is unable too  and she is shown to be a capable hand to hand combatant overpowering the Treens and be just as skilled at using the teams weapons as any of the men.

Peabody isn’t the only strong role for women in the strip however. Digby’s Aunt Anastasia is actually the one who saves humanity from the Treens. Had it not been her recognising the hidden distress code Digby sent her then humanity would have fallen for the Mekon’s ruse.

Frank Hampson has stated that he went out of his way to give strong roles to women in the strip. Apparently the publishers didn’t want any female characters at all as they felt its audience would be mostly little boys. Still Hampson was adamant to not only have a female character but to depict her as being the equal of anyone there even Dare.

I didn’t want to produce a strip without a female. In a way I struck a blow for women’s lib. Peabody was shown as a very clever, attractive young lady. It also paved the way for a few arguments between her and Sir Hubert in the first story- a nice human touch.  She was just a very normal, efficient, competent girl.

-Frank Hampson on Peabody

The strip has a very strong feminist angle not simply because of the strong roles it gives to women, but also because it goes out of its way to depict men who view women as being wrong.

Sir Hubert believes that Peabody is not up to task and throughout the strip she simply laughs at his opinions. She doesn’t even take them seriously for one minute and even jokes that things got so bad he forgot to give her grief for being a woman. She is also shown to keep her cool whilst he panics as the ship crashes and actually saves his life. She even tells him that this requires nerves of steel that he doesn’t have. Sir Hubert is also depicted as being someone who is old fashioned and stuck in the 50’s (ironically).

At the same time we see Anastasia an elderly woman push give space fleet information that saves humanity from the Mekon.

Of course that’s not to say that the comic isn’t still of its time in some other ways. Digby for instance yells out bravo the black boy’s done it when his commander defeats the Treens. Added to that some critics have seen Peabody breaking down in tears whilst she is alone and worried about her friends as being an example of 50’s sexism.

I can certainly see why people would think that as her we have the strong willed Peabody break down, something that Dan never does. However personally I think this was more an attempt to show a human side to her. After all its not like we can really say Peabody is shown to be weak in this moment. I mean which one of us wouldn’t be upset if one of our friends had accidently been killed by one friend, and then our other two friends were being led away to be tortured and experimented on by evil Reptile men!

Whilst Peabody to herself may be scared, she never lets her fear get in the way of her duty. Indeed the only character who panics to the point where he can’t keep a clear head is the old sexist Sir Hugo.

Whilst there may be some dated aspects of the story, by and large I think its safe to say that this stories heart is in the right place. It promotes equality among all people and depicts those who would view others as inferior for any reason at all in an extremely unsympathetic light such as the Mekon, and to a lesser extent Sir Hubert.

For 1950 an unsure age full of prejudice, paranoia and fear of a nuclear holocaust Dan Dare was the perfect hero for young children to look up to.

There are some other faults with the story. For instance I feel that Dan is able to convince the Therons to abandon their pacifistic ways far too easily. They have refused to attack the Treens for centuries and then Dan basically says “come on don’t be such wimps” and their leader is like “my god you’re right!” and that’s that.

Furthermore the characters of Hank and Pierre are basically complete non entity’s. Though to be fair this wouldn’t change much in future stories. They are definitely my least favourite characters as they really have no character and purpose except to simply help Dan, Peabody and Digby out when they need it and that’s it.

Still despite some minor flaws I’d nevertheless rank this as one of the most accomplished works in the comic book medium of all time and I can’t give it anything less than a full five stars nor can I recommend it highly enough.

Impact and Legacy

I felt it was appropriate to look at this stories legacy separately from its quality.

After all quality and influence are not the same thing. Something can be the first of its kind and have a massive impact yet be utter dross. Thus I wanted to show that Voyage to Venus is an enjoyable story that still holds up to contemporary readers on its own merits rather than simply because of its impact on British popular culture.

However it is still important to look at the influence it had which is truly immense.

Voyage to Venus was an instant bestseller. It sold a staggering 900, 000 issues and not surprisingly both Dan and the Mekon quickly became recognizable icons in popular culture. Dan Dare would continue to run in the Eagle for the next almost 20 years until 1969 when the Eagle finally folded.

In the decades since there have been many revivals of Dan Dare of varying success. In the late 70’s the character was revived by 2000AD for a few years, whilst in the early 80’s the new and revamped Eagle revived Dan as their flagship character once again. This revival of Dan was unquestionably the most successful running for just over 10 years almost as long as the original.

Ultimately it came to an end in the early 90’s and since then there have been 2 miniseries based on Dan Dare, one by Grant Morrison in the early 90’s and the other by Virgin Comics in 2007-08 which was the last mainstream Dan Dare production. Sadly the franchise has all but vanished nowadays, though the comic Spaceship Away which has a very small circulation continues to feature the character.

Whilst the Dan Dare franchise may be very niche nowadays (in contrast to its 50’s and 60’s heyday where Dan was unquestionably the most popular hero among British children) its legacy still looms over many areas of British life and Voyage to Venus in particular, arguably the most iconic Dan Dare story still inspires writers, architects, musicians and even renowned scientists decades on.

The following articles go into great depth about Dan Dare’s influence on architects as well as engineers in Britain.

Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi Tech Britian

Yesterday’s Tomorrow

Stephen Hawking meanwhile has cited Dan Dare as his biggest influence. He even stated when asked about his love for the strip. “Why Am I in Cosmology?”

There have also been numerous pieces of music written about Dan Dare over the years such as most notably Elton John’ song Dan Dare Pilot of the Future. Rocket Man was also partially inspired by Elton’s boyhood love of Dan Dare too.

Finally among the writers and figures in the entertainment industry who have been inspired by Dan Dare include Jeff Wayne the producer of the musical version of War of the Worlds, Watchmen co-creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Terry Jones, author Tim Rice ,Philip Pullman and Gerry and Sylvia Anderson with their series Thunderbirds being inspired by Dan Dare.

Dan Dare: Thunderbirds connection

Voyage to Venus I think its fair to say as the strip that started Dan’s journey has one of the biggest legacy’s of any comic book story.

Similar Works

In many ways I feel that Voyage to Venus was a precursor to many other prominent science fiction stories, some of which it influenced directly.

Doctor Who 

One of the many homages to Dan Dare in Doctor Who

Dan Dare  was arguably one of the biggest influences on the original Doctor Who series. I have written about Dan’s influence on Doctor Who many times before so I wont go into too much detail here.

Voyage to Venus as has been noted by many critics bares some similarities to the original Dalek story. It even says as much on the official BBC website see below.

The Daleks Classic Who BBC website

The Treens and the Therons and the Daleks and the Thals do have a somewhat similar dynamic. Not to the point where the first Dalek story is derivative of Voyage to Venus of course. The first Dalek story is a classic in its own right.

Still you can see how Voyage to Venus was unquestionably an influence. The Treens are emotionless yet vicious creatures who persecute and despise others for being different and thus inferior to them, whilst the Therons are blond pacifists, exactly like the emotionless yet hateful and vicious Daleks and the blonde pacifistic Thals who share their world.

The Daleks much like the Treens also live in a highly advanced city where they imprison our heroes and monitor them. There is also a lake of monsters that guards the Daleks city. Furthermore the Doctor and his companions also convince the Thals to abandon their old pacifistic ways to battle the Daleks before they carry out genocide against another race.

The Thals much like the Therons don’t wish to fight their enemy because of a previous conflict which cost thousands if not millions of innocent lives. In the Therons case it was their war on earth, in the thals their war on Skaro. In both cases the conflict also came to an instant end with a massive explosion too.

The Daleks are also like Treens metaphors for the Nazi’s too, arguably to an even greater extent as they wield their sucker cups in the air in the Nazi salute whilst talking about crushing the lesser Thals.

The first Dalek story also has strong and prominent roles for women in it too like Voyage to Venus.

Terry Nation who created the Daleks and wrote their first story openly admitted to taking inspiration from Dan Dare and indeed it would continue to influence him throughout his career. Much of his later series Blake’s 7 was inspired by Dan Dare too.

In “Doctor Who and the Daleks” a film adaptation of Nation’s original Dalek story there is an homage to Voyage to Venus as the character of Doctor Who played by Peter Cushing is shown to read Dan Dare vividly before setting off an adventure similar Voyage to Venus.

Its also known that the Mekon introduced in this story inspired Davros the creator of the Daleks too. Philip Hinchcliff who produced Davros’s first story said he told John Friendlander who designed Davros’s mask to give him a dome shaped head like the Mekon, as well as green skin, and an atrophied body. Hinchcliff much like Nation who wrote Genesis of the Daleks was a big Dan Dare fan.

Destiny of the Daleks another Nation story was also inspired by Voyage to Venus and explores similar themes.

In Destiny of the Daleks the Daleks are shown to be trapped in a logical stalemate with another race called the Movellans.

The Movellans and the Daleks are so evenly matched that they are unable to fire a shot at one another as the other manages to find a way to deflect it. The Doctor jokingly tells them that they have discovered the solution to eternal peace.

The Treens and the Therons similarly were so evenly matched at the end of Voyage to Venus that neither were able to do anything to one another and thus were locked in a seemingly unbreakable stalemate.

The Movellans also visually are quite similar to the Therons. Both have dark skin and lighter hair and white clothes too.

Of course in quite a nice twist whilst the Movellans appear like the good guys throughout the first half of the story, the Doctor later discovers that they are in truth no better than the Daleks themselves. In this respect it turns the Voyage to Venus story on its head in quite a clever way.

The Daleks slaves much like the Atlantines also help overthrow the Daleks at the end of the story too and the Daleks once again are led in this story by the Mekon like Davros.

Destiny of the Daleks and Voyage to Venus both explore the same idea not only of two races being trapped in a stalemate but also of logic and reason causing a race to become stagnated.

Finally its also worth noting that the Sontarans and the Cybermen were both partially inspired by the Treens introduced in this story, with Kit Pedler again citing Dan Dare as a big influence on his career and stating “the cybermen are very like the Treens.”

Star Trek

Now I am not saying that Voyage to Venus inspired Star Trek. It could have done, but I doubt it as as far as I am aware Dan Dare was never that popular abroad.

Its possible but I am not going to say it is without any sources or back up which so far I haven’t been able to find.

Still I feel its worth mentioning Star Trek as in many ways Dan Dare was the precursor to Star Trek as much as it was too Doctor Who.

I actually think that Dan Dare could be described as Star Trek’s optimism mixed with Doctor Who’s monsters.

Voyage to Venus presented us with a positive version of the future that is not too dissimilar to Star Trek’s version of the future. Both had earth’s that had eliminated poverty and persecution and inequalities of all kind. Both showed us this by depicting all the races of the earth living together. Both had a very comfortable multi ethnic, multi cultural and multi species version of the future.

Now normally in science fiction the future is depicted as something bad. In The Terminator series for instance our technology has basically destroyed us. In classic novels like 1984, Brave New World and television series like Firefly technology may have advanced significantly but little else has.

In other works like Wells classic novel The Time Machine or Richard Matheison’s I Am Legend or in countless zombie movies and post end of the world films some humans have degenerated and persecute and even eat other human beings.

Dan Dare and Star Trek are among the few that gave us a vision of the future where everything had worked out. Technology hadn’t fucked us, we hadn’t degenerated into twisted caricatures of our former selves, we hadn’t been invaded and conquered by aliens. It was a future we wanted to happen in terms of technology and social values which might be why both Dan Dare and Star Trek inspired so many engineers and scientists and architects, people who wanted to make that future a reality.

One work that presented a perfect society before Dan Dare was Thomas More’s fabulous and influential novel Utopia which coined the phrase.

However Voyage to Venus in many ways brought More’s Utopia into the space age.

So many things that Star Trek would receive massive acclaim for Voyage to Venus did first.

In terms of having a positive future something which the late Leonard Nimoy himself said made Star Trek unique, Dan Dare did first.

In terms of giving black people strong roles where they were the equal of white people? Yes Dan Dare did that 16 years before Star Trek.

It could be argued in fact that Dan Dare was more progressive than Star Trek. After all Uhura was merely the receptionist to Captain Kirk, whilst in Voyage to Venus Commandant Bunch is Dan’s superior and leads the men to attack the Treens. Dan calls him sir and does what he tells him, whilst Kirk tells Uhura what to do.

Of course at the same time it could be argued that Star Trek was more progressive as whilst Voyage to Venus did show black people in higher positions of power, all of the main cast are still white, whilst in Star Trek Uhura was a main character. Added to that Star Trek broke ground in other ways such as showing the first interracial kiss in an American drama.

Don’t get me wrong I am not dissing either Star Trek or obviously Voyage to Venus, but I just find it interesting to see in what ways both of these works managed to strike a blow for equality.

Whilst Flash Gordon may have been Gene Roddenberry’s big comic book influence, Dan Dare is the real precursor to Star Trek.

After all Voyage to Venus has, a future where all the nations of the earth are living together happily, racism, sexism, prejudices of all kind are gone, man kind has made incredible advances in science and technology, cured all diseases, mastered space flight and now lives alongside other alien races.

Its main characters are a team made up of people from different cultures and one alien who doesn’t always understand human emotions. Its captain is a big macho hero who goes around giving speeches about morality and teaching aliens how to feel human emotions though not in the same way as Dan was virtually asexual whist Kirk was anything but!

Yeah not at all like Star Trek. Voyage to Venus and Dan Dare in general is actually the closest thing to a British Star Trek there has ever been except it was almost 20 years earlier.

Babylon 5

Now again this is another American series and so therefore it is highly unlikely that Voyage to Venus was an inspiration on this. Its possible of course as Joseph Michael Stracznsyki is a fan of British science fiction like Blake’s 7 and Doctor Who.

Still again its best not to jump to assumptions.

The Narn/Centauri conflict I think is quite a good reversal of the Treens/Therons conflict.

The Narn/Centauri conflict involves two races one of whom is similar to us and feels an affinity for us and the other who are bald reptillian humanoids. The Therons similarly are a race who are similar to us whilst the Treens are bald reptillian humanoids

The Therons and the Centauri have ridiculous hair cuts, which is about the other thing externally that seperates them from us, whilst the Narn basically look like orange Treens.

The  Centauri and the Therons are the more advanced races. They visit the Treens and the Narn and share their technology with them however things go wrong and the Narn and Treens drive them both away and steal their technology and use it to become more advanced.

They then try and conquer the Therons and Centuari who become mere shadows of themselves, but it still ends badly for them and they are conquered and defeated.

As you can see the basic outline for the two stories is exactly the same, but the Narn/Centauri conflict has some key differences which make it the complete opposite to the Treen/Theron conflict. In the Babylon 5 version the more human aliens are the bad guys whilst in the Voyage to Venus version the reptillians are the villains.

In Voyage to Venus the Therons come in peace and seek nothing but to help the Treens, but the Treens manipulate them and then attack them and steal their technology from them which they then use to persecute others such as the human beings they capture on earth. The Atlantine’s endure horrific torture and slavery and experimentation at the hands of the Treens.

The Treens seek to conquer the Therons not out of any wrong doings but simply because of their own evil ideology which was always there before the Therons. When they are finally defeated the Therons and humanity are fair to them and do not inflict vengeance upon them and treat them as equals. They merely insist that they do not try any further acts of aggression on either them or humanity and trust that if they treat them as friends this can be achieved.

In Bablyon 5 meanwhile whilst the Centauri start out friendly to the Narn, they soon realize that as the Narn are so far behind them technologically they can exploit them for all they are worth and enslave them. The Narn are subject to brutal treatment at the hands of the Centauri. Its a total reversal of the Treens treatment of the Atlantines, here we see the human like creatures brutally enslave and slaughter the reptillians. G’Kar’s own father is killed by being hung from a tree and left to starve to death.

The Narn do manage to drive the Centauri off and steal their technology which they use to become more advanced.

They seek to  destroy the entire Centauri race and develop a twisted ideology, bullying less advanced races the way they themselves were bullied by the Centauri and becoming dirty arms dealers.

This comes purely as a result of the Centauri occupation of their world. Prior to  the Centauri occupation they were peaceful creatures. Later however they are defeated by the Centauri once again, but this occupation is even more brutal. They blitz the entire surface of Narn and kill billions of them, they enslave them slaughter their leaders, suppress their culture, ship hundreds of their women back to their home planet to be used as sex slaves, impose laws where if a Narn kills one Centauri then 500 Narn are to be executed including the perpetrators family, they also experiment on them in an effort to remove their aggression from them. 100’s of millions of Narn die in these experiments, whole communities, cities and countries of them are wiped out.

As you can see Babylon 5 completely turns the story on its head by having the Reptile men as the goody guys that we actually feel sorry for.

I don’t know if JMS did ever read Dan Dare but I hope he did as whilst I love the Narn/Centauri conflict anyway the idea that its an anti Voyage to Venus just makes it even cooler.

V

V bares some similarities to Voyage to Venus. The main villains in V the visitors like the Treens are large reptile men. They even look like the Treens. Like the Mekon they seek to trick humanity but its once again in a reversal of the Treens situation. In the Treens situation humanity is starving and in need of food supplies on Venus and the Treens use this to trick us pretending they want to help us with our problems. In V the Visitors claim that they need food supplies from the earth, and beg humanity for help in exchange for their technology.

Thus both stories revolve around giant lizard men who arrive on earth and lie about a problem to do with starvation in order to conceal their true purposes the subjugation of humanity. In one case it is humanity that is starving in another it is the reptile men, but either way all is not as it seems

Both stories also draw parrallels with World War 2, with the Visitors and the Treens both representing the Nazi’s.

The Reptillians

The Treens are really the trope codifers for the reptillians in popular culture. The reptillians are a character that appears in science fiction.

They are humans who evolved from reptile men, usually from Dinosaurs or Dinosaur like reptiles, they normally have human slaves or a race of human like slaves, they experiment on them, torture them, eat them and they are generally depicted as monsters. In terms of appearance they also often look like green men too and they often find a way to infiltrate our society through deception.

We see such creatures in Doctor Who, Star Trek, and many other works. In V they are of course the main villains. There are even people who believe such creatures actually exist!

The Treens in Voyage to Venus are the forebears to all of these creatures. Though there were some stories that explored the idea of lizard men prior to Voyage to Venus, most of them had been fantasy and it was the Treens who really not only brought the idea into a science fiction environment, but who also set down many of the tropes that were to follow with the reptillians.

They were the ones who established that the reptillians were either dinosaurs or evolved from Dinosaur like reptiles. The Treens ancestors on Venus are described as being like Dinosaurs, and the large reptiles they live alongside are said to be like Dinosaurs too. Dan even calls one a triceratops and another a fugitive from Loch Ness. Like many later Reptillians they also experiment on humans, keep human slaves, infiltrate our society through lies and deception by pretending to be our friends who will help us with our famine problem in Voyage to Venus and in terms of appearance they obviously resemble most of the reptillians who came after.

Obviously not all of the tropes are present in the Treens in Voyage to Venus as they don’t shape shift or disguise themselves as humans nor do they want to eat us. Those tropes would come in later works such as V, but still the reptillian trope really does begin with Voyage to Venus.

In this respect  the likes of V and Babylon 5 were still indirectly inspired by Voyage to Venus as it was Voyage to Venus that created the reptillian trope that they later utilized with the Visitors and the Narn both being examples of the reptillian trope. Thus one way or another the Narn/Centauri conflict is a reversal of the Treen/Theron conflict as it was meant to be a reversal of the classic Reptillian/human conflict in popular culture which can be traced back to Voyage to Venus.

Notes and Trivia

• This story is also known simply as Pilot of the Future, and the Venus story
• A CS Lewis book called Perelandra is also called Voyage to Venus
• The Mekon is the only character who will go on to appear in every version of Dan Dare. In the 80’s version of Dan Dare the main character was said to be the descendant of the original Dan Dare.

This might sound like a bit of an odd suggestion, but I personally think David Tennant would be the best possible choice to play Batman’s archenemy.

This is not a comment on Jared Leto who has been cast in Suicide Squad. I’ll reserve my judgement for his performance once I have seen it. Its possible for more than one person to play the Joker at the same time. The character is appearing (possibly) on Gotham as we speak, so I see no reason why Tennant can’t be the Joker in another production. A tv series perhaps or even an animated series or film, as he is a prolific and highly talented voice actor.

He Looks the Part

Okay shallow reason, but still Tennant in my opinion looks every inch the perfect Joker, which is why I’d prefer to see him as the character in a live action series.

Tennant is tall, stick thin, yet has quite broad shoulders. He also has a very long face, a large distinctive grin, a long nose and a big wall of hair just like the Joker from the comics.

The incarnation of the Joker from the animated series Young Justice to me and many others practically looks like he was based on David Tennant.

Is that David Tennant or is that David Tennant? With the right make up I think he would at least look the part more than any other actor who has played him in live action so far.

He is excellent at playing crazy bastards

Though he is best known for playing a hero to millions of people around the globe. Tennant is great at playing villains, particularly psychotic villains brilliantly.

One of his most famous villainous roles was as the sadistic Barty Crouch Junior in the Harry Potter film series. Though it was only a more minor role Tennant I think was able to make the character very memorable.

The tongue flicking was a little edge he added to the character that just helped him seem more depraved and unnerving.

This was something that Heath Ledger later added to the Joker though I’m not saying that Heath stole it from Tennant, but you can see how there is some similarity in their performances.

Tennant has also won acclaim recently for his performance as the twisted villain The Purple Man in Jessica Jones.

Killgrave is about as different from the Doctor as Paul Pott is from Jesus Christ. He is a psychotic, sadistic, murdering rapist!

Another great villainous performance from Tennant was in the remake of Randall and Hopkirk Deceased where he played Sallis who is a pathetic, weasly, insecure awful artist who murders his girlfriend and then dresses up as her and argues with himself as her. He also has robots with chainsaws one of which slices him in half down the middle! Per his last wishes, his severed remains are later displayed as an art exhibit.

Tennant is perfect in not only showing us how unstable Stallis is, but also how petty and utterly pathetic he is too. He’s whines, he whimpers, he licks his own reflection at one point to convince himself people love him. He even feels sorry for himself after he brutally murders his own girlfriend because he misses her!

Its great watching a character who is so insane and twisted and vicious yet just such a sad, pitiful, whimpering insecure loser.

This was actually the first place I ever saw Tennant. The great irony is that Tom Baker appeared in this series and in this episode itself. I’d have never imagined, as I’m sure neither would Tom that the crazy bastard in the dress trying to hack people up with a chainsaw would later prove to be the most popular Doctor after Tom himself!

I can see Tennant bringing a similar pathetic insecurity to the Joker. The Joker has always been desperate for everyone to see him as Batman’s greatest enemy and indeed the greatest criminal in Gotham. Though he is a dangerous lunatic he is actually deep down a pathetic little man who defines his whole existence by being an enemy of the Batman.

Whole stories have revolved around his pride being hurt. In Infinite Crisis the Joker is left out of the Secret Society of Supervillains by Alexander Luthor JR. The Joker is hurt by this seeing it as an insult to his pride and along with Lex Luthor tracks him down and tortures him by burning his face with his joybuzzer before killing him. Its actually the Joker that does all the torturing and killing, Lex just stands at the side and taunts Alex, but they are good taunts.

Similarly in the first ever issue of his own spin off series simply called “The Joker” a criminal mastermind springs Two Face from prison instead of the Joker because he feels that he is a better criminal.

The Joker is furious at this and spends the rest of the comic trying to murder both said criminal and Two Face to prove he is the best.

Who would have thought watching a man be burned in the face by an acid pie could be so funny.

Of course the great irony here is that the criminal only sprung Two-face because he wanted to make him the fall guy for his crime. Ironically he did think that the Joker was the better criminal after all, and didn’t use him as he knew the Joker would figure out that he was being set up.

In mad love when Harley Quinn, the Joker’s lover, foolishly believing that Batman is getting in the way of their courtship tries to kill Batman. Batman is only able to escape by tricking her into telling the Joker that she is going to kill him, and the Joker actually ends up saving Batman in fear of being upstaged by Harley.

The ultimate (and most hilarious) example of the Jokers fragile pride being hurt is when he actually murders his own henchman, Sidney for not laughing at his joke.

I can definitely see Tennant bringing this same kind of neurotic, pathetic, insecure lunacy to the Joker perhaps to a greater degree than any other actor before him.

It would be completely unexpected

I always really like it when they cast someone against type and it works.

Apart from Jack Nicholson all of the most acclaimed Joker’s have been an example of someone cast against type.

Cesar Romero was known as a leading man before playing the Joker. He even said years later that he didn’t understand why they cast him as he had never done anything like the Joker before.

Mark Hamill was another example of that. Would anyone have thought Luke Skywalker would have been a great choice for the Joker? Nevertheless he ended up for many being the best choice for the part.

Similarly Heath Ledger I think may now be the most famous example of being cast against type. Prior to the Joker he was known for playing romantic leads and indeed when he was cast as the Joker there was fan outrage. I remember thinking to myself “Heath Ledger as the Joker? that’s a turkey”, but of course once again we were all proven spectacularly wrong.

I think Tennant would be the same. He much like Hamill is best known for playing a sci fi hero to millions of people, he is also known for playing romantic characters like Ledger was, such as Casanova and he is conventional leading man like Romero.

People have this image of him as this romantic dashing hero due to roles like the Doctor and Casanova so it would brilliant to flip that on its head. At first I think a lot of people, particularly children who look up to him as the Doctor would actually be quite horrified to see the 10th Doctor doing things like this

To me this would be like when Henry Fonda showed up as the child murdering sociopath Frank in Once Upon A Time in the West.

It would be sensational and completely unexpected in my opinion. Okay Tennant has already played the Purple Man, but still its fair to say he is best remembered in most people’s minds as the Doctor.

Conclusion

Hopefully as you can see from my arguments Tennant would be a brilliant choice for the villain.

He looks the part, he can play villains, particularly cackling, insecure psycho’s fabulously,  and he as the Joker would be completely unexpected like Ledger and Hamill to people.

I really want to see Tennant as the Joker in a live action adaptation of The Killing Joke.

Obviously Mark Hamill is still my top choice for an animated version. Remember I was the one who started up the petition in 2012 see here

Petition to Get Mark Hamill To Play The Joker In Animated Killing Joke

It was such fun setting up that petition (which Hamill himself endorsed. That was the best bit!) Of course this petition is now redundant as Hamill it has been announced will be reprising his role in an animated killing joke after all.

Still I would like to see Tennant play the role in a live action series and the episode that explores the Joker’s origin would be a live action adaptation of The Killing Joke.

I can see Tennant being great at playing both the tormented, angst ridden pre accident Joker and actually being able to inject a lot of sympathy into the character and then being able to capture the demented, chaotic evil of the Joker perfectly. I think it could very well be his best performance and it would be a shame not take advantage of it.

A lot of fans online have said that they want him as the Riddler. Personally I don’t like this idea at all. I think Tennant would be miscast as the Riddler because the Riddler to me needs to be more pompous and intellectual.

I don’t like it when the Riddler is a cackling psychopath. Frank Gorshin whose performance was played for laughs aside. I wasn’t for example fond of Jim Carrrey’s Riddler in Batman Forever. I think that the Riddler is just a third rate Joker when you do that.

To me the Riddler works better when he is portrayed more like Jon Glover’s portrayal in Batman the Animated Series. A petty, pompous, egotistical little man who is desperate to prove his intellectual superiority to everyone around him. Its not like the Joker’s desire to prove he is the best criminal, as I don’t view the Riddler as being an utter psychopath. More someone whose neurosis drive him down a dark path. I’d rather someone like say Julian Barrett best known as Howard Moon in The Mighty Boosh play the Riddler. I can imagine him being pompous and then getting angry in more of a petty way at being defeated by Batman as opposed to a crazy burning people with acid way like the Joker.

If Tennant were cast as the character I have a feeling that he would be zany and over the top. I am not saying that is all he can do, but I think that’s probably how they would make him play it, as that sadly is what the Riddler is known as due to Frank Gorshin and Jim Carrey’s performances. Also I think that’s why a lot of fans want him too and again personally I don’t like that take on the Riddler. I’d rather Tennant played the Joker than the third rate Joker which is what this Riddler would be.

That just doesn’t look as good as him as the Joker.

Also I don’t think Tennant as the Riddler would be shocking like him as the Joker. The Riddler isn’t that evil compared to other supervillains. He doesn’t even kill people in the comics. Really he is just someone who likes playing games with Batman. It wouldn’t be like “oh my god the Tenth Doctor is a villain” in quite the same way as it would if we saw Tennant smashing a young boys skull in with a crowbar!

I’d much rather Tennant play the Joker and hopefully after reading this you may agree with me.

Thanks for reading.

The Joker is Batman’s most iconic enemy. In fact he is arguably the most famous comic book villain of all time.

He has been portrayed by many actors over the years across many different mediums, but I think its fair to say that 4 portrayals of the character have really embedded themselves in popular culture more than the rest.

Cesar Romero’s performance in the classic campy Adam West series in the 60’s, Jack Nicholson’s show stealing performance in the 1989 Tim Burton Batman film, Hamill’s 20 year long stint as the clown prince of crime in Batman the Animated series and its many sequels and spin offs, as well as some non DCAU works such as the Arkham Asylum video games. And finally Heath Ledger’s Oscar winning performance as the villain in the Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.

In this article I am going to look at all 4 of their interpretations of Batman’s archenemy and judge which one I find to be the best. Of course as always remember that this is purely my opinion. I know it says in the title which Joker is the best, but that’s only because adding after that “in my opinion” felt a bit too clumsy a title.

As always let me know what you think in the comments below and who your favourite Joker is.

1/ Cesar Romero

The first live action version of the Joker. This version was naturally more comedic than any of his successors as befitting the tone of the 60’s series.

Over the years many fans and critics have complained that this destroyed a lot of the Joker’s menace in the eyes of the general public and reduced him to well literally a clown.

Still this was nevertheless a valid take on the character, as the Joker at various points has been a silly, camp, comedic villain.

Indeed much as the tone of Batman comics has shifted from dark to comedic; then so has the character of the Joker changed accordingly.

In the very beginning he was a brutal, sadistic, horror movie villain. Throughout the 50’s and 60’s however really up until Dennis O’Neil’s excellent Joker’s Five Way Revenge, the character was a buffoon.

His schemes were always silly, over the top, and he was more likely to throw itching powder on someone than actually kill them. Each issue would usually end with him being utterly humiliated by Batman in a humorous way.

One of the Joker’s more comical appearances. This story The Joker’s Utility Belt was adapted as the characters first appearance in the Adam West series.

Whilst obviously this version of the Joker was not as menacing as his darker predecessor or successors. He was still nevertheless the perfect enemy for Batman who was a much lighter character during this period.

The Joker seemed strangely likable in these stories as he felt like more a lovable rogue with a strange sense of humour as opposed to a vicious psychopath. At times you’d even feel sorry for him the way Batman would go out of his way to rub his humiliating defeats in. Batman would even visit him in prison just to gloat!

Thus Cesar Romero’s version of the villain captured this aspect of the character brilliantly. His Joker similarly seemed like more of a lovable buffoon who was evenly matched with Adam West’s hilariously ridiculous Batman.

Many of West and Romero’s confrontations with one another are pure comedy gold, such as Batman trying to nab the Joker for loitering outside a school and punish him according to the law. “5 years imprisonment and a minimum fine of 500 thousand dollars!” With laws like that is any wonder that the Joker and the Riddler, and the Penguin and Catwoman all turned to crime! Then of course there is Romero’s Joker stopping time itself to rob a few banks or pelting Batman with fishes!

Overall I probably like the Joker as a darker villain more, but in terms of what they were trying to go for with this version of the character then I think they were completely successful. Romero perfectly embodied the wacky, surreal humour of the character and gave us a villain who was utterly ridiculous, yet charismatic, captivating and strangely likable just like the ridiculous character in the comic books.

2/ Jack Nicholson

Jack’s Joker much like Romero’s was a humorous character, but the comedy involved with this version of the clown prince of crime was very dark.

This has always been an aspect of the Joker that I have found fascinating. Indeed its actually what drew me to the character in the first place and made him my favourite villain growing up. The Joker is always able to do the most utterly horrific things, yet you laugh at them. You shouldn’t laugh at things like people getting killed and tortured, but for some reason when the Joker does it you do!

Jack’s Joker I feel portrayed this aspect of the character superbly.

Indeed Jack’s Joker is best remembered for his twisted comedy.

Whether that’s gunning his boss down, and then lamenting that he had a fabulous singing voice, burning his girlfriends face with acid as a work of art and then displaying her mutilated face to Vicki Vale and exclaiming “Well I’m no Picasso but do you like it?” Or his casual murder of Bob his most loyal henchman which is somewhat comparable to Sidney.

There are so many fabulous moments of dark comedy with Jack’s Joker. Its hard to pick a best moment.

You could never have done this with Romero’s Joker.

Romero’s Joker obviously was too light for them to do any form of black humour.

Though he did try and kill Batman it should be mentioned. The methods Romero’s Joker used were always so ridiculous like killing him with fish, or turning him into a skeleton key. There was no real genuine dark comedy there.

With Jack however he did actually do things like burn a woman’s face with acid, electrocute people into nothing but a charred skeleton, kill them en mass with smilex, shoot people whilst dancing a jig, and murder his most loyal henchman for no reason. And he still made us laugh as much as Romero did.

Of course this doesn’t necessarily mean that Nicholson was better than Romero as Romero wasn’t meant to be funny in a twisted way.

Still at the very least this shows you how Nicholson was able to differentiate his performance from Romero, and show people that the Joker could be just as funny as he always ways whilst being horrifying at the same time.

3/ Mark Hamill

Hamill has played the Joker across many different mediums.

He first played the character in Batman the Animated Series and went on to reprise the role in, The New Batman Adventures, 3 crossover episodes of Superman the animated series, Justice League, one episode of Static Shock and the films Batman Mask of the Phantasm and Batman Beyond Return of the Joker. All of these productions shared the same continuity as one another which has been called the DC Animated Universe, DCAU for short.

He has also gone on to play the character in other non DCAU productions such as the two Arkham video games, and the short lived live action series Birds of Prey where his voice was dubbed over another actor.

Hamill’s performance though only in niche cartoons has never the less reached a huge audience over the years, due to the enduring popularity of Batman TAS and the DCAU.

I’d say that his vocal performance as the character is as recognised as any live action version.

Hamill’s Joker stood out from Romero and Nicholson’s in that he was far more unpredictable.

With Hamill you never knew what you were going to get. One minute his Joker could be every bit as vicious as Nicholson’s. Despite the DCAU series being Saturday morning cartoons, they were still able to depict the Joker as vicious psychopath.  He beat Harley Quinn his lover, he tortured Batman with electricity, he killed gangsters with smilex, he tried to drown the mayor, he tortured Commisioner Gordon, Summer Glau, killed thousands of innocent people in Metropolis and tried to carve Batman up with a razor!

Though probably his most gruesome crime is when he captures Tim Drake the second Robin, who is just a teenager and tortures him for weeks, eventually driving him insane. He also video tapes Robin’s agonizing torture and shows it to Batman, taunting him.

Hearing the Joker describe, as we see Robin screaming in agony “How I peeled back the layers of the boy’s mind” never fails to send shivers up my spine.

Yet at the same time Hamill’s Joker could also be a complete clown like Romero’s. He would do things like in the middle of an intense shoot out produce flowers. Not flowers with a gun in them. Actual flowers!

Then there is Make Em Laugh that is just total Adam West type tomfoolery.

The Joker’s scheme in this episode is absurd. He wants to prove he is the greatest comic in Gotham, his methods of attacking Batman and Robin are to brainwash comedians and turn them into the most silly villains you have ever seen. One of them is called Mighty Mom and spanks Robin!

Then there is his defeat which again reminds me of the classic stories like the Jokers Utility belt where the character is so utterly humiliated by Batman that you almost feel bad for the guy.

Watching him get laughed at by everyone with his trousers at his ankles, and then the final touch where he puts his trophy over his head because even he is just so embarrassed; turns the villain into a total comedy character. Even his threats make you laugh as he stands there in his underpants shouting “I’ll get you for this Batman no one upstages me and lives!”

Its hard to believe that this comical fool is the same brutal monster who later tortures a teenage boy to lunacy.

Now such an attempt to merge the two very different portrayals of the Joker could have completely ruined the character. It could have seemed to jarring to see the silly character do such heinous things, yet at the same time the more comical aspects could have undermined his menace.

However the DCAU and Hamill got round it well as I think they were always able to keep you on edge with the Joker. Even during his sillier moments there was a feeling that underneath this clownish persona there was a really vicious side to this character, whilst in the darker moments there would often be a lighter edge to the character.

Examples of this include in Make Em Laugh his most comical appearance there are still some very dark moments. When he faces Batman on top of the balloon its a much more vicious fight than any you could imagine between Romero and West. The Joker bludgeons Batman with his trophy and keeps smashing at his fingers when he is trying to hold on whilst laughing hysterically. Here the Joker seems like a complete bloodthirsty maniac!

Also his scheme though seemingly light on the surface is actually one of his most deplorable. The comedians he turns into criminals entire lives are ruined by his actions. Their careers and reputations are ruined, many of them are greivously injured and its implied in some cases their minds permanently damaged. Batman himself even says “You’ve hit a new low Joker only you would ruin 3 lives for a silly piece of tin!”

When the Joker attempts to audition for the comedy awards as an ordinary man and the comedians pull him away. It seems funny until he screams in rage “I’ll ruin you all!” and you realise “fuck he wasn’t kidding” that is exactly what he does to all 3 of them. Hamill manages to switch between court jester and vicious, bitter, hateful, petty maniac superbly.

Similarly in his most terrifying performance in Return of the Joker there are funny moments. Such as when he, after having received a savage beating from an enraged Batman offers to show him slides of Robin being tortured. Even when he dies at Robin who shoots him’s hands, he manages to make the audience chuckle when he gasps “that’s not funny, that’s not fu“.

Hamill’s Joker it is established is so insane that you can believe that he might do things that don’t make any sense, are even silly, but at the same time never underestimate him as he is a brutal killer underneath it.

Obviously you could never have done this with Romero or Nicholson. Their Jokers always had to be either dark or light, where as Hamill was the only one who could flip between the two extremes effortlessly.

This was actually quite a revolutionary concept as even in the comic books prior to Hamill no one had ever really quite blended the extremes of the character together.

4/ Heath Ledger

By far and away the most popular version of the character, Ledgers Joker is also without doubt the most horrific and menacing.

Romero’s Joker was the most likable, Jack’s the funniest in a dark, twisted way, Hamill’s the most unpredictable, but Ledger’s is by far and away the most badass.

Ledgers Joker is also the most faithful to the original Joker. Its somewhat ironic that that is the case as Ledger’s Joker ditches some of the long established staples of the character like having perma white skin, his trademark weapon, Smilex etc.

Still when you look at the very early issues you can see this Joker is very faithful to them. The original Joker was like something out of a horror movie. He looked more grotesque and he was far more formidable. He was someone who was two steps ahead of Batman and the police and everyone else and he could easily hold his own against the Batman. Even perhaps best him in combat.

The Ledger Joker follows this in every way. His Joker is gruesome even just to look at. With his mutilated face and dishevelled hair, he looks like he is literally rotting away to nothing. At the same time Ledgers Joker seems more powerful than either Hamill or Nicholson’s. Hamill and Nicholson’s Jokers obviously were legitimate menaces but I don’t think either of them ever felt quite like they were actually more intelligent than Batman. They rivalled his intelligence sure, but with Ledger it feels like Batman is two steps behind him every step of the way.

Also Ledgers Joker unlike any previous version is actually a physical threat to Batman. Romero, Nicholson and Hamill were always shown to be physically quite frail. Romero couldn’t land a punch on Batman or Robin, a teenage boy even with a whole room full of goons. Nicholson’s Joker broke his hand trying to punch Batman, and Hamill’s Joker would often be knocked out with just one or two punches.

Also all of these Jokers were somewhat cowardly too. Nicholson’s Joker is shown to become visibly terrified in his final fight with Batman, even trying to rationalise to Batman that he was just a kid when he killed his parents. Hamill’s Joker meanwhile as seen in Joker’s Favour is an absolute cringing coward when threatened by Charlie Collins. He ends up in his ultimate humiliation begging Batman for help and cowering behind him.

Ledgers Joker however is actually able to take Batman in a fight. He beats him to the ground with two crowbars, he laughs when Batman slams down on his hand and smashes his face into glass. When Batman tosses him off the edge of a building he laughs. Compare that to Mark’s Joker screaming when he nearly falls to his doom in both Make Em Laugh and Be A Clown, or Jack’s Joker screaming when he does fall to his death. Heath just rolls back and laughs like its nothing!

Ledger’s Joker portrayed the chaotic nature of the villain better than any other. His Joker did truly seem like someone who would watch the world burn.

Just like the Joker from his very first issue, Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight is like a force of nature that emerges and drags the city down into his lunacy, that even Batman genuinely struggles against.

The Joker’s first appearance was an influence on Nolan when making the Dark Knight. He chose not to show the characters origins for this reason as we didn’t find out the characters origins in the comic books until the 1950’s. The Ledger Joker much like the Joker in his first appearance has a real sense of mystery about him. We don’t know where he came from, what could possibly have created such an unrelenting, unfeeling monster?

There are also some similar plot details in the Joker’s first appearance to the Dark Knight too. In his first appearance the Joker announces that he is going to kill his victims in advance just as Ledger does. There is even a scene where he disguises himself as a police officer in order to get to him that again we see in the Dark Knight.

Which One Do I Like The Best?

Well as you can see I enjoy all 4 performances. Objectively all men managed to perfectly capture an aspect of the Clown Prince of Crime’s complex personality so objectively I wouldn’t say there is a best per se, but my favourite is and always will be Mark Hamill.

Hamill to me IS the Joker. Even looking at that picture above of the Joker I imagine him speaking like Mark Hamill.

I think its because Hamill’s Joker was the most unpredictable that he seems the most like the character to me. With Jack and Heath I could only imagine them in the darker moments. With Romero meanwhile I can only imagine in the lighter moments. Trying to imagine Ledger’s Joker that cuts chunks out of people’s faces in Romero’s world, or Romero in Ledgers world and you’d get well this

A full movie like this would be hilarious but again that’s the point it wouldn’t be the Dark Knight.

With Hamill’s Joker as we have seen we could easily imagine him in much darker stories and the much lighter stories. Obviously there would be some differences to the Dark Knight and Batman or the Adam West series if Hamill had been the Joker, but it wouldn’t be quite so jarring as the difference between Romero and Ledger.

Hamill’s Joker I also found to be the most terrifying as I never knew what way he was going to go. With Romero I obviously knew I was in for a comedy, whilst with Jack and Ledger I knew to brace myself for a darker film. With Mark though I remember as a child always hoping he would show up because he was my fave, but then being scared when he would because I’d be on edge that something horrible might happen even in a comedy moment.

There was a scene in an episode Harlequinade I remember when I was young where the Joker shows up with a bomb and drives everyone away and there is one man left and the Joker tosses a bomb at him. Its a build up to something horrible as the bomb goes off, but then you see its seemingly a fake bomb and I remember laughing. But then it sprayed the Joker’s lethal laughing gas and the man proceeds to laugh himself to death. Its a horrific scene as we see him laugh hysterically to the point where his veins are practically popping. As a 4 year old I was horrified, but then I found myself giggling when Hamill’s Joker says “oh that’s so much more pleasant” as the man dies horribly.

That scene sums up why Hamill will always be my favourite and why for me he will always be the Joker. Thank you for reading.