Prog 9 - Dan Dare

Dan has agreed to betray his comrades. Monday doesn't take to kindly to Dares sudden betrayal and proceeds to strangle the life out of him by using the ancient Martian art of Vi-Kin. Dare's Living Axe watches on waiting to be called by his master as Monday holds Dare in a Death-Lock!
Dare whispers to Monday that he was playing the Biog Mind and Monday agrees to surrender on behalf of all his crew. The Biog Mind is pleased. Meanwhile while the Odyssey is being attacked by Biogs...
Dan orders the Odyssey to stop firing and when he gives the word they are to warp themselves off planet asap! Commander Milton tells Dare that they tried warping out before but the ships hull won't take it. Finally with himself and the landing party onboard, Dan tells Milton to feed all the ships power to the warp drive including the power for lights and airsystem etc.

The Biog Mind, betrayed, screams in pain as the Odyssey warps (burns) its way out of the Biog Mothership!
Milton congratulates Dare and Monday...he thinks the worst is over and done with as a mass fleet of earth starships arrive. But it's only the beginning of a bigger battle and Dare and crew are caught in the middle.
So ends another craptacular episode of Dan Dare.

The Biog Mind is one dumb alien. Why didn't the Mind have some Biogs escort Dare to and on the ship to make sure he complied with the Minds wishes?

Again the crew refer to Dare as DD. Way too casual and they take orders from him even though Monday is their commanding officer. Monday has been relegated to being Dan Dares bitch!

And is that a shower head that Rodann is using on Milton? Weird!

One cool thing from this progs strip is The Living Axe waiting in the wings to be called to his masters side. That was cool...a shame the axe didn't follow Dare back onto the ship. It would have been great to see it pop up now and again in future Dare stories.

Prog 8 - Dan Dare

Ziggy has incapacitated the Shepherd and she takes control of the ship by plugging the ships controls into her head! She closes all the airlocks, crushing and stopping the Biogs from entering the ship.
She wonders how long they can hold out before the Biogs break through. Meanwhile, Dan and the rest of the Jupiter survey party have seen the Odyssey get swallowed whole by the Biog ship and Dan decides to follow them, even though a member of the crew wants to cut and run.

They enter the Biog ship and embark to find the Odyssey. As they make their way to find the ship, they are 'attacked' by the Biog ships anti-bodies.
They are taken to what looks like a vast junction of veins...it's the ships brain! The 'blobs' dissolve and a huge voice booms in the 'spacers' minds..."Hear me. intruders...I am the mind of the ship..you are at my mercy.." Dare is obstinate...the 'mind' lashes out.
Dare asks the 'mind' what does it want. It responds..."FUEL!". It tells Dare that if he can get the crew of the Odyssey out of the ship that he will reward him with 'everlasting life'. Monday is amazed that the 'mind' has displayed a human characteristic...Betrayal.

To the crews amazement, Dare thinks it's a good idea. Hmmm...Seems that after last issues coolness of the Living Axe we've gone back to mediocrity. Oh well. Only Belardinelli's funky cosmic art is saving this strip at the moment.

Prog 7 - Dan Dare

Dan kills the Shepherd guards and Monday sets free what was left of the landing crew.
Now defenseless, Dan attacks the Mother Biog with his Living Axe!
The Biogs and their city are totally dependent on the Mother Biog. As she is dying...everything begins to fall apart. Dan has to get his crew off-planet before the Mother Biog explodes. The Shepherds try and stop him and his landing party from reaching their ship.
They escape from the planet but something else awaits them in space...
The Living Axe is such a bizarre concept only Belardinelli's artwork can do it any justice. This episode was pretty fast paced and moves the story along beautifully.

Another nice cliffhanger. One thing that I loved 2000ad for, was it's cliffhangers. They always made me eager to rush down to the newsagents each week and find out what's going to happen to my favorite heroes.

Prog 7 - Cover

The covers are getting better! Belardinelli did and excellent job on this one. I love the speech balloon too...a nice sense of shock and danger to it.

Prog 5 - Dan Dare

Dare and crew are face to face with Jupiters resident aliens. You'd think if you wanted to open up some decent communication with alien life forms you'd stop referring to their appearance as 'vile'. Oh well, not that it matters as the aliens attack anyway.

One crew member gets sucked up alive! And another creature turns to attack Dare. With Mondays help Dare cracks off a huge hunk of titanium crystal and as the alien attacks he shoves it up the aliens vacuum hole! (I know,it sounds really weird right?) With it's air passage blocked, the alien...explodes!

Dan and Monday are knocked unconscious. When they come too, they realise that they've been sucked up inside one of the aliens. (So much for their plan of shoving crystal up their blowholes!) Officer French is there too...but alas, he's dead!
Monday comes to the conclusion that the aliens are using their stomachs to transfer them to their base. How he comes to this conclusion, I haven't a clue but he does remember an old earth story...
Could Monday be referring to Jonah? I think so, and he called him insane. Nice bit of religious subversion there.

Meanwhile back on the Odyssey...the thing from Jupiter is trying to take control of the ship.
The thing manages to take over the 'control' bubble...and now commands the Odyssey!
Pretty standard installment of Dan Dare and not too wacky when compared with the previous episodes.

It's still pretty ridiculous, though. Why would the thing need a spaceship? Maybe that question will be answered next prog.

Prog 4 - Dan Dare

Seriously!

Can Dan Dare get much worse? The script on just the center spread alone is atrociously bad! Kelvin Gosnell wrote the script for this crap. Thank God he got waaaay better with his adaptation of 'Stainless Steel Rat'.

Check out the dialogue on this page. We have a crew member referring to Dan as DD! Maybe it was hip to refer to people by their initials! I would have smacked him for the lack of respect. Then again, Dare does have his initials in big bold letters on his chest!

And Dare is 'posi-sure' he can land the craft. What the heck is that language. Posi-sure?!?

And poor Neil Armstrong gets forgotten about in the future. Not bloody likely...but there you go. Also, Dare is a 'spacer'...now, I don't know about you but when I was growing up a 'Spacer' was slang for a lunatic or whackjob!

This center spread just reads so weird and on top of the freaky dialogue we get Dare landing on an island of crystal titanium floating on a sea of boiling metal!

Seems like Mr.Gosnell has been smoking the funny stuff!

After safely navigating through the storm, Dan lands the craft on Jupiters surface. The crew put on their space suits and venture outside. The suits have been adapted to survive the rigors of Jupiters high gravity.

'Spacer' Logan picks up readings of a power source nearby. Monday, Dare and crew follow Logan's lead. But the power source is too strong for Logans suit to handle and we get where the cover idea for this prog came from...
Which makes me ask the question...Why are the rest of the party still alive? Surely, they have the same type of spacesuits on!

The crew come face to face with the power source and Dan, more or less, tells Monday to shut his face while he wants to know what the alien is planning on doing with them and what connection it has to with the creature back on the 'Odyssey'. We leave Dan to ponder what's next and switch back to the Odyssey and the Medic Sector. Doctor Ziggy can't figure out what the purpose of the creature is. While she's trying to figure that out...the creature manages to get itself loose from it's glass cage and surprises the good doctor. Again, Dare suffers from bad script writing. Not even Belardinelli's wonderfully bizarre alien creatures can save it.

Hopefully, the next episode will be better.

I live in hope!

Prog 4 - Cover

A pretty unremarkable cover.
They do get a nice dig in at the Marvelous and Distinguished Competition though 'Better than Super Heroes...Hyper Heroes!'
I have nothing to else to say about the cover, except...thank goodness they get better!

Prog 3 - Dan Dare

The thing from Jupiter goes on a rampage!
Commander Monday wants it dead...Dare thinks otherwise.

He attacks the creature, trying to subdue it...but it has enormous strength!
The strength of a Super-Nova Star!
Dan figures that it's weak spot must be it's 'horns'...so, he pulls on them. Which leads me to the question...how the hell did he know that? The writing is so bad on this strip, it's actually amazing! I'd love to see Frank Miller rewrite this as 'All Star Dan Dare'!

Anyways, Dan's crazy move works and the creature is knocked unconscious. What a stupid place to put a weak spot. They could have picked anywhere, but no, they go for the most visible place...the 'horns' on it's head!
Looks like the creature had an orgasm. Well, so would you if you had your horn pulled!

With the creature unconcious they move it to the medic bay where doctor Ziggy Rodann (Seriously, that's her name!) examines it. She comes to the conclusion that the creature was biologically engineered because of it's strange physiology. The thing has no mouth and can communicate telepathically, it also has a brain three times the size of a normal human and it has built in solar panels on it's stomach that replenishes it's energy!

And it also has...extra muscles. Which leads to our crazy named doctor stating the obvious!Which, again, leads me to another question. How would the good doctor know the muscles are extra if she's never seen a creature like that before?

Dan and Monday decide to find out whereabouts on Jupiter the creature came from but not before the doctor decides to throw an insult at her commanding officer. The next two pages are of Dan, Monday and crew entering a craft to go land on Jupiter. Nothing much happens on the two pages, just descriptions of what type of craft they're using and the strangeness of space...yadda, yadda, yadda!

But we can't leave the strip without a cliffhanger, and the last panel provides it. As the craft approaches Jupiters atmosphere...it's hit by a jovian radio storm!
And that's it till next time.

I can see why Dan Dare was the weakest strip in the 2000ad line-up. It's written so badly and Dare himself doesn't seem to have any good characterization. It's such a disappointment. Even though 2000ad would later try and revamp Dare again with a Dirty Dozen/Star Trek take, and yet again with a Superhero take, it's not hard to see that Dan Dare in 2000ad is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

It would become even more obvious as the strip went on in comparision with other strips.

Prog 2 - DAN DARE

Dare, not waiting to be court marshalled, has stowed away on a ship heading to Jupiter. He wants to uncover the mystery of what happened to his last crew.

But...Dan has been spotted by a guard.

What's amazing from the center spread above is...look how crazy the inside of the ship is in that second panel! How the heck did Dare get spotted and how the heck do the guards manage to find their way around the ship?

It's an Escher-like nightmare!

And the guards are going to 'molecularise him 'on sight! A bit of a harsh penalty for a stowaway.

Dan fights the guard and delivers an awesomely bad/good punchline.
'It's called...FIST!'
Two other guards rush to help their compatriot but accidently get fried by the gun of the gaurd that Dan is trying to knock out. Notice Dan's matter of fact response...
The commander of the ship - Mr. Monday is getting a debriefing of Dares whereabouts when Dare appears. Monday asks Dan to explain himself and Dan relates the story of his last trip past Jupiter. Monday doesn't believe him because Jupiter is a hell-planet and is incapable of supporting life. He orders Dares immediate execution.

The ship is just passing Jupiter at the time when Dan is about to bite the dust when a wave of pure energy hits the ship causing a bit of chaos and then forms an alien creature in front of Dan's and Monday's eyes.

Enter the Thing from the Hell Planet....
And that's how we end this little chapter.

Again Dare seems to be the weakest strip in the early issues of 2000ad. It's not hard to see why..the dialogue is painful and a lot of the story doesn't make sense...the inside of the ship for example and the guards shooting on sight!

Also, if you were going to be a fugitive on the run wouldn't you at least remove the initials of your name from the front of your shirt.

Oh well...it does get better!

Until next installment...I leave you with a pic of my favorite martian...Mr.Monday!

Prog 1 - DAN DARE

The first ever 2000ad center spread!

Not really much to say on this strip. Dare seems to be the weakest in the 2000ad line-up, which is surprising because Dare was probably the main draw for a lot of adults to buy this comic book for their kids.

I'm sure fans of the 50's Dare opened up the center pages and recoiled in horror to what they've done with their childhood hero. Can't blame them really. This version of Dare was eons apart from the 'original'. Apart from Dares trademark eyebrows, and the presence of SASA, everything about the character had changed!

For information on the 'original' Dan Dare...click the link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Dare

A shame really...but again it was the late 70's and 2000 was trying to be cutting edge, which I think they acheived for the most part.

Apart from this not being your fathers Dan Dare...the art by Belardinelli, even though his characters are quite stiff, is unbeatable when it comes to drawing anything cosmic.

In this strip Dare and his compatriots are passing Jupiter when there ship loses power and the crew are all killed save for Dare who manages to escape. The Fleet controller removes Dare from command because of the loss of the ship. (He doesn't believe Dares story of alien interference.)

Dare takes matters into his own hands and stows aboard another cruiser that's due to pass by Jupiter to get to the truth! And we end the first chapter on the usually 2000ad trademark cliffhanger!

As you can see below...the New 'Drokk' swearing Dare(that always seems so out of place for me to read Dan Dare using a 2000ad swear word!) is a far cry....
from the 'Original' clean cut, stiff upper lip Dan Dare.