Trollheart

Okay, now that I've started the Judge Dredd series off on a reasonably decent footing, and before we get to the better stories, I'd like to introduce you to another of 2000AD's most famous and successful characters, probably only second in line behind Dredd. Like all or most of the comic's stories, this is set in the future, after a nuclear war has wiped out over seventy percent of Britain's population, in the year 2170. Meet

Strontium Dog
After the war there were of course a lot of mutants, and these were shunned by the normal inhabitants of Earth, whom they came to know as “norms”. With unsettling and disturbing parallels to the Holocaust and the treatment of Jews under Adolf Hiter's Nazi regime, mutants were forbidden to own businesses or work as norms do, and were herded inot ghettos such as the one in Milton Keynes. A war in 2180 assured the mutants of some basic rights, but they were still despised and looked down upon.

For the strongest and bravest there was the Search/Destroy Agency, which operated from a space station called “The Doghouse”. This agency recruited men and women to hunt down criminals throughout the galaxy: bounty hunters, and the toughest of the tough. Because of the links with Strontium-90, a radioactive isotope that had been present in the nuclear fallout and responsible for most if not all of the mutations, S/D agents became known as “Strontium Dogs”.

Johnny Alpha is the greatest of the great among mutants. At age seventeen he ran away from home to join the Mutant Army and helped lead the uprising in 2167, becoming an icon and a figurehead for the mutant cause. His eyes are white, and give him an unnerving appearance. He can read minds and can see through solid walls, and although he naturally takes bounty hunting jobs for the recompense, he is not entirely led by his wallet, and can be merciful or reasoned with on occasion.

Johnny bears some small resemblance to his Mega-City One counterpart, and that's not really too surprising when you realise that the team responsible for Judge Dredd is the same one behind Strontium Dog: John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra. In terms of his job, too, though he may do it differently and with often not that much regard for the law, Alpha brings in criminals and ensures they pay for their misdeeds. He wears a helmet and a badge like Dredd, but unlike the Judge his accoutrements are symbols of the hatred people hold for him, not the respect or even fear. People would talk to Dredd --- if they had to or if he spoke to them --- but nobody would speak to a Strontium Dog. They would turn their heads, spit and profess anger that such creatures existed, as if it was the mutants' fault that they had been deformed.

Like much of 2000AD --- though not all of it --- Strontium Dog contained some absolutely top-notch humour, as if Wagner was introducing it to balance out the unremittingly bleak and harsh life of a Strontium Dog, who had nothing to look forward to at the end of his or her life other than most likely an unmarked grave. It worked: the series became one of the most quoted among the fans for its acerbic, cutting, sometimes hilarious black humour. The shadow of racism, xenophobia and prejudice was never far from the storyline though, and many of them featured no humans.

Though bounty hunters traditionally worked alone, or at least with their own kind, Johnny Alpha has a deep friendship with Wulf Sternhammer (usually just Wulf), a huge Scandinavian Viking type figure who is not a mutant, but partners with Johnny due to their mutual regard and respect for each other. Wulf wields a large hammer and tends to use the word “cucumber” a lot. It is from him that much of the humour comes.

Whereas Dredd stays pretty much within the environs of his city, Johnny's work takes him all over the galaxy. It's like the old joke, isn't it: join the S/D Agency. Travel the galaxy. Go to lots of interesting places. Meet lots of interesting people. And arrest them.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018