What if the two biggest British comics merged at the height of their popularity in the 1980s? We are going to find out in September 2023, when 2000 AD imagines what would have happened if it joined forces with Battle Action comics.
Out in the UK on 20 September and in North America on 1 November, 2000 AD Prog 2350 and Judge Dredd Megazine #460 features stories by Ken Neimand, Alex de Campi, Gordon Rennie, Arthur Wyatt, Chris Weston, Staz Johnson and more. (Diamond codes: JUL231919 & JUL231920)
The special 48-page bumper issue of 2000 AD and the 132-page Judge Dredd Megazine will see Judge Dredd take on the anarchic, riotous teens of ‘Kids Rule OK’, the controversial comic strip that helped lead to Action being pulled from shelves in 1976.
The line-up includes Alan Hebden and Carlos Ezquerra’s former enslaved gunslinger El Mestizo and laconic WWII officer Major Eazy, as well as deadly future sport ‘Death Game 2049’, and daring Panzer officer ‘Hellman of Hell Force’, as well as Dreddworld reinventions of strips such as John Wagner and Mike Western’s tale of the ‘Forgotten Army’, ’Darkie’s Mob’, and Tom Tully and Joe Colquhoun’s WW2 air ace ‘Johnny Red’.
Matt Smith, editor of 2000 AD, said: “The history of comics on the UK’s newsstand is marked by the practice of merging titles, where two great anthologies combine. In the case of Starlord joining 2000 AD, it meant the Prog gained Strontium Dog and Ro-Busters. When Tornado’s Black Hawk joined the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic, it led to a radical reinvention of the strip.
“Writer Ken Niemand suggested to me a special asking what would’ve happened if Battle Action merged with 2000 AD in the early eighties, with its war stories getting something of a science-fiction/fantasy makeover, and I couldn’t resist!”
