DC GRAPHIC NOVEL No. 6
By Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill (DC Comics)
ISBN: 0-930289-10-2
In the years immediately following the release of Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Comics was a paragon of experimentation and quality, as this decidedly post-punk, English flavoured offering from 2000AD mainstays Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill well shows. Not so long after this release artist O’Neill won the singular accolade of having his entire style of drawing – not a panel, not a story, but every single mark he left on paper – banned by the dried up but not quite dead Comics Code Authority!
Not that it stopped the rise of his remarkable talent.
In the far, far future robotic animals have evolved to fill the niches of the declining planet. Civilised humanity has absconded to the stars and Mek-Animals roam the savage Earth. Armageddon is the ruler of the ape-like Mekaka, proud and ambitious, but his tribe are losing faith. They live on scavenged power and the mammoth-like Wheeldebeasts have not been seen for five years.
But this season they will return, led by the terrible God-Beast Amok, and the Mekaka will kill him and rule the world. But complications arise when joy-riding humans Jool and Ngila crash on this which world most humans have forgotten.
They have knowledge but no survival instincts…
This story, later serialised in 2000AD, is pure savage satire and fantastic fantasy; and an undoubted highpoint in DC’s abortive Graphic Novel line of the 1980s. Its scope and power are mesmerising and its return to print long, long overdue. Let’s hope someone gets the message and whilst I’m dreaming, what about a sequel?
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