2000 AD Online Forum

  Now, how's this for an idea.... Toothy has seen several classic characters return to its pages in the last few years (Johnny Alpha, the original Rogue, the VCs-even the Fiends of the Eastern Front popping up in MC1, for Grud's sake!)
  Surely I can't be the only one to hanker for Sam Slade to make a triumphant return to the pages of the galaxy's greatest as well. And I'm not talking some ridiculous travesty from Mark Millar either- but the real, one-of-a-kind, Wagner and Gibson masterpiece.
Now, I know that the story came  pretty much full-circle with 'Farewell, My Billions', but surely we could have a few one-offs, a few 'untold tales of...' from the middle era of the character (round about the time of 'Beast of Blackheart Manor').

Now, I'm pretty much convinced that if Rebellion asked Ian to do it, the answer would be somewhere along the lines of "Only if John were writing it..." and if Mr.Wagner were asked the same question, the only proviso would be that a certain artist (you know the one- draws fantastic women with small, shapely ankles) could be persuaded to put pencil to paper.

So what do you all reckon... Does a petition start here???

If Wagner & Gibson say yes, then great. If not, leave him alone, the man deserves a rest.

I would love to get my hands on a reprint of the musical 'play it again Sam'.

rotts.

Wagner and Gibson's Robohunter was without doubt one of the best strips of the earlier years of 2000AD. Personally, it ranks right up there with Ace Trucking Co. for comedy and adventure. Great stuff.
Sam, Hoagy and Stogie were best scripted and drawn by Wagner and Gibson. For me, they were the definative Slade team. I would be the first to welcome the return of Robohunter, but only if they were behind it.

BTW, any news on Gibson's other project, Lifeboat?

Link: The A-Z of Cal-Hab

Alright, so you cannot do italics on this board. Okay, just testing.

Oh, that's definitely what I meant.... although I would give my right arm to see Sam back in the pages of 2000, there'd be no point if Wagner and Gibson don't do it.
Failing that, how about some reprints in the Meg.... 'Play it Again, Sam' would indeed seem to fit the bill nicely!

I'm pretty sure you can do Italics McNulty :)

nahhhh...the pasts the past, throw away the retro goggles. theres been enough oldies revived. let the 'gold' collection fufil our hankerings for the past. & leave tooth & the meg for new contemporary thrills , & mebbe pull in new squaxx too ?

Yes to reprints but like Boo says lets leave Sam alone.  

Yer Slippo

"I'm pretty sure you can do Italics McNulty :)"

This from the man with the animated Blue Meanie and the Yellow Submarine. Things like Italics must be simplicity itself to you, Karne.

BTW, How do you get Italics?

Of all 2000 strips, Robohunter reached the most fitting conclusion, with Sam back where we met him at the start of the very first series.  The Millar thing would have been a mistake even if they had been even vaguely good.  It might be nice to see maybe a one off to show the world what Robohunter was really about, i suppose.  That said didn't I read or hear somewhere that John Wagner wouldnt return to the character as he feels too much damage was done by the revival?

Certainly, an ongoing series would be a mistake in my opinion - Personally, I'd like to see what happened next in Ace Trucking Co, cos Aces revenge on that little uffer Feek is loooong overdue - Gibson art would suit that revival...

If Ian Gibson wasn't up for a revival then Roger Langridge woould be the only man who could replace him.

Ace Trucking was nixed by Tharg recently, because Messimo Belardinelli is believed to be dead. But if they do bring Ace back, Roger Langridge would be the only man who could replace him.

>Gibson art would suit that revival...

Always thought Henry Flint would be good on ACE, weird aliens, spaceships and just the whole sense of fun.

La Placa Rifa,
W. R. Logan.

Flint's art is good for everything...

Why can't we just create memorable new characters instead of digging the corpses of Slade, Ace Garp and Rogue up - and buggering them until lifelong fans start to hate them? Somebody has got to be able to come up with decent material... right?

- JC

Link: THE JUDGE DREDD STREET SIM

yes sam slade .
lets leave hm be. though the idea of samantha slade sams daughter, written and illustrated by the team . as was suggested many moons ago was a great idea.gibson babe.and lets keep it B&W to truly show the masters skill.

but i still think ian should pitch life boat to tharg.
it was stated here by  SIR ian gibson himself i think. he was not yet sure he wished to do so.

but the art was so good. i do hope he discusses this with tharg.

That senario did happen Wagner said only id Gibson were involved and Gibson siad only if Wagner were involved but because of some sort of lack of understanding from the person in the middle they assumes neither party really wanted to do it.

Gibson had an idea of continuing the story with Sam Slade's daughter (if you go to his website I think you'll even find a picture of her, I'll dig out the address).

Personally I'd love Robohunter back with the original team.

If Wagner couldn't do it how about Garth Ennis taking over (joke!!!)

Here's Gibson's take on Sam's daughter.

It'd be great if 2000AD could come up with new characters - however, since Prog 500 we've had how many new stories near the calibre of Robohunter, Nemesis, Alpha etc.?  By my count I make it two - Zenith (though not a great fan, I can see why people enjoy it) and Dante.   Sin Dex is the nearest other contender!  Other stories that might have made the grade seem to have been buggered up or dropped after luke warm reaction from the squaxx.

Look at classic characters like Alpha, Slade and Ace and add up the number of pages of trip they've starred in. Consider these strips are parallel to Americas top comic characters like Batman, Flash, The Hulk etc.  I expect that in terms of output, they've appeared a tiny, tiny fraction of the times that these characters have (not necessarily a bad thing given the way they have to reinvent and rehash there stuff, maybe).  However for me, while there is loads of room left for more Robohunter, it reached a natural conclusion. With Strontium Dog, i always felt it was robbed of a natural conclusion by circumstance - with Rogue, they reached the natural conclusion in such a lame way, and the potential for the character and setting was only briefly touched on before that - the revival is a bit of a puzzler for me - maybe (like Slaine) too much rubbish has already occurred for me to regain interest in the story?  For Ace, the series had reached an interesting point, with Ace returning to his original universe to find Feek had taken over Ace Trucking in his absence and made it a huge success.  Now that's one way to end the series, but I think seeing Ace plot to regain his company could be a great tale.

You'd be mad to throw out great characters while theres still life in them - of course, if Wagner and Grant dont have anything more to say, then leave em be.  But if the original writers are up for it, I would be thrilled by any return of a classic.
 

That's the one

A good idea, with essential elements, thus:

Wagner and Gibson only.

Millar "continuity" swept away and ignored forevermore.

The story continues from where it was left off.
When did we last see them (pre-Millar)? IIRC, it was at the end of Farewell My Billions, with Hoagy and Stogie up for sale in the shop window.

I reckon ageing Sam Slade back on the case, with full-blown robot lunacy all around and the return of the clowning robo-sidekicks, much to his disdain.

"Oh great god of robohunters, don't do this to your old pal...!"

- Trout

I don't even consider the Millar stuff to be robohunter, more some poor parody. It couldn't spoil robohunter for me, because it wasn't robohunter, it was something else, that happened to have stolen some of the ideas from robohunter.

Anyway, no point tampering with the end because it was great, if you carry on from that point we're only going to be dissapointed.  If you carry on from the middle, we're all going to have some hopefully enjoyable deja-vu.  If we went back to before it all began, it could be fun!  

Sam Slade lived two lives, we've only seen one, we were robbed!

Also, I don't feel Strontium Dog has been properly revived yet, so I think to consider Robo-Hunter is a little hasty.  2 stories, unconnected and different in mood and style?  That's like when the BBC shows some documentary on Dr Who and a couple of random old episodes every ten years instead of having to bring it back.

But to answer the question, yeah I'd like to see it back.  More Stront, more Slade and HELLTREKKERS 2 - They're a Comin' Home!

As we've seen with Rogue Trooper, a strip will lose something if it starts agains in the middle, simply because we know the character is not at risk.

I've really enjoyed Gordon's Rogue, but not as much as the new, mid-continuity Strontium Dog, where the "alternate history" angle created enough doubt that we knew we could be in for surprises at some point.

- Trout

Lord above, I hadn't come across the old plans to carry on the series with Sam's daughter.
How bloody fantastic would that be? Wagner script. Gibson art. Babes. Robots. And thye odd cameo of Sam as a crotchety old bugger.

Sounds like a recipe for thrill power overload to me!

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"BTW, How do you get Italics?"

You almost had it right McNulty, you were just using the wrong brackets. You should be using the ones above the 9 and 0 on your keyboard, not the ones next to the P.

Happy Italicking,

karne.

I'm not convinced Daughter (or son of) Slade would be a great idea.  Better to do something wit the original character or something enitely new than just spawn a sequal.

But LOOK at her!!! Zounds!

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(I)You almost had it right McNulty, you were just using the wrong brackets. You should be using the ones above the 9 and 0 on your keyboard, not the ones next to the P.(/I)

Great thanks. (B)Does it work for bold as well?(/B)

I tend to agree that Sam should be resurrected. Gibson hints in his web page that he would be happy to do a Lazerus with him. As long as the proviso that Wagner does the script, I see no problems with that.

 

Link: The A-Z of Cal-Hab

You blinking liar Karne! Your just having some fun at my expense! :(

"You blinking liar Karne! Your just having some fun at my expense! :("

He, he. It was a bit funny though wasn't it :)

Seriously though this time, its the pointy brackets near the M, and yes it works for bold and also underlined

"Seriously though this time, its the pointy brackets near the M, and yes it works for bold and also underlined"

Yeah, Right!

{I}Maybe I should just try them all{/I}

 

A-Ha! I seem to have found out that this is indeed the true way. Great, let's get back to the Robohunter discussion...

Link: The A-Z of Cal-Hab

I'd be shamelessly happy to see a new Robo-Hunter strip of any variety, so long as it's Wagner or Grant on the writing and Gibson doing the art. Retro can be good, y'know.

Maybe to keep everyone happy, what's needed are new, original, different strips by creative teams with great track records, e.g. Wagner and Gibson?

Whatever, does anyone know if there's been any progress made / more info on Lifeboat?

Link: Deja-Vu

He, he. Sorry McNulty, but I had to wind you up a little bit, considering everybody else did the same to me when I was trying to figure out the intricacies of HTML. You all know who you are, and you're all on my list ;)

Watcher, don't you consider Bad Company to be a classic series? It debuted post 500.

I count everything up to 520 as a sort of watermark, beyond which you have a rapidly retreating tide of talent, and quality.  It's like one of those flood levels from 1465 that you always expect never to be bettered.

IF there's going to be any return of any character, it should be a continuation of the story. Part of the appeal of 2000ad is that characters age and get killed - if you have a "flashback" story then this element is removed and all that's left tends to be a rehash of an early 80s plot.  (I'm think Strontium Dog here. If the decision is taken that killing Alpha was an editorial mistake then just bring him back, don't fanny around with the continuity). So, either rejuve Sam or have his daughter kick butt, but don't reopen old casebooks.

but we seem to think that slade should return.

anyone able to creat a poll on this.may be worth the time and then we can send it in.
worth a try isnt it.we finally got alpha back in the end.