Cousins of 2000AD: Warrior & Toxic!
You know a comic has become an institution when it clears the path for similar comics to thrive in a space that didn’t previously exist. That’s what 2000AD accomplished when it experimented with a weekly SF/adventure format in 1977 and quickly found its audience. Through steadily growing sales and spinoffs, it muscled open enough room for others to continue the experiment. Let’s take a look at two of the most significant titles.
Quality Communications, a publishing company led by editor Dez Skinn, launched Warrior in March 1982. 2000AD was firmly entrenched in its 200s at the time, so rather than competing with this juggernaut on its own terms, Warrior went with a 52-page monthly anthology format in B&W. It was aimed at mature readers (akin to Heavy Metal and Epic Illustrated) and immediately attracted well-known 2000AD writers and artists including Alan Moore, Steve Dillon, Garry Leach, Jim Baikie, Dave Gibbons, and others. The page rates weren’t as high, but creators would have an ownership stake in their works, which meant (unlike at 2000AD), they’d get a share of reprint rights.
Warrior was the launch pad writer Alan Moore was waiting for. It gave him the time and space to create two of his best-known titles, Marvelman and V for Vendetta. Both were reprinted for American audiences (picked up by Eclipse and DC respectively) and have enjoyed well-earned longevity ever since. Marvelman was a modern revival of a golden age British superhero strip, and had to undergo a title change to Miracleman to avoid copyright clashes (ironically, it’s currently being published by Marvel). V for Vendetta made it all the way to a feature film in 2005.
Warrior lasted for 26 issues, succumbing to cancellation in January 1985. This was unannounced; several of the strips in the final issue ended with the words “to be continued.” Quality Communications went on to take over the American editions of 2000AD comics in 1986.
Read much more about Warrior here.
Whereas Warrior was founded to co-exist with 2000AD, Toxic! was founded to directly compete with it. In 1991, ownership of 2000AD shifted to a company called Egmont, and conditions got worse for some of its longest-serving contributors who had pushed for participation in merchandising and reprint rights. Rebuffed at every turn, they struck out to take their own stand.
2000AD alums Pat Mills, Kevin O’Neill, Mike McMahon, John Wagner, and Alan Grant formed Apocalypse Ltd. and launched Toxic! as a 36-page full-colour (color) weekly anthology in March 1991. This move pressured 2000AD into going full colour in prog 723, just a few days before Toxic! No. 1 appeared. Toxic! was almost twice the cover price, but showed it with proven talent, better printing, and higher paper quality from the start.
Pat Mills had originally conceived 2000AD as a thumb in the eye of establishment, and Toxic! was a thumb in the eye of 2000AD, which had now become the establishment. Every strip was designed to push buttons. The flagship story, intentionally created to challenge Judge Dredd, was the highly provocative Marshal Law. The Marshal’s quarry wasn’t lawbreakers, but super heroes, lovingly drawn (and quartered) by Kevin O’Neill, whose work had once been declared “unfit for human eyes.” (With issue 8, the words “Not Suitable for Young Children” were added to the cover, likely in response to just such a declaration.)
Marshal Law was tough to keep on schedule, but it proved popular enough to earn reprints at Marvel and Dark Horse in later years. Another strip titled Accident Man achieved feature film status via Dark Horse in 2017. When Toxic! was cancelled (unannounced in the final issue 31), other stories were either left uncompleted or went to other publishers. Ironically, some found their way to the pages of 2000AD.
Read much more about Toxic! here.
