Albion

Tue, Apr 12, 2005

Hands up if you remember the Steel Claw? Robot Archie? The Spider? Unlike their American cousins, British comics only rarely featured full-on DC or Marvel-style superheroes. In fact when 2000 AD burst into the scene back in the 70s it proudly proclaimed we could forget about superheroes because it had the hyperheroes. And back in the dimly-recalled days before 2000 AD there were other characters; perhaps not superheroes exactly, but strange, eccentric beings with unusual names and abilities… Janus Stark, the Spider, Kelly’s Eye…

I barely recall a few of these characters myself and even then I encountered them principally in reprint form – I do remember enjoying them very much and, like many an old comics hand, occasionally wondered what eight-panel limbo they had entered over the last couple of decades. Legal wrangles over copyright ownership as media companies merged, changed and bought one another out meant most of these characters hadn’t even been read in reprint form for years (for a good summary of this see an informative article by my friend Padraig over on the Alien Online).

The good news is that a number of these characters are coming back. Even better news is that Alan Moore (we’re not worthy, we’re not worthy!) is involved, plotting out a story arc with his daughter Leah and her partner John Reppion writing and Shane Oakley contributing the artwork to Albion. Poor old Archie is in pieces and requires a level of re-working that would make the Scrapheap Challenge team wince. Danny and Penny are trying to fix him and as they do, they share tales of a long-gone era of unusual British heroes…

In some hands this could be a cynical exercise in milking old copyright properties or even a shameless attempt to exploit the nostalgia market. But this is a project Moore (daughter and father), Reppion and Oakley feel strongly about and they are treating it as a re-interpretation, asking where these heroes went and why we haven’t heard of them in quarter of a century; a re-invention without sacrificing the original concepts (although it would be nice to see some archive collections produced if Albion proves successful).

2005 is already shaping up well for re-imaginings of classic British SF&F – we’re enjoying a marvellous new Doctor Who and Gerry Anderson’s New Captain Scarlet is fabulous (oh, we’re dying to get hold of the merchandise for those to share with you. And we want them too!), while the advance word on the movie adaptation of the Hitchhiker’s Guide is encouraging, so let’s hope Moore and team continue this trend. Albion #1 is due from DC in June and is already available to pre-order from our Most Excellent comics team. And just look at those lovely Dave Gibbons covers…