A DARING REVIVAL

Writer Peter Milligan previews space hyperhero Dan Dare’s explosive return to comics

as british comic book characters go, they don’t come more iconic than Dan Dare. Now Frank Hampson’s pilot of the future is back in a new series from Titan Comics – his first adventure in almost a decade.

“It’s difficult to say when I first encountered Dan,” muses Peter Milligan, the writer tasked with the revival alongside artist Albert Fouche. “He always seemed to be there. Even as a kid I was aware I was looking at a time piece, but I loved the art and the weird planets. Even though we might be on Jupiter the stories still had a Britishness about them, as though Planet X with its plant monsters was closer to home than, say, the America of Superman.”

The new series finds Sol System at peace, and Dan bored out of his skull – until a mysterious alien ship rocks up and destroys one of the moons of Saturn. To save the day, however, Dare may have to put his trust in his oldest enemy – the Mekon!

Fouche is, says Milligan, the ideal artist for the 2017 series. “He totally captures the characters and he has a great sense of ‘space’. He’s perfect.”

Dan Dare has gone through various guises over the years. After the original Eagle strips, which ran from 1950 to 1967, the character moved to 2000 AD. Most recently, Virgin Comics revived the strip from 2007-2008.

Milligan and Fouche looked back at the old comics, but in the end elected to stay faithful to the hero that fans know and love, rather than try to dramatically reinvent him. “I’ve tried to honour the original rather than break him into pieces and rebuild him,” explains Milligan. “Our new Dan is a modern man, with modern problems, but there remains at his core a sense of decency.”

Dan Dare #1 is on sale from 11 October from Titan Comics.