animation and revived in the year 2177. Several artists were tried out before Mills settled on Italian artist Massimo Belardinelli, whose imaginative, hallucinatory work was fantastic at visualising aliens, although perhaps less satisfying on the hero himself. The scripts were endlessly rewritten in an attempt to make the series work, but few Dan Dare fans remember this version of the character fondly. Belardinelli and Gibbons later switched strips, with Gibbons drawing Dan Dare and Belardinelli drawing the Harlem Heroes sequel Inferno. When Gibbons took over Dan Dare in prog 28 the strip was refashioned as a Star Trek-style space opera. Mills had also created Harlem Heroes, about the future sport of aeroball, a futuristic, violent version of basketball with jet-packs. Similar future sport series had been a fixture of Action, and the similarly themed film Rollerball had been released the previous year. Wanting to give the new comic a distinctive look, Mills wanted to use European artists, but the work turned in on Harlem Heroes by Trigo was disappointing. Veteran British artists Ron Turner and Barrie Mitchell were tried out, but the newcomer Dave Gibbons won the editor over with his dynamic, American-influenced drawings and got the job. Mills wrote the first five episodes before handing the strip to Roy of the Rovers writer Tom Tully. The other opening strips were M.A.C.H. 1, a super-powered secret agent inspired by The Six Million Dollar Man; Invasion!, about a "Volgan" (thinly disguised and originally billed as Soviet, but changed before printing to a "neutral" antagonist) invasion of the United Kingdom opposed by tough London lorry driver turned guerrilla fighter Bill Savage; and Flesh, a strip about time-travelling cowboys farming dinosaurs for their meat. After 16 issues, Mills quit as editor and handed the reins to Kelvin Gosnell, whose idea the comic had been in the first place. Gosnell also appeared as the fall guy in the Tharg the Mighty comedy photostrips that were a feature of the comic in its early years. Early years Wagner returned to write Judge Dredd, starting in prog 9. His "Robot Wars" storyline was drawn by a rotating team of artists, including McMahon, Ezquerra, Turner and Ian Gibson, and marked the point where Dredd became the most popular character in the comic, a position he has rarely relinquished. Dredd's city, which now covered most of the east coast of North America, became known as Mega-City One. Dredd