Beyond 2000.
We have always lived in anticipation of this year

There are many things more important in all our lives than the year 2000, but none the less it has always held a fascination and a promise for us all. It has always been the year of the future. The first generation to realise that it might live to see 2000 must have truly believed the year would bring miracles. In the 1950s, it meant flying cars and robot maids. In every decade that followed, the promise changed a little, but it always remained the future.

Now we're here. The "future" we're living in is certainly a different and interesting place, and a lot of things that would seem miraculous to someone in the 1950s have certainly come to pass, but let's be honest; the future doesn't match the picture in the brochure.

This month, PopImage's survey of the great standards of comic book narrative looks at perhaps the greatest fantasy of them all; the future.

2000AD - In 1977, the year Thatcher came to power, British science-fiction writers had some pretty bleak ideas about what the future would look like. London-based Fleetway Comics created a science fiction magazine that year to complement its line of combat and action titles. The magazine was 2000AD, and it still survives to this day. Perhaps back then they never believed it would last this long. 2000AD is an anthology work, and as such it has never limited itself to one vision of the future. STRONTIUM DOG, INVASION, NIKOLAI DANTE and many others have all presented their own compelling visions. Still, its most famous and well-developed tomorrow must surely be the one presented in JUDGE DREDD. In Dredd's era - the 23rd century - the cities of America have sprawled so wide and climbed so high that they have become MegaCities, and the only way to keep the peace in these huge metropolises is to enforce totalitarian police rule. Like any future, the one displayed in 2000AD belonged distinctly to its own era. It was a Thatcherite future. JUDGE DREDD retains its position as a comic book classic, but the popularity of both the strip and its parent magazine has waned as time moved on. Now, perhaps thankfully, Dredd's future belongs in the past.

BUCK ROGERS - Originating in a 1928 AMAZING STORIES adaptation of a Philip Francis Nowlan novel, Anthony 'Buck' Rogers was the first American science fiction hero. Buck was a 20th century military pilot suspended in radioactive gas in a collapsed mine for 500 years. He awoke in the 25th century, and fast adapted to his 'new world' by becaming a military hero in the struggle against the marauding Mongol forces. A valiant warrior and great liberator, Buck's popularity in the uncertain years between the wars was no surprise. The syndicated newspaper strip lasted an astonishing thirty-eight years, and gained popularity all over the world. It even led to some notable imitations, including FLASH GORDON and BRICK BRADFORD. Perhaps it even inspired America to be the first country to put a man on the moon.

FUTUROPOLIS - The premise of French science-fiction classic FUTUROPOLIS may conjure echoes for fans of LOGAN'S RUN. The future imagined by Rene Pellos' in the pages of JUNIOR magazine was divided between a soulless underground dominated by science and technology, and a savage world above ground filled with mutants and primitives. A battle ensued between the two worlds to see which way of life would emerge triumphant, with Maia and Rao - two agents of the underground society sent to investigate the world above ground - at the centre of the story. Groundbreaking and dramatic, the FUTUROPOLIS series dealt with the now familiar sci-fi territory of science versus nature, and served as an inspiration to following generations. The 'savages' win, incidentally.

DAN DARE - The founders of 2000AD have said their invention of Judge Dredd was in part a deliberate rebuttal of that other great British comic book science fiction hero, Daniel McGregor Dare, Pilot of the Future. Dredd and Dare were stablemates in 2000AD's early days, and their coexistence might be regarded as a passing of the torch from one tradition to the next. Clean cut, upper-class and impeccably educated (Cambridge and Harvard, don't-you-know?), Dan Dare was a very English interpretation of the Buck Rogers model. Dare's future was also a great deal more modestly placed than Buck's. His adventures began in the far-flung future year of 1996, which must have seemed a likely bet when the character first appeared in EAGLE magazine in 1950. At least his adversaries - the Mekon ad his Venusian hordes - were a suitably daunting threat, giving plenty of opportunity for old fashioned dogged bravado and what-ho endeavours. Dan Dare was as close the British military ideal as Buck Rogers was to the American.

MOEBIUS - Moebius is not a vision of the future, but a visionary. Born in France in 1938 - a year after FUTUROPOLIS began - Jean Giraud, aka Moebius, grew up to become one of the greatest artists in comics. His fantastic and original futurescapes in stories such as ARZACH, THE INCAL and THE AIRTIGHT GARAGE set the standard for other artists to aspire to. His stories appeared largely in the famed anthology magazine METAL HURLANT, and came before a new audience in the American version, HEAVY METAL. Giraud's spectacular sense of design led to demand beyond the comics industry, and will be familiar to many from such films as ALIEN, THE FIFTH ELEMENT, BLADE RUNNER, and the fondly remembered TRON. Our modern concept of 'the future' may owe a great deal to this one man.

DAYS OF FUTURE PAST - Though the golden age of Chris Claremont's X-MEN stories were very much centred on contemporary concerns, one of his great classics is the "Days of Future Past" storyline, which, like all the best future tales, took those contemporary concerns and spun them off into a possible tomorrow. "Days of Future Past" dealt with the notion that fear of difference would lead to the creation of a fascistic America where monstrous robot Sentinels patrolled the nation, and mutants were executed on the streets or interned into prison camps. The story eventually brought the character of Rachel Summers from the future into the past, and was popular enough to ensure imitation. The character of Bishop came from a little further into the future - a time when mutants and humans lived in uneasy alliance - and Cable was raised a thousand years hence, in a feudal world dominated by mutant overlords. The original story has thus sadly become diluted and overcomplicated - a testament to its own influence.

THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS - One of the great superhero works of recent years, Frank Miller's DARK KNIGHT followed the example of "Days of Future Past" by imagining the heroes - in this case Batman and Robin - transplanted to a near-future dystopia. In doing so, the might of the hero was broken, for he had not managed to save the world, and the story took on an immediate sense of pathos and gravity. The degenerate and disintegrating urban fantasy of DARK KNIGHT was a popular late 20th century antidote to the ultragloss chrome-plated imaginings that had held sway for so long. As a vision of the future, DARK KNIGHT went a long way towards shaking up the comics industry of the then-present day.

MARVEL 2099 - In retrospect, DARK KNIGHT may have a lot to answer for. Not least of all, the recurring fascination superhero creators have for exploiting the near-future as a way of putting a new spin on old stories. The 2099 books from Marvel stand as one of the company's many monumental follies in its ongoing attempt to create a second line of books to run alongside its main line. It will probably be remembered alongside the likes of THE NEW UNIVERSE and, one might speculate, MC2. The basic idea was to take several of Marvel's contemporary heroes - the Hulk, Spider-Man, Punisher, the X-Men - and reinvent them a hundred years hence. Even with some strong creators involved, its demise always seemed inevitable. Its greatest strength was that, as with all futures, there seemed greater scope for exploring radical ideas, hence the line's most noteworthy storyline, in which Dr Doom conquered America.

TRANSMETROPOLITAN - One of the chief writers on the 2099 line would later make his name with a far more original take on tomorrow. Warren Ellis' TRANSMETROPOLITAN is set in an unnamed city at an unspecified point in America's future. It is the sole survivor of DC's aborted science-fiction line, HELIX, which suggests the market for science-fiction comics today is about as small as one would expect, given how few non-superhero science-fiction books appear on the shelves. The protagonist in TRANSMETROPOLITAN is outspoken and uncompromising journalist Spider Jerusalem, who guides us through a city that amplifies and satirises almost every aspect of modern life, including the media, religion, law, and most especially, politics and public apathy. TRANSMETROPOLITAN is nothing like Buck Rogers, but as an example of 'the future' as satirical comment, it must surely be the best since the early days of 2000AD.

THE FUTURE - Now, as we enter the comic industry's second century, the most pressing question for he future must surely be; what is ours? The popular consensus is that comics as an entertainment medium cannot thrive and grow as they currently are, and must either adapt or die. The future of the industry may lie with cheaper publishing, the Internet, new methods of marketing, or an answer no-one has yet foreseen. Famed 20th century actor and precognitive Criswell, star of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, NIGHT OF THE GHOULS and ORGY OF THE DEAD, confidently reminded us that no prophet ever spoke of any future beyond the year 1999. He himself believed the world would end in August of that year. He believed we would all be dead by now. He also believed the people of Pittsburgh would become cannibals, Mae West would be elected President, and the city of Denver would be turned into jelly by an extraterrestrial force. Prophecy is a notoriously tricky business. In fact, the lack of predictions beyond 1999 can mean only one thing; our future is a blank slate. What happens next - to the comics industry and to the world - is in our hands.

Next month: Beyond Death.

Andrew Wheeler is editorial consultant of PopImage

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