First Prog: 27
Final Prog: 551
Total appearances: 176
including his epics
from StarLord and Tornado, but not his works
from Battle or the
Eagle.
Creator credits:
Death Planet; Mind
Wars; Holocaust!; The Angry Planet; Meltdown Man; The Amazing Maze Dumoir
Trademark crazy space operatics. Art by Ian Gibson |
Who could forget Ding Dong Dooley? Art by Massimo Belardinelli |
Other writing credits:
MACH One
Mean Team
Lots and lots of
one-off twisty tales
Notable character creations:
Lorna Varn (well I
remember her)
Arlen and Ardeni
Lakam, the telepathic twins from Mind
Wars
Nick Stone and the yugees from Meltdown Man
Maze Dumoir (although she was perhaps a bit too amazing for her own good)
Nick Stone and the yugees from Meltdown Man
Maze Dumoir (although she was perhaps a bit too amazing for her own good)
Dare I say Bloo Baloo?
Notable characteristics:
Fun. Epic storylines.
Powerful women - in both the literal sense of wielding lots of power, but also
the more nebulous/contentious sense of meaning prominent female characters who
push forward a storyline and generally don’t take any guff from the other
characters. Embracing of Sci-Fi staple ideas and running with them. Deeply
unpretentious.
Space ladies with guns Art by Lopez |
On Alan:
Hebden was one of the
first of a new wave of writers who became a 2000AD regular after the first crop
of stories started to come to an end. My UK comics chronology is not too hot,
but I’m pretty sure Hebden was already a regular writer for a bunch of war
comics, most notably creating Major Eazy
and El Mestizo with Carlos Ezquerra.*
Would you trust this woman? Art by Lopez |
Like almost every new
writer since, Hebden’s first job was a couple of Future Shocks (some of the first ever, in fact).
Unlike almost every new writer since, he then immediately moved into a couple of
full series. (Of course, it’s not so unusual since he’d established credentials
on other comics). Running pretty much concurrently was the much-maligned Death Planet in 2000AD, and the
almost-forgotten Mind Wars and Holocaust in Star Lord.
Death Planet used to
be Tharg’s go-to series for shame, at least until the Space Girls.
Miraculously, it has actually been reprinted twice since then, and no longer
seems to be quite so hated. It is
clunky, to be sure, and possibly suffers from packing too much into a mere 9
parts. I also wonder if it suffers from being in the wrong medium – its set up
of a ragtag bunch of naïve heroes up against an evil slaver and her empire is
more the makings of a cult TV show than a short comic.
But it will forever be
notable, surely, for being the first time that 2000AD passed the Bechdel
Test.**
Two women, talking to each other, not about a man. Never mind the genre cliches. Art by Lopez |
In fact, this wasn’t
even Hebden’s first time pushing women protagonists. Several Progs earlier, he
scripted MACH woman, about, you guessed it, a woman with compu-puncture hyper-powers. (Sadly
she wasn’t dubbed WACH). Even more unusual than that, the woman remains a hero
throughout, and does not turn out to be a traitor in the final act, as with
basically every other female in 2000AD (see Strontium
Dog and Rogue Trooper for
plentiful examples).
Meet Agent Tanya: Russian Spy, or hero in waiting? Art by Lozano/Canos |
Again on the powerful
women theme, Arlen Lakam from the 22-part mega-epic Mind Wars is a psychic with enough power to destroy the Galaxy.
This is a series that is crying out for a reprint (assuming the rights are
available). It’s pretty much Star Wars
(right down to the title!) but with both twins using their psychic powers to
get in and out of trouble with the evil empire / the heroic rebellion. With
spaceships, laser battles, and manly men of dubious morals.
Don't mess with the Lakam twins Art by Jesus Redondo |
An act of betrayal! Art by Jesus Redondo |
Holocaust, also in Star Lord, was a more down to Earth tale of alien invasion,
very much in the Hebden mode of breakneck plotting, cliffhangers galore, and
stakes both so high and so low they end up being fun rather than tense.
Don't worry, Hebden sometimes follows the formula of 'nice woman turns out to be evil', too. Art by Horacio Lalia |
I only
wish I had the opportunity to read Hebden’s Mars colony epic The Angry Planet, which ran in Tornado
soon after Mind Wars wrapped up.
The ne plus ultra*** of all this epic sci-fi
storytelling is Hebden’s lasting masterpiece, Meltdown Man. I wasn’t old
enough to read 2000AD at the time, but I can only imagine what it must have felt
like to see a story unfold that literally saw a new episode each week for an
entire year. A story, unlike Dredd or
Rogue Trooper or even Nemesis the Warlock that was always
building up to a climax, rather than telling one-off tales within a certain
setting. Other stories have had more episodes, but none has had quite the epic,
continuous narrative feel as this. It’s the DVD box set equivalent for 1982.
World-building, Hebden style. Meet hero Nick Stone, villain Leeshar, and the Yujees caught in the middle. Art by Massimo Belardinelli |
That's what I call a one-liner. Art by Belardinelli |
And he is, too. Art still by Belardinelli |
It’s especially
impressive when you remember that Hebden was almost certainly making the whole
thing up episode by episode as he went along, in the usual style of the time.
Presumably he had an end in mind (good guy wins, bad guys loses, with a twist
of some kind), but it’s all so deliciously coherent, with an endless stream of
fun, Belardinelli-designed characters along the way. Meltdown Man is not complicated, but it’s a fully realised world
with well-drawn characters, clear motivations, with plenty of jokes and
surprises along the way. Basically, the sort of straight forward good
storytelling that just works.
From then on, Hebden
was most often seen in the credits box for a seemingly inexhaustible supply of Future Shocks, Time Twisters and other one offs – and indeed the occasional
2-offs. As ever, it's mostly unpretentious, generally quite clever, and often with some arresting images and ideas along the way...
Art by Zacarra |
Art by John Higgins |
Hebden casually invents Wikipedia! Art by Cliff Robinson |
A good old fashioned crotchety mad scientist Art by Jesus Redondo |
The Amazing Maze Dumoir was a
fun spy caper that is a little too proud of itself for having the
hyper-competent James Bond type be a woman, not a man.
'Holy Nova' wins you a shot if you're playing a Hebden drinking game. Art by Ian Gibson |
The rather excellent Psi-Testers, by contrast, was a dark
tale of warring telepaths that may or may not owe a debt to Scanners.
A delightful misfit hero Art by Mike Dorey (an unsung hero if ever there was one...) |
Hebden’s final effort
for the Prog was book 2 of the Mean Team,
in which the death-sports team have a fantasy adventure. Rather like how the Hunger Games is just less fun to read
when the characters are not actually participating in a game, the Mean Team just isn’t as good outside of
the Death Bowl. There’s no less imagination from Hebden, mind, and as always
plenty of incident, cliffhangers and new characters thrown in. And plenty of
violence. Let down by a weird double-ending that was both triumphant and
nihilistic at the same time, which I suppose is different!
"Now it's your turn, evil incarnate!" Art by Massimo Belardinelli |
The mega-sad ending... |
I suspect the real
problem was that the story ran at a time when 2000AD was rapidly catering to an
audience that had grown up with the comic. Hebden, like Gerry Finley-Day before
him, found himself off Tharg’s rota, but with steady work on 2000 AD’s younger
sibling, the Eagle. Perhaps the mass-killing in the last panel was a heartfelt
two finger salute to Tharg?
Art by Jesus Redondo |
More on Alan Hebden:
A delightful review of
Mind Wars.
Embarrassingly, this is the first time I've encountered the UK Comics Wikia. I expect it has entries for everyone on this blog!
Personal favourites:
MACH One: Mach woman
Death Planet (I didn’t say it was that good,
but for some reason I like it anyway)
Mind Wars
The Angry Planet (what I’ve read of it, anyway)
Meltdown Man
Psi Testers
*Lovingly homaged by
Gordon Rennie (& Ezquerra again) for the Megazine many years later.
***Hebden may not be
pretentious, but that’s not going to stop me from using Latin phrases when I
want to.
Thanks for the plug. I also loved this article on Alan Hebden. I didn't realise he was behind so many stories I loved growing up.
ReplyDeleteI never did find out how Angry Planet ended - I remember the episode where the heroes were being hunted by robot bloodhounds though.
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ReplyDeleteOne day I will track down and read Angry Planet! One day...
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