Advance Preview: What If ‘2000 AD’ Had Merged With ‘Battle Action’? – Find Out In September!

Classic team-ups, Dreddverse versions of classic Battle Action strips, from a creative team including Kenneth Niemand, Alex de Campi, Chris Weston, and Staz Johnson, all featured in a crossover between 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine.

We’ve reported on this before, but now it’s even bigger – following on from The Darkest Judge crossover between 2000 AD and the Megazine, the crossover ‘What If’ will begin in 2000 AD Prog #2350 and end in Judge Dredd Megazine #460, both out on 20th September in the UK and 1 November in North America.

Back when Battle Picture Weekly and Action were two of Britain’s most groundbreaking comics, both radical shifts in how comics were made and enjoyed, with characters delighting young readers and horrifying certain sections of society – the one’s who’d be behind the book banning going on right now – the concept of “hatch, match and dispatch” was rife – when new comics would be launched, then merged into more successful titles. 2000 AD did this twice, with Starlord and Tornado launching and then merging into the Prog.

So, what if two of Britain’s most famous comic books had merged at the height of their popularity in the 1980s?

The answer gives us a 2000 AD featuring classic characters from the legendary Battle Action comic in a special 48-page issue of 2000 AD and a 132-page Megazine, with Judge Dredd taking on the anarchic kids of Kids Rule OK!

In addition, The line-up will include Alan Hebden and Carlos Ezquerra’s former enslaved gunslinger El Mestizo and laconic WWII officer Major Eazy, as well as deadly future sport Death Game 2049, daring Panzer officer Hellman of Hell Force, and Dredger getting the 2000 AD treatment in Prog #2350, whilst over in the Megazine, there’s Dreddworld reinventions of strips such as John Wagner and Mike Western’s tale of the Forgotten Army and Darkie’s Mob, and Tom Tully and Joe Colquhoun’s WW2 air ace Johnny Red.

“The history of comics on the UK’s newsstand is marked by the practice of merging titles, where two great anthologies combine. In the case of Starlord joining 2000 AD, it meant the Prog gained Strontium Dog and Ro-Busters. When Tornado’s Black Hawk joined the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic, it led to a radical reinvention of the strip.

Writer Ken Niemand suggested to me a special asking what would’ve happened if Battle Action merged with 2000 AD in the early eighties, with its war stories getting something of a science-fiction/fantasy makeover, and I couldn’t resist!” – Matt Smith, editor of 2000 AD

The crossover will be followed in 2000 AD Prog 2351 with another jumping-on point, featuring an all-new line-up including Poison, a new Judge Dredd story by Rob Williams and PJ Holden, more Feral & Foe by Dan Abnett and Richard Elson, the return of Helium by Ian Edginton and D’Israeli, plus a special one-off clash between two classic characters by Garth Ennis & Henry Flint.

(Death Game 2049 – art by Nick Dyer)