Preview: ‘Robo-Hunter: Planet Of The Robots’ Get S-L-A-Y-E-D Once More!

by Richard Bruton

More classic 2000 AD reprints coming at you now – this time it’s time to get robo-hunting with Sam Slade, Robo-Hunter!

We’re going right back to early 2000 AD here, with Sam Slade‘s very first adventures, as written by John Wagner and Alan Grant and drawn by first Jose Ferrer and then Ian Gibson, the artist who would very quickly make the character his own.

This collection goes the slightly unusual route of not reprinting the original b&w Robo-Hunter tales but instead they go with the Eagle Comics five-issue colour series from 1984, with Gibson colouring his own work.

Anyway, if you didn’t already know, Robo-Hunter starred Sam Slade, a human bounty hunter specialising in tracking down rogue robots, missing meks, and crazy cyborgs. Complete with his dumb-as-nails understudy Hoagy and his robotic cigar Stogie, his comedy-action adventures began in 1978 in 2000 AD Prog 76.

Like Sam says in that very first panel: “‘The name’s Slade, Sam Slade! That’s S-L-A-Y-E-D to you!”

The laconic, cigar-smoking bounty hunter’s been one of the best robo-hunters for 40 years by this stage, but now he faces an entire planet of robots – could this be even more than Sam can deal with?

So he’s off to Verdus, a suitable planet for Earth colonisation in the Crab Nebula. Problem is, the colonists who were sent there haven’t been heard from and the Space Commission believe that robots have taken control of the planet. So, they call in the best robo-tective in the business – Sam Slade!

It really is classic 2000 AD and classic adventure from the incredible team of Wagner/Grant and Gibson – a love letter to noir detective tales, full of dry humour, ridiculous situations, and plenty of action.