More Definitive 2000 AD Collections On The Horizon As The Definitive ‘Sláine’ Begins In April 2025

by Richard Bruton

Following the huge success of 2000 AD’s The Definitive Nemesis The Warlock, it’s time for another classic character to get the definitive treatment – Sláine!

The creation of Pat Mills and Angie Kincaid, the first volume of Sláine: The Definitive Edition comes out in April 2025, with art from Kincaid, Massimo Belardinelli, and Mick McMahon. It will be the first of three of these oversized volumes collecting every ‘Sláine’ story up to ‘The Horned God’, which came out in a newly-restored edition earlier this year.

It’s one of the jewels in 2000 AD’s library, the legendary saga of the warrior Sláine Mac Roth of the Sessair tribe, mixing sword and sorcery action with Celtic mythology and folklore to produce something unique, as vital now as when it was first published in 1983.

It’s Sláine doing plenty of swinging his legendary axe Brain-biter, with dwarf sidekick, Ukko, at his side, travelling Tir-Nan-Og – ‘The Land of the Young’ – an ancient and magical realm marred by warring tribes and ruled by merciless gods.

Here’s what 2000 AD have to say about it…

“In the first Definitive Edition you’ll meet a young, reckless and angry Sláine as he lives in exile, travelling with his repellent dwarf companion, Ukko. The series quickly introduces readers to the customs and wonders of his world and the horrors, like the Sloughs: sinister magicians who worship death and destruction and can raise armies of the dead to do their dark bidding…”

Interestingly, this three volume set collects everything up to ‘The Horned God’, which got its own newly restored edition earlier in 2024. And frankly, that’s exactly as it should be. The saga ended with ‘The Horned God’, all the excellent adventures of the barbarian, with all that incredible art from Kincaid, Belardinelli and McMahon in this first volume to be followed by work from Glenn Fabry, David Pugh, Bryan Talbot, Mike Collins and Mark Farmer, culminating in Simon Bisley’s career-high painted work in ‘The Horned God’. Not that the art in the volumes that followed (from the likes of Greg Staples, Dermot Power, Clint Langley, Simon Davis, and more) wasn’t excellent – but the tale was told and every story that followed ‘The Horned God’ was pretty superfluous, just rehashing everything with increasingly diminishing returns. But these early stories… oh boy, just fabulous.

The first 256-page volume will be published in large-format size measuring 276 × 210 mm in paperback, on sale from 8th April 2025. There will also be a limited embossed hardcover edition, available from the 2000 AD webshop and comic shops through Diamond