FS 26: DOESN’T FLY

PROG:55 –  Space Bug

Script: V Wernham

Art: Jose Luis Ferrer

Letters: Peter Knight

Plot: On a distant planet and after months of drilling Prospectors finally hit pay dirt – oil to replenish earth’s diminished resources.  As one of the men heads to the radio room to call in their claim he is bitten by a bug. It seems to have an immediate effect and he collapses. Meanwhile an alien craft has also hit the jackpot with its mining gear and they too begin to mine the resources.

Shock: The aliens in the craft are the bug that has bitten the miner in the radio room, they intend to fully pump his blood dry.

Thoughts: Its hard not to like this shock due largely to the lovely work of Jose Luis Ferrer and the silly old-world charm of ‘staking claims’ and other anachronistic nonsense. However it is an unoriginal script, recycling the story of FS 2 Food For Thought and, more importantly, one that doesn’t manage to hide its shock. The transition between the Prospector’s story and the switch to inside the Aliens ship needs to be more disjointed, leaving the reveal they are one and the same event to the end. Instead it is fairly impossible to not see that the Aliens are the ‘bug’ immediately and so spoil any shock. That flaw, which the mysterious writer Wernham certainly could have avoided, and the similarity to the old Shock aside it is a fun enough old school Shock and finishes with a great image of an oil-well being built on a human hand.

Shock’d?: Sadly not as much as the strip hopes as it is clear the bug and the aliens are one and the same immediately and with another page of the story to go.

FS 2: TRAWLING.

PROG 26: FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Script: Steve Moore

Art: Horacio Lalia

Letters: Jack Potter

Plot: An Atlantic Trawler is out catching fish when it’s inhabitants are teleported aboard an alien UFO

Shock : Just as the fishermen had viewed the fish as ‘brain food’ so to the aliens view the captain and his crew; munching down on them like tasty fish. 

Thoughts: Steve Moore follows up the first ever Future Shock with this second tale the very next prog, managing to be even less shocking and far more of a Terror Tale before its time. The story is notable for presenting both the twist (human fishermen are in turn alien ‘brain food’ as fish are to us) and the biggest dramatic moment – the abduction of the crew – on the first page. Everything plays out from there in a very straight forward fashion. Lalia, a key artist on the companion title Starlord, gives good squid-like aliens but is guilty of being a bit dull on the teleporters – which look exactly like they come from the Starship Enterprise. The most shocking thing about the tale is that it is one-and done in 10 panels – 2000AD as efficient as ever in telling a story.

Shock’d? Seeing as the twist and the enemy are both flagged  from the off the whole story runs a very predictable course. The impact of the ‘terror’ ending is also diminished by being restricted to a half-page which hinders its visual impact.