By: Duncan Lunan

Duncan Lunan — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 08:12:36 +0000

One requirement for the new strip, specified by Frank Hampson’s family, was that it had to be compatible with Frank Hampson’s version of Dan Dare rather than the later ones. Sydney Jordan commissioned me to research the Hampson version and I discovered there was a convenient gap at the end of ‘The Ship That Lived’, where the Mekon had been defeated but Earth was virtually depopulated, and the start of the next story where everything is all right again. I suggested that Dare might have had a nervous breakdown due to post-combat trauma, thanks to his near-death in an escape capsule, and perhaps brought on by discovering what the Mekon would have done to his family. His recovery would allow time to bring readers up to speed on the back-story and what was now happening. Sydney commissioned me to write what would have been the second story, about an orbital debris-collecting system which was now stuffed with weapons and unexploded ordnance from the battle in which the Mekon had conquered Earth – but alas, it was never to be.

Comments on: ” Can you tell me how old Dan might have done it” – Preview

By: Duncan Lunan