26 March 2017

Part three of Sydney’s take on the Dan Dare story which he began in the “Planet on Sunday ” newspaper

The Mekon , who had been lurking in the outer Solar system ever since Xel’s failed invasion of Earth , and anxious not to risk his very diminished forces on an all out assault upon Venus, sought some new strategy to augment his strength.   With this in view he attempted to make contact with the entity in the Saturnian system in the hope of somehow subverting its vast power for his own ends. It had the ability to communicate with biological life forms by using other such forms which it had already subjugated; in this case those few surviving Saturnians of sufficiently high intellect, not to have been driven mad by its presence. In Dan’s case it had utilized the minerals of one of the Saturnian moons to construct a kind of vast Golem form with which to reveal itself to him. The Mekon, whose huge brain was able to resist subjugation and madness , attempted to turn the entity to his own purposes. He learned the valuable information that the entity needed a temperate and moist climate to thrive optimally and that too high a temperature would destroy it. The, entity, however, aware of the machinations and duplicity of the Mekon and the potential danger that he posed , subjugated his Treen underlings to its own will, and incarcerated their master in the remnant of the Saturnian fleet that was now, nothing but an extention of itself.

 

One of the Mekon’s cruisers, however, had escaped the enthrallment and sped back to the inner Solar system, where it was eventually intercepted by Sondar’s ships. A meeting was held between Treens, Therons and Earth in an attempt to form a united strategy against the entity. Dan had recovered sufficiently now, to be able to remember his awful encounter with it and to realise and reveal its threat to the inner Solar system. The Mekon’s escaped crew also informed the gathering that their master had told them before their escape that he had learned of the entity’s weakness. It was therefore decided to send a joint Spacefleet/Venusian  expedition out to Saturn space headed by Dare with the objective of rescuing the Mekon  as he probably held the key to the entity’s destruction.

Skipper Prossitt

12 March 2017

Our editor , William Rudling, has proposed that the club might issue a colourised version of one or more of the Hawke stories. While the strips have indeed been colourised in various versions in the past, notably in Italian editions, none have been done with the subtlety and depth that the artwork in the strips deserves.

To this end our editor has recruited the talents of one of our leading comic strip artists who has provided some sample illustrations of what we might expect to get with a colorised story. The artist has worked closely with Sydney in order to achieve the subtle colour palette that will fit in seamlessly with the existing artwork.

Our editor is keen to know if club members would be interested in owning colour versions of the Jeff Hawke stories which were done to this quality. If you are interested please contact him at the email address on this website. Skipper Prossitt