A lone astronaut is stranded on Mars with no hope of rescue and no means of communicating with Earth.

After a series of disasters and with his supplies nearly gone, he is completely alone on this alien world. No this is not the plotline of Ridley Scotts new blockbuster  “The Martian”, due for release later this month and based on the superb novel by Andy Weir, but the beginning sequence  of  Hal Starr , written and drawn by Sydney Jordan  for a Dutch publication EPPO  in 1988.  There is of course no suggestion of plagiarism  but it is interesting to note the similarities in the opening sequences of both stories, how both writers use the dramatic idea of one man completely alone  on an alien planet, except in  the Hal Starr story we soon discover that he is not alone. Hal Starr was reproduced in full ( coloured by John Ridgeway)  in “Spaceship Away magasine ( beginning in issue 8) and which is still widely available.  Skipper Prossit