2000 AD and Tornado #167
Prog 167 is a dual landmark in British comics history: it delivers an installment of 'The Judge Child Quest,' the galaxy-spanning Dredd mega-epic that introduced Judge Hershey — who would grow into one of the strip's most important long-running characters — and Judge Lopez, whose death during the mission carries real narrative weight. More significantly, the issue also houses 'Terror Tube,' the six-page debut of both Nemesis the Warlock and his arch-nemesis Torquemada, a creation that would become one of 2000 AD's defining series. The Nemesis strip planted the seeds of a sustained, politically charged science-fantasy saga that used the trappings of far-future fascism and xenophobia to interrogate real-world bigotry, and it introduced Kevin O'Neill's grotesquely imaginative visual language to a whole generation of British readers.
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Writer Pat Mills and artist Kevin O'Neill conceived 'Terror Tube' as the inaugural entry in a short-lived editorial experiment called 'Comic Rock,' a planned series of standalone stories each loosely inspired by a popular song — in this case The Jam's 'Going Underground.' Mills has stated that the conceptual DNA of the strip owed more to the European comics magazine Metal Hurlant and the dense one-off work of French artist Caza than to any British or American tradition, and he used the 'Comic Rock' framing partly as cover to pursue that experimental approach away from standard editorial scrutiny. The story's unexpected popularity with readers prompted Mills and O'Neill to develop a follow-up and, eventually, the full ongoing Nemesis the Warlock series beginning in Prog 222 in 1981. Meanwhile, the Judge Dredd portion of Prog 167 was scripted by John Wagner and marked one of the early episodes of 'The Judge Child Quest' that first featured Alan Grant as co-scripter, with art rotating across Brian Bolland, Ron Smith, and Mike McMahon.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Nemesis the Warlock and Torquemada, in the six-page story 'Comic Rock: Terror Tube,' written by Pat Mills and drawn by Kevin O'Neill, lettered by Steve Potter.
- In his debut, Nemesis is never physically seen — only the exterior of his organic spacecraft, the Blitzspear, is shown; readers would not see the character himself until the 1981 Sci-Fi Special.
- Torquemada is introduced in this issue merely as 'Chief of the Tube Police' on the planet Termight; his role as Grand Master of a genocidal interstellar empire was only established when the full series launched.
- 'Terror Tube' was the first entry in a planned 'Comic Rock' anthology concept inspired by rock music; the only other story produced under that banner was 'Killer Watt' (Progs 178–179), also by Mills and O'Neill.
- The issue also contains an episode of 'The Judge Child Quest' (Progs 156–181), the 26-chapter Judge Dredd mega-epic written by John Wagner (with Alan Grant beginning his co-writing tenure), featuring Judge Hershey and Judge Lopez — both making appearances during this story arc that began in Prog 156.
- Judge Hershey's introduction across the Judge Child Quest arc marks her first appearance in 2000 AD; she would eventually become Chief Judge and one of the most enduring figures in the Dredd mythos.
- Judge Lopez, also introduced during the Judge Child Quest, dies over the course of the mission after consuming Oracle Spice, giving his story arc a tragic arc across the run.
- 'Terror Tube' has been reprinted multiple times, including in Titan's Nemesis the Warlock: Death to All Aliens, Rebellion's Nemesis the Warlock Volume 1 (2007), and the large-format Definitive Edition Volume 1 (2023).