WRITER: JOHN WAGNER | ART: CARLOS EZQUERRA | PUBLISHER: REBELLION | FORMAT: HARDCOVER | RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 12TH

In some other world, 2000AD’s classic bounty hunter comic strip Strontium Dog is a well-loved TV show that evokes samurai and western themes with a sci-fi aesthetic. Sadly we aren’t in that timeline, instead, we have a wealth of Strontium Dog comics.

Strontium Dog – Search and Destroy brings together the strips from the comic Starlord, a short-lived science-fiction anthology comic book that was merged with 2000AD back in the day when merging comic book titles was still a thing. Strontium Dog is the futuristic story of Johnny Alpha, a Search/Destroy Agent for the Galactic Crime Commission. Johnny is a mutant and as such he’s not allowed to have a normal life; very few jobs are available, but hunting down criminals is allowed. S/D agents are nicknamed Strontium Dogs, after  the radioactive element.

Johnny has all sorts of cool futuristic weapons and mutant eyes that glow (and can also see through walls). He is assisted by Wulf Sternhammer, a strong and very large Viking of a man who fights villains with his enormous hammer. Mostly they go to colourful places and murder bad guys, occasionally taking in the sights before going on to the next mission. It’s essentially a series of short but sweet crime adventure stories. With a side-order of Johnny having to cope with bigots hating him because he’s a mutant.

As these are the early stories, you may expect it to be rough around the edges. Nothing could be further from the truth; Johnny and Wulf are fully formed as characters and pretty much the whole set-up is there. The broader story notes, such as the Search/Destroy base and the other agents came later. These strips are solely about Johnny, Wulf, and the friends they make on the way.

The biggest feature here is Carlos Ezquerra’s absolutely gorgeous art. It’s an early example of Carlos’s genius. Writer John Wagner has always been fond of creating weird monsters in his stories and Carlos excels at making odd ideas look utterly strange and surreal.

Some of the pages are in glorious full colour and it really enhances the art, it’s a pity that the other pages aren’t colourised, but then it is supposed to be a reprint rather than a remaster. The stories are fun and if you don’t know about this sci-fi bounty hunter and want to, then this is an excellent place to start.