Robo-Hunter

Robo-Hunter is a recurring strip in the British Comic 2000 AD, initially written by John Wagner and illustrated by Ian Gibson. The series starred Sam Slade, a laconic, ageing, cigar-smoking bounty hunter of robots that have gone renegade. Though action orientated, the series was noted for its humorous tone.

History and overview

The character first appeared in 1978. José Ferrer was the original artist, but the editorial team were not happy with his work and quickly replaced him with Ian Gibson, who redrew parts of Ferrer's episodes before taking over himself.

In the first storyline, "Verdus" (also known as "The Robot Planet"), Slade is dispatched to a distant colony planet to solve the mystery of its vanished colonists. An act of sabotage on his space craft causes time dilation during the trip, meaning that Slade arrives at the planet restored to his early 20s while the ship's pilot, Kidd, is now a cynical talking baby. The colony world is populated entirely by robots. These robots, charged with terraforming the planet and preparing it for colonization, have been programmed by their initial creator, a wood-burning droid called Smokin' Joe, to believe that "humans are superior to robots in every way". By the time the first colonists arrive, however, the robots' strength and technology is so far advanced that this thesis no longer holds true, thus the Verdus robots deny the humanity of their masters. Colonists are imprisoned as "simulated humans" on arrival.