Zenith

When we came home from Hong Kong in 1978, my brother and I carried on reading the Marvel titles that our nan had devotedly posted to us while we were away, but I also started buying 2000AD. 

Up until then, I think I'd read only American super-hero comics and I was joyfully surprised by the contrast provided by the British writers of this science fiction weekly. 'Judge Dredd', 'Strontium Dog', 'ABC Warriors', 'Mean Arena', 'Rogue Trooper' and even the surreal 'Nemesis' all had massive appeal for my teenage self. 

Two stories, though, particularly appealed to me: my great love, 'The Ballad of Halo Jones', of course, but also 'Zenith', written by Grant Morrison. This apparently immature and truculent but actually very smart and cool character was an immediate hit with me and I enjoyed the four phases of his adventures, which evolved nicely, without ever hitting any kind of plateau. 

Recently the first two phases have been re-published in (pricey) hardback editions, which I couldn't resist ordering and they arrived today. Even if the reasons are subtly different, I enjoyed reading the stories as much as I ever did but this set of panels took me by surprise. It must be years and years since I've seen them but they seemed astoundingly familiar. I can't think what I've seen over the years that has reminded me so much of these images: is it a Pink Floyd cover or something?

What was also rather sobering was the realisation that over the intervening thirty years, nothing has really changed. If anything, we're more aware of the environmental issues than we were then. At the time I was sure something would be done to tackle these burgeoning problems but now I'm not so sure. I think it will take an environmental catastrophe, such as the impending calamity in Florida, to make people sit up. And even then they'll just be demanding to know why no one did anything about it. Alack, the human condition!