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31st
May 03 |
 While
it’s nice to read that Johnny Alpha and his speech-impaired buddy Wulf are
coming back to 2000 AD, I just can't help wishing that Johnny and Wulf hadn't
been killed all those years ago.
I know that sometimes
it seems like all fictional heroes – superheroes in particular – have
all died dozens of times, and it never did any of them any real harm, but deaths
in 2000 AD have been pretty few, Johnny and Wulf being the only two (a) I can
think of off the top of my head and (b) I care about.
And it’s
not like Johnny Alpha "pretend" died, like Superman did. Alpha really
did die – all the adventures that have appeared since "The Final
Solution" in prog 687 have been set before his death.
Is it a good thing
that there’s a new Alpha adventure on the way? Yes, because we get to see
more of him. No, because it invalidates a very powerful moment in 2000 AD history.
And no again, because there can be no real sense of peril in his latest adventures;
we knew he wasn’t going to die in "Roadhouse", and we know he’s
not going to die in "The Tax Dodge".
 I
was kind of upset when Johnny snuffed it (less so when Wulf died; much as I liked
him, I just couldn’t take him seriously, what with all those references
to cucumbers and suchlike – maybe I just have a dirty mind), but it was
a good ending. Johnny went out in a blaze of glory, and it really was powerful
stuff.
Why it was
done, I don’t know. Perhaps Johnny’s popularity was waning, and they
didn’t want him to go the way of Dan Dare and just disappear in the middle
of a story. Or perhaps Tharg and his droids had simply grown tired of the character.
Or perhaps [cynic mode on] it was merely a gimmick to boost sales [cynic mode
off].
Whatever the reason,
Johnny's dead and there’s no getting around it...
...Or is there?
We can’t pretend that "The Final Solution" never happened: It
was written by Alan Grant and, while he may not have been Johnny Alpha’s
creator, his contributions to the character and series were immense. Therefore,
when he decided to kill Alpha, this wasn’t another, lesser writer mucking
about with someone else’s character.
 A
couple of years back John Wagner gave us a Strontium Dog story that suggested
that Alpha’s adventures with Wulf and the Gronk were apocryphal. This is
a fairly neat way to restore the character, but it does invalidate almost all
of Alpha's appearances in Starlord and 2000 AD: if those adventures weren’t
"real", then his death didn’t mean anything. The same problem
exists if Mr. Wagner keeps going back to tell us "missing" stories.
So what we need
here is a way to bring Johnny Alpha back while adhering as close as possible to
the established continuity.
And the nominations
are...
- A Clone
Johnny Alpha didn’t die in "The Final Solution" – that was
a clone. The real Alpha has been in a cocoon at the bottom of the ocean for the
past few years. Or something.
- Snatched from
Time
Microseconds before Johnny was killed by the flying beastie, he activated one
of those time drogue thingies of his and it only looked like he'd been
killed.
- Another Clone
Johnny really was killed, but someone came along later with a dustpan and
brush and swept up enough DNA material to make a clone of him. The rapid aging
of the clone halts when he reaches about the age Johnny was when he died (this
worked for Spock), and somehow the clone retains Johnny's memories (this one worked
for Ripley).
- Johnny Alpha
Junior
Johnny died, but somewhere along the way he had a kid. Perhaps with another mutant.
Durham Red, for example. That'd be cool! A mutant with both their powers!
And, hopefully, someone else's hair.
- Parallel Universe
The Johnny we saw killed was from a parallel universe. Or, if it's easier, the
Johnny we’re seeing now is from a parallel universe. This is like having
an infinite number of "Get out of jail free" cards: you can kill your
character a bazillion times and still have him coming back for more!
- Reconstructed
by Aliens
In the far future aliens have heard tales of the legendary bounty hunter, so they
reconstruct him – and rebuild his memories – so that they can recruit
him to track down some really, really bad guy. After he succeeds, they send him
back to his own time. And they reconstruct Wulf while they’re at it, but
they leave the Gronk stuffed on someone's mantelpiece.
- A Robot
Yes, Johnny was – for some reason – replaced by a life-like robot
shortly before "The Final Solution". The real Johnny Alpha has been
locked away in a dungeon somewhere, but is rescued by Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper
and Sam Slade, who have all been recruited from various time zones to battle some
nefarious villain who wants to take over the galaxy. Once Alpha has been rescued,
the heroes discover that the mysterious person who recruited them is none other
than Dan Dare, who – using his Cosmic Claw – has been able to roll
back the Duvet of Time and straighten out the kinks in the Electric Underblanket
of Causality, thereby enabling the heroes to battle the bad guy and save the universe!
Ta daa!
Or...
 Well,
maybe once the decision has been made to kill off a character, he should be left
to rest in peace. That would be a shame, because he was a damn good character,
and leaving him dead prevents new readers from getting to know him.
However, I’d
rather that new readers could get to know Alpha as we long-time established readers
knew him, back before prog 687, when we were innocent enough to believe that Johnny
Alpha fought on because of his tenacity, not merely because The Powers that Be
were back-pedalling like crazy in order to rectify a very big mistake.
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