Chris Stevens

Dave Harwood

2000AD Annual 1981

Aug 1980

Los Angeles 2180, and a massive earthquake hits!

Ro-Jaws and Hammer-Stein are first on the scene, sailing into the area. Once they land, they begin their search for survivors, and find a family trapped in collapsed tower block. Hammer-Stein hoists Ro-Jaws into the tower, and the ex-sewer robot helps the people to safety. After the humes are saved, Ro-Jaws goes back to help Lucifer, the family robot trapped under some rubble; unable to do anything, he gets Hammer-Stein up to help.

Hammer-Stein recognises Lucifer as one of his old army buddies, and gets straight down to the job at hand. Once the rubble is gone, they realise Lucifer's leg is mangled. Hammer-Stein levers the wreckage out of the way, allowing Ro-Jaws in to unscrew Lucifer's leg.

The Ro-Busters get Lucifer out of the building, and find him a new leg courtesy of a smashed robot in the street. Meanwhile, two old women try to make their escape on a bike, only to head straight for the water. Lucifer steps in and lassoes the humans, saving them, only to find they're less than grateful.

The rest of Ro-Busters arrive and they begin the search for survivors. Afterwards, the robots need a hard-earned rest, but their semi-human boss, Howard Quartz, refuses to give them time off. Noticing Lucifer's new leg, Quartz realises it belonged to one of his old robots, and so claims Lucifer under the laws of salvage.

At that moment, the two old women Lucifer saved burst into Quartz's office (one of which happens to be Quartz's Great Aunt Lizzie), telling him to let the old war droid do whatever he wants. As Lizzie berates her great nephew, Lucifer contemplates heading out to the mid-west to see his old colonel. Before that, however, he ushers everyone out of the office, leaving him alone with Quartz.

Soon, Lucifer comes out of the office, having hog-tied Quartz, and leads everyone off to get oiled.

COMMENTS:

A dull piece of annual filler that passes the time.

Alan Moore

Steve Dillon

2000AD Annual 1982

Aug 1981

A mysterious bald man stands watching the Ro-Busters building, unsure of how much time is passing. He is approached by a tramp brandishing a placard claiming the end of the world is nigh, who asks him about the fires of hell and damnation. As the tramp gets closer, he recognises the mysterious figure from the news: he's Bax The Burner.

Bax kills the man without a second thought and walks off toward the entrance to the Ro-Busters building, to meet the girl...

Across town, the fire brigade is fighting desperately to stop another fire - the sixteenth that night. Even with the assistance of Howard Quartz and Ro-Busters, these unnatural fires are proving impossible to quell. Almost every available robot at Quartz's disposal is out there fighting the fires; only two are still back at HQ: Ro-Jaws and Hammer-Stein.

The two robots are busy playing a few hands of poker with Miss Marilyn, who's beating them both. Hammer-Stein decides to open a window, not, as Ro-Jaws surmises, because of the smell, but because it's becoming quite hot in the room. No sooner has the window been opened than it explodes inwards, and Bax makes his grand entrance, to meet his true love, Marilyn. Both Ro-Jaws and Hammer-Stein try to stop him from taking her away, but he stops them with quick bursts of flame, and drags Marilyn outside.

Bax, it seems, is a mutant capable of shooting flames from his hands, and for a while, was locked up in the 'dangerous' ward of a hospital where Marilyn used to work. She was the only nurse to show him any kind of compassion, which Bax had come to see as a declaration of her love for him. As Marilyn tries to explain she was only doing her job, Bax just gets angrier and angrier, until Hammer-Stein steps forward to challenge him. The war robot is quickly dispatched, but it allows Ro-Jaws to grab Marilyn and make a run for it.

They hide behind some crates, but Ro-Jaws makes the mistake of answering Bax when he calls out to them. The mutant finds them quickly and promises Marilyn she'll burn for what she's done to him. Hammer-Stein, down but not out, crawls forward to snap a cable holding some fuel drums; they roll forward, and Bax, on instinct, turns and fires at them, blowing himself up.

With Bax gone, the mysterious fires simply die out. Howard Quartz returns to find the carnage, and demands an explanation from Marilyn. Ro-Jaws defends her, saying Bax was simply an Old Flame...

COMMENTS:

Hardly Moore's best, but an entertaining piece of annual filler, backed with some gorgeous artwork from Dillon.

Alan Moore

Bryan Talbot

2000AD Annual 1983

Aug 1982

While helping out at a construction site, a robot accidently drops a girder, which hits Hammer-Stein in the head. Suddenly, his old personality takes control again and he believes he's back in the Volgan War. The old war droid goes on the rampage, shooting his way out of the site and into London itself.

Howard Quartz arrives minutes later, accompanied by Mek-Quake, who is promptly ordered to find and destroy Hammer-Stein before he does any more damage to the city - and Ro-Busters reputation. Ro-Jaws argues valiantly for his friends life, but Quartz is adamant: Hammer-Stein must be stopped before he causes any more damage to London.

Hammer-Stein, meanwhile, is rampaging his way through the streets and seeing visions of his old comrades. The chief of police, recieving a call from one of his officers, suddenly becomes aware of a horrible smell in the building: Ro-Jaws has arrived with a plan. He tells the chief he wants to see the sniping instructor, a certain Joe Pineapples. After filling in Joe on the situation, he, Ro-Jaws and the chief head off to find Hammer-Stein and stop him.

When they finally catch up to him, however, Quartz and Mek-Quake are already there. As Joe takes position, Ro-Jaws points out the fatal flaw in his plan: if Joe shoots out the affected piece of Hammer-Stein's brain, that'll leave him immobilised and ready to be crushed by Mek-Quake.

Ever the professional, Joe tells Ro-Jaws to clam up. His computer brain calculates the angles, stress points and trajectories. The shot is almost impossible, but he is the best sniper in the world, and Hammer-Stein's the closest thing he's got to a friend. Joe pulls the trigger. The shell richochets off a wall and into Hammer-Stein's brain. The war robot falls, leaving Mek-Quake a clear chance to park on his throat.

Without warning, the wall that Joe ricochetted the bullet from falls down on Mek-Quake, leaving him buried. By the time the bull dozer digs himself out, Hammer-Stein will be having his think-box put back together. Quartz, however, rules out the possibility of Hammer-Stein getting patched up, instead wanting to melt him down for scrap. After a word from the chief of police (who had his fat pulled out of the fire by the A.B.C. war robots on more than one occasion), and Joe, Quartz quickly changes his mind and has Ro-Jaws drag his friend off to get repaired.

COMMENTS:

A disappointing turn from Moore and Talbot here, but still head and shoulders above a lot of modern comics work. By no means their best, it still proves to be a readable and enjoyable piece of annual filler.

It's nice to see Joe Pineapples make a guest appearance, too.

Alan Moore

Joe Eckers

2000AD Annual 1984

Aug 1983

Fire! Flood! Panic! Terror! Armageddon!

All part of a normal day's work for the fearless and expendable droids employed by Ro-Busters (Disasters) Inc.

As the Preying Mantis screams through the sky to the latest catastrophe, Howard Quartz berates Hammer-Stein, desperate to get the ship to fly faster, and beat Ro-Busters' new competitors. Ro-Jaws, however, points out that they're already too late, as the speaker crackles into life to announce the arrival of Stormeagles.

Stormeagles wrap up the case in no time, and land to a rapturous applause from the watching crowd. This being the fourth disaster this week that Stormeagles have beaten Ro-Busters to, Ro-Jaws begins to smell something fishy. Hammer-Stein remains optimistic, pointing out Ro-Busters have a loyal clientel, but it falls to his sewage eating friend to point out that most of them are buzzing around Stormeagles.

TV reporter Clive Banks grabs a moment with Denzil Trixy, head of the Stormeagles Rescue Foundation, who introduces the world to his sons, Wayne, Donny, Little Jimmy and Doc. They've made Stormeagles into the world's number one rescue operation. And as a point of interest, there's also a range of Stormeagles merchandise available... As the crowd rush off to snap up their Stormeagles memorbilia, Ro-Busters head off back to their HQ to see if any offers of work have come in.

Back at Stormeagles HQ, the brothers Trixy slap each others backs and celebrate the stuttering Doc's foolproof 'Instant Disaster Scheme.' After all, only a genius like Doc would think of breaking into the Weather Control Centre and re-program the central computer for disasters, which Stormeagles can then rush off to and save the day. Now all they need is to pull off one more spectacular rescue and people will have forgotten all about Ro-Busters forever.

Denzil has dispatched Stormeagles' field agent, Lady Prunella, to the weather control offices with brand new program that Doc has worked out specially. With her manservant, Jobsworth, in tow, they break into the computer and input the code "B-B-B-B 801," before taking their leave in their purple Packard. Once there, Prunella tells Denzil that she's entered the code exactly as Doc had written it down. Unknown to her, Doc also writes with a stammer...

Thanks to the mistake, the computer's been programmed with a major earthquake, a tidal wave and fall of giant hail stones, something which Stormeagles can't handle. Denzil does the only thing he can do and calls Howard Quartz, explaining everything.

With Trixy's assurances that Stormeagles are getting out of the rescue business for good, Quartz dispatches Ro-Busters to save the day. Afterwards, Quartz greets the cheering crowds, and takes the opportunity to announce that Ro-Busters' rates are going up 25%.

Some weeks later, Quartz contacts Denzil Trixy to gloat, and discovers that Stormeagles are moving into the disaster movie business. Producer Vernon Veinbuster has asked them to appear in his next shock epic "The Killer Bees Have Risen From Their Grave." At that moment, Doc comes in with the costumes for the film. It seems Stormeagles are to play the killer bees...

COMMENTS:

A dull offering from Moore, this one, backed with some very poor artwork from Eckers.

Probably only one for Alan Moore completists.