Best Of British: Comic Book Robots

Robots have been a feature of comic books for over 60 years, taking centre stage in the 1950s, with Robot Archie's first appearance in Lion #1 in 1952. British comic books have always had a quintessentially British sense of style and humour about them, that has gained them an international fan-base. And British comic book bots, have a quintessentially quirkiness queen's Englishness about them too. Especially since the emergence of 2000 AD in 1977, which brought us characters such as Judge Dredd, with his sometimes side-kick Walter the Wobot, and the magnificently malevolent ABC Warriors. This isn't a definitive list, as that would be huge, but brings you the best of the best of British comic book bots.  
Robot Archie - First appearance Lion #1 (1952): Lion was a weekly, boys own adventure comic, published by IPC Magazines. Who along with DC Thomson, were the biggest magazine publishers in the UK at the time. Lion was brought out to compete directly with Eagle, which was first published in 1950, and featured Dan Dare. First appearing in Lion as The Jungle Robot, the character swung into the comic for a 25 weeks, before disappearing into the jungle for 5 years. He returned in 1957 as Archie, The Robot Explorer, but soon just simply became known as Archie Robot. He appeared in Lion, until it was cancelled in 1974. But made appearances in French and Dutch comic books, in which he had become popular. He made a brief cameo in the Alan Moore and Alan Davis comic book series Captain Britain for UK Marvel, under the parody name Android Andy. 

He finally entered the pages of the famous comic book 2000 AD in "prog 2001", published in December 2000, in a Zenith story called zzzzenith.com. He was by this point a rust brained acid casualty calling himself "Acid Archie". Damge to his brian caused him to switch from anarchist Acid-House aficionado, to vigilante, hunting down sex-offenders with a lethal vigour. He was last seen in the story wearing a false beard, as he escaped on a bus after sexually assaulting pop-star Britney Spears.
In 2005, Archie was resurrected from the scrap-heap again in 2005, in a short lived, limited series called Albion. The series was developed by Alan Moore, and the from cover of Albion #1 was illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Robot Archie has been deactivated, and is found in the basement of a pub, until the characters Penny and Danny come across him and reactive him. This was however to be Robot Archie's final revival, as he is destroyed during an attempt to rescue Penny's father from prison in the Albion story-line. 

But Robot Archie, we salute you, as one of the first and the best of British comic book bots.
Albion (2005 - 2006): A six issue comic book series, which celebrates British comic books and characters of the past. Plotted by Alan Moore, and written by his daughter Leah and her husband John Reppion. It takes place in a modern-day Britain, where it turns out that comic book characters of the past really exist. Most of IPC Magazine heroes being locked in a prison, hidden from the public. Moore cleverly uses a traditional comic book art style of the past, to tell flash-back elements of the Albion story. The whole series being a beautiful homage to boys own British comic book history.
Brassneck - First appearance Dandy #1202 (1964): The Dandy (originally The Dandy Comic until July 1950), launched on December the 4th 1937, and was one of the longest running comic titles in the world, published by DC Thomson. In late 1964 The Dandy regular Bill Holroyd introduced readers to Brassneck. Among the many immortal characters that graced the pages of the Dandy, Brassneck is one of the most memorable. He was a "schoolboy" robot who befriended by his side-kick Charlie Brand. Most of the story-lines revolved around the typical outdoor pranks and schoolboy japes so beloved of The Dandy of this period, and one diversion typical to this strip was the deserved comeuppance of the bullying, brawny teacher Snodgrass.

There are two creation stories to Brassneck. In one version he was created by Charlie's uncle Sam, a scientist, to give Charlie a play-mate. In the other version, he was created by the evil Professor Dooyurwurst, but is freed by Charlie. Dooyurwurst then builds a second robot, Bull-Neck, who was created to try and get Brassneck back from Charlie. But never succeeds. Brassneck continued into the online digital version of The Dandy, and had his name changed to B-R455/N3(K).
Walter the Wobot - First appearance 2000 AD prog 10 (1977): Some of the most unique and commercially successful comic book artists in the world have come out of Britain. Many of them passing through the stables of the ground-breaking comic 2000 AD, which started in 1977. Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and Brain Bolland, to name just a few. Bolland is most well known for creating the definitive version of Judge Dredd, and spearheading the British Invasion of the American comic book industry, that would see the likes of Moore and Gaiman become giants of the industry.

Back in 1977 in the second issue of 2000 AD, Judge Dredd made his first appearance. But it wouldn't be until "prog 10" that his house robot Walter the Wobot would make his début. A robot character designed to give some comic relief, to the gruff, tough, brooding character of Judge Dredd. Walter had a speech impediment, that he pronounced his R's as W's. Despite his comic character, he featured as a main character in some of Dredd's most well known early story-lines. As well as numerous appearances in Judge Dredd, in 1978 Walter had his very own eponymous comedy series (one-page episodes), in 2000 AD progs 50-61, 67-68, and 84-85. These were almost entirely drawn by Brian Bolland.
Ro-Busters - First appearance Starlord #1 (1978): Starlord was a brief 22 issue (May to October 1978) sister publication to 2000 AD. Designed for an older readership than 2000 AD, Starlord wasn't as popular as its counterpart, and was merged with 2000 AD in October 1978. Some of Starlord's popular stories and characters were transferred over, including Ro-Busters. After the merger, among the regular artists that worked on Ro-Busters were Dave Gibbons (of Watchmen (1986) fame, with Alan Moore, and Give Me Liberty (1990) with Frank Miller), Kevin O'Neill (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999-2007) with Alan Moore), and Mike McMahon. Mike and Kevin would form part of the team, along with Ro-Busters writer Pat Mills, that would later develop the robots for ABC Warriors.

Ro-Busters is set in a world where AI robots are so ubiquitous they are treated with contempt by humans. The Ro-Busters are rescue crew of robots, ran by Mr. Ten Per Cent (as he is 10% human, and 90% robot). Three of the Ro-Busters, Hammerstein, Ro-Jaws and Mek-Quake would go on to be members of the ABC Warriors in 2000 AD. The story-lines often reflected and made satirical comments on the real world social and political landscape of Britain. And to add to the comedy Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein's names are a word play on Rodgers and Hammerstein, with stories featuring song and dance routines.
The first cross-over edition of Starlord and 2000AD in October 1978.
ABC Warriors - First appearance 2000 AD prog 119 (1979): After the launch of ABC Warriors Pat Mills never wrote another Ro-Busters story but there were a number of one-off stories published in the 2000 AD annuals during the 80s. The last ever Ro-Busters stories to appear, were by Alan Moore. Taking over from Ro-Busters, as a robot centred, robot themed, multi-character story, was ABC Warriors. They first appeared in 2000 AD "prog 119", and are still making appearances to this day. The ABC Warriors are a team of war robots designed to withstand "Atomic", "Bacterial" and "Chemical" warfare. They were built to take part in the long-running Volgan War, which Pat Mills had described in several previous 2000 AD strips, including Ro-Busters. 

There's been some 15 on/off members of the ABC Warriors over the years the comic has been running, but the key members for many is the Mek-nificent Seven, which is the story-line that introduced the team of robots, lead by Hammerstein. Much of the story took place in a future wild-west style Mars, and paid homage to western The Magnificent Seven (1960). Other robots in the original line-up were, Deadlock, Blackblood, Joe Pineapples, Mongrol, Steelhorn/The Mess and Happy Shrapnel. Though the last two left the group, returning later, and during that time replaced by a number of robots who were mostly killed in action. Apart from that is  Ro-Jaws and Mek-Quake, from the original Ro-Busters.
The Bug Hunters - First appearance C+VG (1985): Two comic book artists from 2000 AD, took pseudonyms, and wrote comic strip for Computer and Video Games magazine. In the comic strip their names appeared as Jerry Paris with Pedro Henry, but they were in actuality Garry Leach and Steve Moore. Both artists worked on 2000 AD, particularly on the regular feature, Tharg's Future Shocks.

However in 1985 when The Bug Hunters first appeared it was not only a clever move by the magazine, but for the two artists too.  Who created a team of robots with human assistants, that wouldn't have looked out of place in 2000 AD, but may have been over-shadowed by the well established ABC Warriors. C+VG gave The Bug Hunters a place to establish themselves, independent of the power-house that was 2000 AD. Set in 23rd Century London, IDEAS Corp. (Institute for the Development and Expansion of Advanced Systems) has a project which requires a team of robots to be put together. The team that is created are OTISS (Overt Technical Information Suburban System), Big Red (Relocation of Explosives for Demolition), B-Con a security droid who helped with a prison break, and X a "facsim" droid who can pirate anything. Along with their two human companions the robots of the series The Bug Hunters series ran in C+VG until 1987, and was finally published a collected edition in 1990. There's been no-more from The Bug Hunters since.
The Bug Hunters: The Forgotten 80s Comic Series - In the 1980s, the world's first ever dedicated video gaming magazine published a genius comic book serial, The Bug Hunters.
Top Ten: Really Undervalued Robots - Side-lined by the more famous movie robots, we present a top ten of some of the most underrated robots in movie history. In my opinion anyway!
The Revolution Started Here: Beneath A Steel Sky - The "revolutionary" adventure game from a small software house in Hull, that went up against the big U.S. software houses, and kicked arse!
Randy Retro Robot Romeos - Redressing the romantic balance, with Weird Retro's romp through the Romeos of the robot world. For all the ladies who like a love-bot.