Invasion! (2000 AD)

For other uses, see Invasion (comics).

Invasion!
Publication information
Publisher	2000 AD
Schedule	weekly
Publication date	26 February, 1977 to 11 February 1978
Creative team
Writer(s)	Gerry Finley-Day
Artist(s)	various
Creator(s)	Pat Mills

Invasion! was a series created by Pat Mills and mostly written by Gerry Finley-Day that appeared in the first 51 editions of the weekly comic 2000 AD.

The series introduced the character of Bill Savage, a classic anti-authoritarian character of the type which Mills is best known for. It has been continued in the sequel series Savage, beginning in 2004, by Pat Mills and Charlie Adlard.

Alternate historical background

In the alternate recent history established in Savage, Russia fell to a Fascist military coup and was renamed the Volgan Republic by Marshall Vashkov in 1991. In 1992, vast new reserves of North Sea oil were discovered off the coast of Britain. Ken Livingstone became head of the Labour Party, and his "True Labour" movement gained power over Shirley Brown's Conservative Party in a 1995 general election. In 1996, Prime Minister Livingstone ordered the removal of all American military bases from the British Isles; by 1998, a newly isolationist United States had withdrawn completely from Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

By 1999, Prince Charles was King of the United Kingdom. The United States and Volgan Republic had a secret agreement, carving up the world into spheres of influence. Meanwhile, a fifth column among the establishment, feeling threatened by the new left-wing government, made overtures to the Volgans, offering to help with any invasion.^[1]

Progs 119 to 139 contained the prequel story Disaster 1990, which shows Britain being flooded by melting polar icecaps in 1990. Savage has not treated this as canonical.

Synopsis

Invasion!

Set in the year 1999, the first part of the series depicts Western Europe and the United Kingdom being swiftly over-run by an invasion from the Volgan Republic known as the Eight-Hour War. North Sea oil rigs are seized by helicopter-borne commando units, Heathrow airport is captured by paratroopers allowing heavy transport planes to land delivering heavy armour close to London, and the Midlands are hit by nuclear weapons, including a 50 megaton warhead. The UK Government capitulates, with many hardline anti-Volgan MPs, Lords and generals along with the Prime Minister Shirley Williams being executed; a puppet government, under Prime Minister Simon Creepton, takes control for the puppet state of The People's Republic Of Britain.

Bill Savage, an East-End lorry-driver begins a one-man resistance movement against the Volgans after his wife and children are killed when Savage's home is hit by a Volgan tank shell during the invasion. As with similar characters that Mills and Day had created for other titles such as Action and Battle Picture Weekly, Savage is given a gimmick, with a hauling hook and a sawn-off shotgun being his preferred weapons. Initially solo, he is recruited by Lt. Peter Silk into the British resistance. Initially leading the Mad Dogs cell out of the Isle of Dogs, Savage would later be mobile and take part in resistance action throughout the country. Throughout the series, Savage's brutal violence and working-class common sense leads to victory, whereas military resistance is depicted as being class bound and ineffectual.

At the end of the series, Savage is tasked with taking the heir to the throne, Prince John, to safety in Canada. He smuggled the prince into North America on a US cargo ship; as Volgan agents murdered most of the crew trying to stop him, the series ended with Savage believing the United States would now get involved against the Volgans.

The Volgan War (AKA the Fourth Oil War) became part of a connecting backstory for a number of 2000 AD series including ABC Warriors.

Savage

In the sequel series Savage, the Volgans are still in command in 2004 and are being opposed by terrorist insurgent groups like the Free European Army and Traitor's Gate. Escapist fiction like Lord Cyboid and the Silver Rapier is abundant, produced by the Volgans to pacify the general public; propaganda campaigns try to convince people to accept the occupation and not be "bitter-enders". Some people have come to accept the occupation or actively collaborate with it; they are described as "Double Yellows", after the twin yellow stripes on the uniforms of the British State Security agents and police officers who collaborate with the Volgan regime.

Despite the non-aggression agreement with the United States, American small arms and other weapons are used by resistance movements. Savage also has a CIA contact, and the two share information against the Volgans. Any major activity, however, is not taken and occupied Britain does not seem a high priority. (They would also be caught off-guard and be left out in the 2004 uprising)

Under the direction of Savage, the resistance manages to almost force the Volgan peacekeepers to withdraw from Britain in 2004, though they manage to cling onto power and send renewed troop numbers in. Subsequently, Savage assassinated Vashkov.

Consequently, State Security agents retaliated by murdering his brother Tom after discovering he had secretly written stories that would be embarrassing for the regime. Savage and his sister Cassie killed all the agents responsible, only for it to be discovered that Savage's former-MI6 resistance contact had been behind it and was secretly a collaborator. Savage then killed him and his security team and sent a copy of his brother's work on the Internet. As a result, the resistance alongside the population, rose up against the Volgan "peacekeepers" and liberated most of Southern England.

Book Four, however, opened with the country re-occupied after 2006, when a fresh surge of troops was deployed. By now, some people in Britain were coming to accept Volgan rule; the United States, however, was now heavily outfitting resistance units with American weaponry and preparing to use Ireland as a staging ground for a liberation. Savage prevented the Volgans from causing a fake terrorist atrocity to drive off the Americans, and by 2009 the Allied forces were openly bombing Volgan targets in London. They had also used electromagnetic weapons to "e-bomb" the city, wiping out most electronics and reducing it to a 1984 level of technology; many citizens were disgruntled, wondering why the Americans were not bombing the Volgans.

2009 also saw the liberation of Britain begin, with army robots being used as the advance wave at Fishguard. The Volgans Develop a teleport machine that sends their troops into the American bases killing the commanding officers. Luckily Bill Savage and some of the resistance destroy the base in London but use it once to put a Siberian Tiger in a Volgan General's tank. The Volgans have started creating their own battle robots called Mark 1 Blackblood robots. Bill Savage finds two American pilots who escaped from a Volgan P.O.W camp in Siberia they tell him they have found a secret city underground called Ugelgorsk where the Volgans are building Mark 1 Blackblood robots and planning to use them in Wales then Ireland, Bill and his accomplices now have to get the pilots to Liverpool cost where there will be a boat to take them to Dublin, They succeed and Bill is later told that Three U.S Long-Range Bombers have destroyed Ugelgorsk and most of the Mark 1 Blackblood robots, Bill Savage feels happy saying it is only a matter of time before the Allies breakthrough The Welsh Front and liberate Britain.

The weapons of Bill Savage

When Invasion! started, Bill Savage was armed with a double-barrel side-by-side shotgun. After getting into contact with the British Resistance, he was given a pump-action shotgun. Throughout the original series and in the new Savage series, Bill Savage is shown that he is skilled in the use of different types of firearms - both friendly and enemy.

The various firearms Bill Savage used in both the Invasion! and Savage series comics besides his tried and trusted double-barrel, side-by-side shotgun are...

• The Remington Model 870 pump-action shotgun (the pump-action shotgun Bill Savage uses resembles the Remington Model 870).

• The Kalashnikov AKSU-74 assault rifle (as seen in the recent Savage series).

• The Beretta Model 92FS pistol (as seen in Savage: Taking Liberties in which he used in conjunction with his pump-action shotgun).

• The L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle 7.62.mm automatic rifle. As Invasion was published in 1977 the writers had no idea that by 1999 the British Army would be using the L85 series of 5.56.mm rifles.

• The Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machine gun.

• Various types of AK rifles the Volgan Army uses.

Russian/Volgans

The Volgans were originally intended to be the Russian army, but IPC's management forced a last-minute change to a fictional group for fear of offending the Russian embassy.^[2] Savage has the Volgans as being Russians following a name change.

Bibliography

• Invasion (various writers and artists, in 2000 AD #1-51, 1977–78)

• Savage (All episodes written by Pat Mills):
  • "Book I: Taking Liberties" (art by Charlie Adlard, in 2000 AD #1387-1396, 2004)
  • "Book II: Out of Order" (art by Charlie Adlard, in 2000 AD #1450-1459, 2005)
  • "Book III: Double Yellow" (art by Patrick Goddard, in 2000 AD #1526-1535, 2007)
  • "Book IV: The Guv'nor" (art by Patrick Goddard, in 2000 AD #1577-1586, 2008)
  • "Book V: 1984" (art by Patrick Goddard, in 2000 AD #1632-1641, 2009)
  • "Book VI: Crims" (art by Patrick Goddard, in 2000 AD #1685-1699, 2010)
  • "Book VII: Secret" (art by Patrick Goddard, in 2000 AD #1740-1749, 2011)

Collected editions

The titles have been collected into trade paperbacks:

• Invasion (March 2007, ISBN 1-905437-26-9)^[3][4]
• Savage, Volume 1: Taking Liberties (June 2007, ISBN 1-905437-28-5)^[5][6]

Footnotes

1. ^ Prog 1450, Savage Book 2 Part one
2. ^ Thrill Power Overload by David Bishop; Judge Dredd Megazine #4.09
3. ^ 2000 AD books - Invasion!
4. ^ 2000AD Online - reprint zone
5. ^ 2000 AD books - Savage - Taking Liberties
6. ^ 2000AD Online - reprint zone

References

• 2000 AD profile

External links

• Savage: Taking Liberties review, Comics Bulletin
• Invasion! review at 2000 AD Review