Harlem Heroes, Part 27

It's 2000 A.D.'s thirth-sixth birthday and here we are putting the final into finale, it's the last part of Harlem Heroes:

NAME
Harlem Heroes, Part 27
(according to Wikipedia, this is the third and final part of a strip also known as 'The Teutonic Titans')

FIRST PUBLISHED
2000 A.D. Prog 27

DATELINE
27 Aug 77

PAGE COUNT
4

REPRINTS
Sam Slade Robo-Hunter (Volume 2, Issue 20), 2000AD Extreme Edition 13 and The Complete Harlem Heroes.

SYNOPSIS
Ulysses Cord is revealed and the Harlem Heroes win the aeroball world championship, but lose two players.

FIRSTS & LASTS
Last appearance of Hairy, Conrad and Ulysses Cord.

INFORMATION
The umpire is sometimes refered to as a controller.

The Harlem Heroes staged the robbery of their equipment, and then had their mechanics test the replacements sent by Cord and discovered they were all designed to fail.

The final scores is Harlem Heroes 2, Teutonic Titans 1. The Harlem Heroes are the world aeroball champions. Two of the team are killed in the final and the three remaining players are presented with the trophy.

GIANT
He humiliates Ulysses Cord and forces a confession out of him.

HAIRY
He is killed by another aeroball hit to the abdomen.

KING
He is killed by an aeroball hit to the head.

ZACK
He scores the winning air-strike.

OTHER CHARACTERS
ULYSSES CORD
He blames the Harlem Heroes for being too sporting and believes that aeroball fans want to watch violence. His confession is broadcast into the homes of millions of aeroball fans.

DEATHS
Two. Hairy and Conrad are both hit by an aeroball.

BEST LINES
Giant: "And remember that robbery...when all our equipment disappeared. We staged that ourselves, too...so you could supply us with a whole new set of jet-packs...Well our mechanic's checked 'em out...they were all one-way trips to the morgue, designed to fall apart in the middle of the final! We'd have all died!"

WORST LINES
Unidentified Harlem Hero: "Great strike Zack. But there's no need to shout so loud!...Hairy and Conrad can't hear you!"

Crikey, that's callous. It also undermines the relationships we've seen over the last twenty-seven weeks.

CATCHPHRASES
"Nein! Nein!" is German for "No! No!"

CONTINUITY & CROSSOVERS
Giant reveals that the burglary in Part 25 was faked. It's a nice touch that the injury that leads to Hairy's death is an aeroball strike in the same place he was hit in Part 26. Elsewhere in this Prog was the first part of the Judge Dredd story, The Academy Of Law, which featured Giant's son.

INFLUENCES & REFERENCES
Unknown.

MISTAKES
None.

RETROSPECT
This is the last part of the first Harlem Heroes story, but Giant returns in Part 2 of Judge Dredd: The Academy Of Law, Inferno and a Whatever Happened To? strip in Meg 216. The Harlem Heroes would reappear in another strip which followed another team beginning in Prog 671 and aeroball was popular as late as the first Judge Dredd strip that appeared in Metro.

NOTES
None.

CREDITS
There are no credits printed in the strip itself and so the following are taken from Barney.

Script: Tom Tully
Artist: Massimo Belardinelli
Letters: Peter Knight

REVIEW
Blimey. The conspiracy comes to an end as Ulysses Cord tells us everything we already knew. It's been a whodunnit with only one suspect. The aeroball action is largely sidelined and so the summary deaths of two of Harlem Heroes come as a real shock. I've really enjoyed Harlem Heroes, but the ending feels curtailed and eschews Louis Mayer, Artie Gruber and the outlandish opposition teams that have been the strengths of the strip previously.

End Of The Heroes - What A Shame! But They'll Be Back Here Soon, Again, In A Thrilling, Chilling New Ball Game!