Harlem Heroes, Part 8

NAME
Harlem Heroes, Part 8
(according to Wikipedia, this is the third and final part of a strip also known as The Siberian Wolves)

FIRST PUBLISHED
2000 A.D. Prog 8

DATELINE
16 Apr 77

PAGE COUNT
4

REPRINTS
Robo-Hunter 4, Sam Slade Robo-Hunter (Volume 2, Issue 14), 2000AD Extreme Edition 13 and The Complete Harlem Heroes.

SYNOPSIS
Giant survives to play another day and his team beat the Siberian Wolves. Meanwhile something sinister is happening in Mega-City One.

FIRSTS & LASTS
First appearance of Mega-City One itself and Gruber in Harlem Heroes.

INFORMATION
The Russian pack attack is a typical Siberian Wolves manoevre.

Towards the end of the game the Siberian Wolves team is entirely made up of substitutes. The final score is Harlem Heroes 3, Siberian Wolves 1.

The Harlem Heroes are through to the second round of the world aeroball championships. Their next fixture is a league match back in the USA.

In Mega-City One, there is a hospital laboratory where individuals in a vegetative state can be revived.

GIANT
As he is falling he grabs a passing Siberian Wolf, then scoops up the aeroball with his feet, kicks it into the scoretank and scores an airstrike. He falls again, but Slim catches him.

SLIM
He catches Giant the second time he falls. Slim scores an airstrike.

CONRAD KING
He is suspicious of Giant's fuel impurity cover story.

ZACK HARPER
(He looks like he's doing a black power salute as the team walk away at the end of the game.)

OTHER CHARACTERS
TUCKER
He is part of the Harlem Heroes ground crew. One of his duties is the maintenance of their jet packs.

GRUBER
He has been braindead since he dived into the ground during an aeroball match against the Harlem Heroes three years ago. Someone who wants the Harlem Heroes dead has anonymously paid two Mega-City One doctors eight million dollars to connect his cerebral motors to an electro-impulse and turn him into a cyborg.

DEATHS
None.

BEST LINES
Giant: "If I gotta go...I'm gonna go like a hero!"

WORST LINES
Giant: "He shouldn't have said pack--makes me kinda mad!"

Get over it.

Gruber's Doctor: "Back in the nineteen-seventies, they would have called him a Cyborg!"

CATCHPHRASES
Presumably "Stava!" is Russian for something, but I can't find out what.

CONTINUITY & CROSSOVERS
None.

INFLUENCES
Slim mentions Kewpie Dolls. These are dolls based on comic strip illustrations by Rose O'Neill that first appeared in Ladies' Home Journal in 1909. The small dolls were extremely popular in the early twentieth century. I have absolutely no idea what Slim is getting at though.

MISTAKES
The referee presumes Giant will call for a time-out, but in Part 4 we learned that squad leader's could only call for a time-out if two more players are injured.

RETROSPECT
None.

NOTES
None.

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

Script: Tom Tully
Artist: Dave Gibbons
Letters: Dave Gibbons

REVIEW
Everything Giant does in this strip is fantastic and the prospect of a villain is a very exciting one.

Don't Miss The Next Prog Of 2000 A.D.
There's Plenty Of Aeroball Action To See!