Crunch, The

DC Thomson launched The Crunch in January 1979 as an attempt to compete with rival publisher IPC’s 2000 AD. The comic ran for 54 issues before it merged with The Hotspur in January 1980.

The lead strip was ‘Arena’ in which a corrupt 21st Century government treated those who spoke against it as criminals and sentenced them to fights to the death in an arena.

“Hitherto unknown” journalist Mark Sabor was arrested for infringements of Article 29 of the Public Order Code (handing out pamphlets which dared to criticise the oppressive government) and sentenced to fight.

Throughout the series, he grew from a reluctant warrior to a rock-hard freedom fighter, eventually leading a rebellion against the state’s secret police.

Other regular strips included:

• Clancy And The Man  – A proto-Miami Vice with tough, loner cop Joe Clancy forced to work with wisecracking black undercover officer Manfred (or ‘Man’ for short) on the mean streets of Las Minola (a mash-up of Las Vegas and Miami)
• Ebony – “Britain’s only female special agent”. Essentially a rip-off of 70s blaxploitation movies like Foxy Brown, Coffy and Cleopatra Jones.
• Escape – Mysterious vigilante The Fox helped citizens escape from the Police State of Ascovia (“behind the Iron Curtain”)
• Hitler Lives – In the dying days of World War II, Hitler was smuggled out of Berlin in a state of suspended animation. Disillusioned German officer Jacob Lindt tracked him down, but eventually it was Lindt’s son who had to dispose of the Führer in modern-day 1979
• The Hitman – Hugh Marston killed to order for British Intelligence
• The Kyser Experiment – Dr Kyser performed experiments on the injury-prone First Division side Camford City to try to make them an unbeatable football team by replacing the players with clones
• The Mantracker – aka chain-smoking Native American Bearpaw Jay, a former Green Beret turned bounty hunter
• The Mill Street Mob – a gritty school drama, capitalising on the success of television’s Grange Hill
• The Mindstealers – ostensibly Quatermass crossed with The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
• Morgan’s Mob – After the evil General Kimata seized the African state of Zamba, a team of mercenaries – led by our hero, ex-Royal Marine Tom Morgan – fought to rescue the captive sons of the benevolent exiled ex-President Ngongo
• Operation Omega – A North Sea oil rig was held hostage by a gang of international criminals. The Army sent in the SOS (Special Operations Squad) to sort things out. Basically, Who Dares Wins meets Die Hard for kids, minus Lewis Collins and Bruce Willis
• Plague 2000 – Captain Brett Cantrell and a small party of soldiers – including stiff-upper-lipped RAF man Brian Longford, and Jason Moon of the US Marine Corps – battled to save mankind from annihilation from a  “mysterious death plague”
• Programmed To Kill – Respectable banker Harry Blaney suddenly turned into a cold-blooded killer, then got himself killed. His brother Cash found out that he had been programmed to kill and vowed to track down the men responsible
• Space Wars 
• Starhawk – Sol Rynn was “Starhawk”, protector of the galaxies and a galactic freedom fighter in the barbaric 26th century
• Striker From Nowhere – A blend of football and sci-fi, with Don Kellett – a man “with no past” who had lost his memory –  playing football with Third Division team Bradport City. Don was chased by two mystery men (the Man In Black and the Man In Grey) who seemed to have a history with him. The Man In Grey wanted Don dead, but his Black-garbed colleague protected him at every turn. Bradport eventually ended up in the FA Cup final, and all secrets were finally revealed!
• The Walking Bombs – British spies Mike Preston and Amdrei Chakov followed the trail of ‘Walking Bombs’ – poor unfortunates with tiny nukes implanted into their chests – to the sinister Dr Schadel, a Bond-style villain who wanted to hold the world to ransom. They eventually took him down, aided by Royal Marine Commandos
• The Warriors – Six British POWs and a German SS group were transported to the planet Tetron by its rulers in order to teach them the art of war
• Who Killed Cassidy? – Traffic cop Ross Harper hunted down the assassin of the POTUS, Jack Cassidy (!) – The President’s brother is called Bobby, and he, too, is later assassinated. No conspiracy theory is left unturned