DC Thomson launched The Crunch in January 1979 as an attempt to compete with rival publisher IPC’s 2000AD.
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. The comic ran for 54 issues before it merged with Hotspur.
Regular strips included:
Arena – Mark Sabor fought for his life in the 21st century
Clancy And The Man
The Hit Man – Hugh Marston killed to order for British Intelligence
The Kyser Experiment – Dr Kyser performed experiments on a football team to try and make them unbeatable
The Mantracker – aka bounty hunter Bearpaw Jay
The Mill Street Mob
Operation Omega
Plague 2000 – Brett Cantrell battled to save mankind from annihilation
Programmed To Kill
Space Wars
Starhawk – Sol Rynn was “Starhawk”, protector of the galaxies
Striker From Nowhere
The Walking Bombs
Who Killed Cassidy? – Ross Harper hunted down the assassin of the POTUS
