ABC Warriors
ABC Warriors is a feature in the UK comic-book series 2000 AD written by Pat Mills. It first appeared in program 119 in 1979 and continues to run as of 2018. Art for the opening episodes was by Kevin O'Neill, Mike McMahon, Brett Ewins, and Brendan McCarthy, who among them designed the original seven members of the team. Since then, they have been illustrated primarily, though not exclusively, by Bryan Talbot, Simon Bisley, SMS, Kevin Walker, Henry Flint and Clint Langley.
The A.B.C. Warriors are a team of war robots designed to withstand 'Atomic', 'Bacterial' and 'Chemical' warfare. They were built to take part in the long-running Volgan War, which Mills had described in several previous 2000 AD strips, including Invasion! and Ro-Busters. Each robot has a distinctive personality – often one programmed by its human creators – but each is more or less able to act with free will.
Overview
One of the main characters, Hammerstein, was already known to 2000 AD readers through the story Ro-Busters. The story of the creation of robotic warriors to be used in the Volgan War had been introduced in the Ro-Busters story "Hammerstein's War Memoirs." Hammerstein is the only ABC Warrior to appear on film, making a cameo appearance in the 1995 Judge Dredd movie.The initial run of stories from progs 119–128 follows Hammerstein towards the end of the Volgan War as he recruits six robots to join him for a special mission – to tame Mars, which had become a futuristic Wild West. In further adventures set much later in time, the warriors teamed up with Nemesis the Warlock in his fight against the Termight Empire to prevent a destabilized Black Hole bypass at the Earth's core from destroying the world.
Many of these early stories pursue the theme of humans using robots to do jobs that they do not wish to do themselves and the cruel treatment of soldier robots by their human officers. The Warriors often find themselves at odds with humans who are exploiting the land and the beings that live on it – typical storylines see the Warriors identifying such evil and delivering poetic justice to the perpetrators. Later stories also explore ideas of "khaos" and the concept of programmed robots being able to discover their true identities.
Artists who illustrated ABC Warriors include Kevin O'Neill, Mike McMahon, Brett Ewins, Brendan McCarthy, Carlos Ezquerra, Dave Gibbons, Simon Bisley, Kev Walker, and Henry Flint.
Characters
The members of the Warriors have changed over the course of the stories they have been featured in. Here are the longest-serving members:Hammerstein
Hammerstein has been the leader of the Warriors for most of the comic's run, although he has surrendered the position to Deadlock for a number of stories. He was the first successful war robot to be built, and this success was due to his being given both emotions and a conscience, which allowed him to distinguish between combatants and civilians.In the first run of ABC Warriors stories, he was recruited during the Volgan Wars by the mysterious Colonel Lash to lead the ABC Warriors on Lash's post war project. Overall humanoid in form, his right "hand" is the combat hammer that gives him his name. Depicted as noble, brave, and patriotic, he has always represented the compassionate "heart" of the team while remaining a formidable warrior.
Deadlock
Deadlock is a follower of the Khaos religion, and as such is frequently at odds with the order and duty-obsessed Hammerstein, which eventually led him to betray and attempt to kill Hammerstein in the story The Black Hole. Deadlock's powers allow him to astrally project and reform his body if it is damaged or destroyed, and he holds the sword X-Caliber, a weapon that allows him to drain the souls of the living to use as psychic "nourishment". He is able to call demons and the undead to his aid. For a time, Deadlock led the team in place of Hammerstein, the only other member ever to do so.When first shown, Deadlock was the Grand Wizard of the Knights Martial, a group of highly intelligent robots who had developed psychic and magical abilities and observed the war from the "Watch Tower" space station. They were given special authority to try and execute Volgan war criminals during the conflict, as well as war criminals from their own side. Deadlock occasionally led his Knights into active combat, such as to take down and reprogram the Volgan robot general Volkhan so he could no longer create robots outside of human control.
The Watch Tower was brought to earth by Volgan artillery during the war, just before Hammerstein recruited Deadlock for the Mars mission. On his eventual return, Deadlock discovered that in his absence the Knights – no longer kept chaste and pure by isolation far above the earth's surface – had been tainted and turned to frivolous pursuits, ignoring the old values of meditation, purity, and discipline. A disgusted Deadlock turned his back on the order and went into isolation, meditating and studying ancient manuscripts in an attempt to reach the highest level of the astral plane, and join with his master Khaos. When he was ready, it was Nemesis himself who came for him, and they became one, as shown in Nemesis the Warlock Book Four: The Gothic Empire.
Centuries passed with no word of his whereabouts, though at some point he established a Kollege of Khaos on the comet Tiamat. He finally reappeared in the bowels of Terra to assist older versions of his former comrades, sent back from the future Termight by Nemesis the Warlock, to save the planet from destruction – a mission depicted in the story The Black Hole. Although his motives were unclear at first, he assisted the Warriors in their battles with the Monad, a creature from the end of time, only to betray them when they finally reached their goal. It turned out he had been sent by his master Khaos to ensure the destruction of Termight so Khaos might spread throughout the galaxy. With the assistance of Blackblood and Mek-Quake, Deadlock launched a fearsome attack on his comrades in a bid to stop them from repairing the damage done to the Time Wastes; he was forced to betray his master and save Termight so the Monad would not use the planet's destruction to turn Khaos into an evil force.
Escaping the Time Wastes, Deadlock assumed leadership of The Warriors and led them to Nemesis' home planet, Gandarva, to settle a score. The repair of the Time Wastes had restored Order to the galaxy and thus Deadlock and Nemesis had both betrayed Khaos. The two of them fought literally to the death, only to be reborn, purged of their guilt. Deadlock then took the Warriors to the planet Hekate, inducting them into the ways of Khaos; he led them in collecting the heads of seven symbols of order, which could be used in a ritual to spread Khaos throughout the galaxy. After succeeding, the other Warriors defied his command, demonstrating their status as true Khaos warriors.
Following this, he returned to his Kollege with Ro-Jaws, who understood the twisting tides of Khaos even better than he did. They worked to indoctrinate students into the ways of Khaos – often via the bar – while also hunting down teachers throughout the galaxy and flying back to the Kollege to be endlessly tortured. Ten years after the Hekate mission, he led the Warriors' reformation to combat the Terran weapon Hellbringer.
Subsequently, they returned to Mars under the command of Hammerstein, where Deadlock was instrumental in bringing about an end to the war between the human colonists and the planetary consciousness, Medusa. Deadlock helped broker a peace and he stayed on to help the Warriors in the resulting Martian civil war. It was Deadlock who discovered that the Confederacy of Martian Industries was assembling the mercenary Shadow Warriors team to destroy the Warriors, who learned the identities of its members and whose khaos rituals turned the tide in the final battle against them.
Joe Pineapples
Joe Pineapples is the closest thing Hammerstein has to a friend, being his longest-serving comrade. Joe was built as an assassin, is a former member of the elite X-Terminators, and is a sniper without equal. Joe has rebuilt himself many times to give himself new looks over the years, but one thing that has been consistent is his narcissism – the one thing he truly loves in the universe is himself. With an outward image of ice cold professionalism and a habit of seducing women, he has a secret fetish for wearing women's underwear.The first run of ABC Warriors stories showed Joe's talents taking him into Volgograd to assassinate Volgan general Volkhan, and afterwards assigning him to the Mars mission; he forcibly recruited General Blackblood by shooting the butcher through the heart, beginning a long-standing feud between the two. After Mars, Pineapples wound up working as a police instructor in London and once had to neutralise a rampaging Hammerstein who thought he was still fighting the Volgan War. Joe's career with various police forces continued in some form for centuries, and by the time Earth had become Termight he was on the free robot planet of Mekka working as an undercover officer. At some point he developed a hatred of humans and was eventually put on the black list for pursuing human criminals with too much zeal. Pineapples also began taking up transvestism, apparently jaded from rebuilding himself time and time again and wanting to experience something new. Blackblood was able to obtain photo negatives of this.
At the request of Nemesis, the Warlock, Joe left the police to rejoin the ABC Warriors in the battle to defend the Gothic Empire. Following the battle against Termight, the Warriors followed Nemesis into the Time Wastes of Termight to find the Warlock's offspring Thoth and repair the damage Thoth was doing to time itself, and save the galaxy. When Deadlock tried to sabotage the mission, Blackblood and Joe fought each other. For Pineapples it was a chance to get the negatives back, and for Blackblood it was a chance to finally discover what Joe had been hiding in his chest locker for the entire journey. As it turned out, the mystery item was a human heart: Joe was carrying it in a desperate bid to feel, so he could enjoy killing again.
After escaping to the planet Hekate, Pineapples helped collect the seven heads needed for the ritual that would spread Khaos through the galaxy, but suffered a breakdown as the 'Night of the Blood Moon' approached. Deadlock took it upon himself to perform an unnecessary operation on Joe, to give him a much more Khaotic outlook on life – and unlock his repressed desires for more exotic crossdressing. After Hekate, the Warriors went their separate ways, and Pineapples, sick of being on the dole for Khaos, signed up with the Terran Empire as a professional hit droid. As a result of his wealth and status, he was forced to join the Warriors when they banded together to take on the Terran supership Hellbringer.
He joined the Warriors in returning to Mars to help increase the peace between Medusa, the planetary consciousness, and her human settlers. When civil war broke out in the aftermath and the mercenary Shadow Warriors were sent after them, Joe developed a severe rivalry with mercenary and highwayman Dog-Tag, sparked when Joe foiled one of Dog-Tag's heists, wiped out his gang and caused severe damage to him. Dog-Tag got revenge when he shot Joe through the head, buried him and removed his trigger finger. Due to techniques learned from Deadlock, Joe survived the attack – having shut down his brain to near-death levels – and was able to kill his rival.