Eagle (British comics) of a planned television series, persuaded IPC's comic arm Fleetway to relaunch "Eagle" in 1982, as a weekly comic edited by Dave Hunt. The original Dan Dare was no longer a feature of the comic, his eponymous great-great grandson taking on the mantle of space explorer instead. Drawn by Gerry Embleton, and later Ian Kennedy, and set 200 years after the original story, the first story-arc featured the return of Dan Dare's earliest nemesis, The Mekon. IPC were unable to recreate the popularity of the original strip, and in 1989 the original Dan Dare returned to the comic, in a
Dan Dare with the song "Dan Dare" The relaunch of the Eagle Magazine in 1982 saw a free single giveaway of a track called "Dan Dare" by the group Loose Talk. Characters inspired by or based on Dan Dare have appeared throughout British popular culture. One example is Wing Commander Leyton in "British Summertime" by Paul Cornell, which juxtaposes the utopian future portrayed in the original comics with the Britain of today. In the 1980s, "Private Eye" published "Dan Dire, Pilot of Future?". Dire was based on politician Neil Kinnock, the question being whether he'd ever become Prime Minister. Dire's enemy was