Dan Dare from acquiring the mystical Crystal of Life. On his return to Earth, he and his Treen companion Sondar find themselves branded traitors and found guilty of helping the Mekon to steal the Crystal. This story arc concluded with the pair escaping the Earth authorities and going on the run to try to clear their names by tracking down the Mekon and recovering the Crystal, establishing the format for the next story arc. Despite promises that Dare and Sondar would be back, the "2000 AD" Dan Dare strip "Attack on Eternium" ended here in prog 126 (18 August 1979). In 1997,
Eagle (British comics) then "Eagle"s owners, the comic suffered a drastic fall in quality. The centre spreads were replaced with the historically inaccurate Last of The Saxon Kings, and letters of complaint poured in to the comic. Within months the comic's circulation fell to 150,000, and continued to drop. By 1966 it was in decline. IPC continued production until the comic's last issue, on 26 April 1969. Just short of its 1,000th edition, the comic was merged with its rival, IPC's "Lion". A modified Dan Dare was briefly featured in IPC Media's "2000 AD" (1977–1979). The public reaction to this, along with news