Dan Dare Mekon. The initial artist was Gerry Embleton, who drew Dan to resemble the original exactly, but he was quickly replaced by Ian Kennedy, who gave the hero a younger look and blond hair. The opening "Dan Dare" story was an epic, lasting 18 months, written by Pat Mills and John Wagner. It opened with a flashback to the unseen final defeat of the Mekon by the original Dan, after which he was sealed inside an artificial asteroid and exiled into space. Centuries later he was accidentally freed and returned to conquer Earth. A few years later the descendant of his
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