Dan Dare life. After this initial storyline other writers were used and different supporting characters came and went, including Professor Pinkerton, a female scientist similar to Professor Peabody, and a new Digby (again, a descendant of the original). The Mekon was generally the foe in alternate stories. In 1987 the strip became more like a space opera, with increasing violence. Now drawn by John Gillatt, Dan took on a tough-guy look. He led space commandos and packed a hi-tech gun reminiscent of that carried by Judge Dredd. The original strip, featuring the characters of the 1950s Eagle, was revived in 1989, with
Eagle (British comics) its life issues contained reprints of earlier work, alongside new Dan Dare stories written by Tom Tully and illustrated by David Pugh. The relaunched "Eagle" was dropped in 1994. In the twentieth century it was standard practice in the British comics industry to merge a comic into another one when it declined in sales. Typically, three stories from the cancelled comic would continue for a while in the surviving comic, and both titles would appear on the cover (one in a smaller font than the other) until the title of the cancelled comic was eventually dropped. In this way, two