Dan Dare to celebrate their 20th anniversary, "2000 AD" published two issues with additional free comics, the first a reprint of the first issue of "2000 AD", which starred Dan Dare. The second free comic was a speculative issue called "3000 AD" which contained strips partially based on the first issue of "2000 AD". One strip was entitled "The Return of Dan Dare", which also featured the return of the Mekon. In 1982 "Eagle" was re-launched, with "Dan Dare" again its flagship strip. The new character was the great-great-great-grandson of the original hero—the only surviving character from the original strip being the
Eagle (British comics) David Hockney were first published in "Eagle". X-Men comic scriptwriter Chris Claremont read and enjoyed "Eagle", and cites Hampson's work as influential on his career. Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbons has also praised Hampson's work, and the author Tim Rice, in his foreword to "Living with Eagles" (1998), cites the stories printed in "Eagle" as helping "me in my story-telling efforts through musicals many years on." Professor Stephen Hawking, when asked about the influence Dan Dare had on him, replied: "Why am I in cosmology?", and the entertainer Kenny Everett chose an "Eagle Annual" as his book on "Desert Island Discs".