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
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