Tom Veitch's notes on his Animal Man run

DC in the 80s was incredibly lucky to have Tom Veitch's notes on the issues he wrote of Animal Man v1 back in the early 90s (issues #33 - #50).  For your viewing pleasure, we've also included the cover of the issues (all covers illustrated by Brain Bolland).

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#33: "I am the man of deep ungodly powers!"

Awakened from his Pete Milligan-induced coma, Animal Man is restored to status quo – he’s Animal Man with the family and the job as a stuntman. However his powers are not working as they should. And Maxine is acting rather feral. We also begin to realize that there is a shamanistic/mystical element to Animal Man’s powers – a connection to a Native American shaman living in a house trailer. Apparently this old Indian gives Animal Man his animal powers by connecting him to the Morphogenic field (the M-field) from which all animal instinct and power comes from.



#34: "Requiem for a Bird of Prey"

Maxine, because of her connection to her father, is also connected with the M-field. And when her dad feels aggressive animal instincts, she shares them, growling like an animal and tearing her toys apart with her teeth. Animal Man finally realizes that his powers are not under control and he is hurting living things – when he flies, birds of prey mysteriously die.



#35: "Dead Dogs on Ice" (Day of Dread II cover)

Story starts to kick in. Animal Man and Travis Cody, who shot Animal Man’s son Cliff with an arrow, become friends. Travis (educated at M.I.T.) is building an M-Field Meter:

TRAVIS: Ever hear of the morphogenetic field?

ANIMAL MAN: Uh … yeah.

TRAVIS: Of course you have … Sheldrakes’ theory. Animal essences, modalities, genetic templates … all meshing over a great vat of life energy. …It’s like earth is one big animal … and you and me are like leeches on the big animal, ya dig?

ANIMAL MAN: Uh…yeah. I…uh…dig. … Somebody once explained Sheldrake’s theory to me. I accept it … but it’s just a theory … I mean, theories are nice, but I work with feelings and energies I can sense. There’s no words involved in what I do.

TRAVIS: I’m hip to that. I have super powers myself, ya know?

ANIMAL MAN: Oh, really?

TRAVIS: Yeah, but let’s talk about you. Your link to the M-field is all screwed up right now. And when ya fly, the nice birdies drop from the skies …

They argue a bit, then Travis lays an interesting idea on ANIMAL MAN:

TRAVIS: Have you ever asked yourself this? How come the birds use aerodynamic wings to fly, but Animal Man flies without lifting a finger? What’s this so-called “bird power” you talk about? The birds don’t have it! The poor creatures have to flap their wings!

ANIMAL MAN: Uh … you’ve got a point.

TRAVIS: Damn right I do … Now who’s the smartest, me or you?

So they become buddies and experiment with drawing electrical energy off an electric eel. This leads to Animal Man, via his connection to the eel, drawing lightning from a storm …



#36: "The Call of the Wild"

Animal Man, in a moment of clarity while watching a humpbacked whale breech the ocean surface off San Diego, feels “that great freedom and power at the heart of animal consciousness” …

TRAVIS: "You're going to be the most powerful being on the planet."

Animal Man adds unusual powers by focusing on different animals. (I did a lot of research on animals at this time.) So, for instance, by focusing on a lizard that shoots venom from its skin, Animal Man can shoot powerful toxin from his hands. Then he buys a van “to carry all the special animals I’ll be taking with me on jobs.” Meanwhile Travis is initiated by “Mr. Rainbow” – the old shaman’s mystic messenger.



#37: "The Zoo At World’s End"

ANIMAL MAN (in captions): “I’m the only superhuman with the powers of every animal that ever lived … And I’ve just begun to scratch the surface of the possible. For awhile I thought I’d lost it … but by using the individual creature as a power lens, I bypass the negative effects I experience when I touch the M-Field directly…”

But the old Shaman has other ideas for Animal Man. He breaks the clay Animal Man statue with a hammer, and Buddy gets a huge influx of M-Field energy … which unfortunately kills every animal in the San Diego Zoo!



#38: "The Penalizer"

A comic book within a comic book, Penalizer is introduced. This is Cliff’s favorite comic, and it’s a parody of Marvel’s Punisher. I was told the editor of Punisher taped the cover of Penalizer to his office door! Meanwhile Travis has a wild theory he has been “contacted by angels” and there’s a giant starship buried somewhere in upstate New York. He believes that after he finds and boards the starship, the end of the world will begin! Issue climaxes with a battle between Animal Man and Mr. Rainbow, who takes the form of a monster.



#39: "Master of Wolves"

Travis arrives at the old shaman’s trailer in upstate N.Y. Meanwhile wolves attack the San Diego Comicbook Convention. And Animal Man rips off his clothes and runs with the wolves through San Diego.



#40: "Bear Claw Soup”

A War of the Gods cross-over issue. Not a lot of connection to the other DC tie-in series. But an interesting story about the reappearance of the vampire town of Rosewood, Illinois, which drowned in Swamp Thing #37-39. And Buddy battles bear poachers as he is initiated to “the center of morphogenetic power”…



#41: "The Stone That Cracked Open the Earth Like An Egg"

Rereading the series now, I see that with #41 the writing shifts into high gear. There are a couple of reasons for that:

-One, I was getting a better internal sense of the characters.
-Two, we were getting tremendous positive feedback from the readers.
-And three, I was learning a lot from watching David Lynch’s Twin Peaks show. Lynch knows how to tell a character-driven story. As a writer, he helps you break the old story-telling patterns that Hollywood (and comics) have burned into your brain since you were a kid.

In this issue the old Indian shaman is revealed to have done six years at Attica for killing a white cop. “He just looked the cop straight in the eye and said one word and the guy exploded like there was a bomb in his stomach.” The shaman’s nickname is “The Stone”. His full Indian name is “Stone That Cracked Open the Earth like an Egg.” We find out on page 18 that he is also called “The Stone Who Sits at the Heart of the World.”

Another story point in this issue is that “the bad guys” are mapping superhuman DNA. I’m not sure if this had come up in other comics at this point, but it’s one of those “inevitable” ideas – you know, the cloning of Superman, the GMO-ing of human embryos, etc. And one of my favorite parts is when Animal Man describes to his wife Ellen (who is nicely shirtless) his inner experience of animal powers: “My power took on a whole new dimension. There was light … ecstasy … I knew things. … There was meaning in the power … like truth … you know, like seeing how everything is connected. Like there’s an eye that watches over everything … a great intelligence … and I merged with it. For an hour I became that intelligence … this god-like intelligence at the heart of nature.”



#42: "Men Without Eyes"

A good action story involving genetic clones who are fitted with cyborg brains. Also introduced “the knacker man”, a guy who collects roadkills and dead farm animals and sells them to the gene lab.

The head of S.T.A.R. labs, Buck Samson, is a sort of “government villain” type, who believes the old Indian shaman is leading “a conspiracy to destroy the world masked as sacred ritual and belief.”

Last but by no means least, Animal Man takes the form of a bear. In the next issue he will mate with a young shamaness who also takes the form of a bear.



#43: "Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright"

Not so much a “retcon” of Animal Man’s origin as an attempt to integrate the previous stories with my “deeper” view of animal powers and the morphogenetic field. “In the safety of bounded awareness he toys with reality … he plays the games of children … he tries to understand … he invents authority figures … alien … unhuman … he tries to explain everything until the fear is gone … he dreams his own ‘origin story’ … he dreams sickly yellow magicians and tricksters to explain everything that occurs outside his tiny awareness …everything he is not permitted to know. Everything he is not permitted to see … fanciful images to describe what cannot even be looked at.”

Then Animal Man is standing in space with old Stone, the shaman, who welcomes him to the innermost realm of animal power … “Greetings my son. Welcome to the hidden place, where the old men of the beginning dwell forever…” This, of course, is me plugging the whole series into my metaphysics and mystical ideas about the nature of bodily consciousness! (Considering the liberties Peter Milligan took with his Burroughsian superheroes – Notional Man, Front Page, and Nowhere Man – I figured I could kick out the jams, metaphysically speaking.)



#44: "Who Is That Masked Woman?"

Ellen goes to work for Wonderful Publishing Company, where Les Decker writes and edits Penalizer Comics. Includes a great little amateur Penalizer story written and drawn by Animal Man’s son, Cliff. The animal-powered DC superheroine Vixen appears and battles Animal Man. For the moment, she’s plugged in to the whole shaman story-arc. (Her connection to the morphogenetic field has been explored by other writers in other DC comics.)



#45: "Penalizer Gets Real"

"The Beat of Darkness" in which we learn that Les Decker, writer-editor of Penalizer Comics, is a crime fighter who puts on a Penalizer costume and hunts down drug dealers and such. All tongue-in-cheek, of course, and a send-up of the comics biz.

I meant this story to be a template for the possible series about Penalizer, which I never got around to writing and proposing. (Tom Peyer was definitely into the idea too.) We also learn how Decker shamelessly steals ideas from Cliff’s amateur submission, including the name of the villain, “Doctor Darkness”. Last but not least, a new character is introduced – “the screenwriter” who will script a movie about Animal Man. Another send-up – this character is myself, based on photos I sent to Steve Dillon.

#46: "A Rage of Fathers"

With 1950s DC character Tomahawk on the cover. The art by Steve Pugh I find awesome.

Page one scene of teen Buddy Baker puking on front lawn is based on something that actually happened to me – I came home drunk, got out of car and threw up on the lawn, and my dad was sitting on the front porch reading a newspaper! (Fortunately my father was nicer than Buddy’s.)

Here we learn that Buddy, as a youth, met old Stone, the shaman, while on a hunting trip with his father. He calls Stone “my real father” and together they find a giant metallic “cocoon” that contains Stone’s enemy, the Antagon.



#47: "The Shining Man" (in three parts)

Maxine in the power of B’Wanna Beast. Great scene of Travis Cody in cyberspace, where he learns that Buck Samson is turning himself into a superhero by manipulating his DNA. B’Wanna Beast merges with Antagon and battles Animal Man.



#48: "The Meaning of Flesh"

Rainey Fox, the movie director, gets fried by the Antagon.

B’Wanna channels the Antagon: “I am sent forth from the unitary aeon … to bring judgment upon all that dares to live. I am the self-begotten, the source of incomprehensible undoing.” Then he takes a bite from an apple.

Buddy carries Maxine to join the Animal Masters. (She is one herself.)

…More Cody in cyberspace. Buck Samson’s hitman, Moonlight Jackson, kills Cody’s friend, the woman Kami.

Sweat lodge scenes, Stone shows up to announce the coming battle between the Antagon and the Animal Masters. And then Stone takes his friends into the micro-universe to hide from the Antagon.

When Antagon (aka: B’Wanna Beast) shows up and finds them gone, he is seriously angry – “And when the darkness saw their infamy, his mind mingled with the dark root of his incorruptible anger, and he was like a whirlwind upon the face of creation …”



#49: "The Hot Heart of Abstract Reality"

Screenwriter (me) eats a piece of pie in Ellen Baker’s kitchen while she washes dishes. He writes in his notebook: “The Animal Man movie will get made, if I have to kill everybody in Hollywood to get it done! …Yesterday I saw (director) Rainey Fox get wasted by that dark power. It was beyond belief. It cooked my brains…” (The pie is a reference to Agent Cooper and Twin Peaks.)

In the microworld we see that grotesque dust mites are the “guardians of the threshold” … Tristess, shamaness and Animal Master, says something that cuts to the core of Buddy’s search for himself – “A warrior must awaken to a true identity … an identity that cannot be contained in mirrors and costumes and names … Stone has been trying to get that across to you … you have failed nearly every step of the way.” This triggers something in Buddy, as he confront the gigantic dustmite: “I can feel everything going wide open … no fanfare, no explosions, no shouts of conquest … suddenly I am not focused in a body. Fear vanishes, my eyes open in the great vastness of the M-field … I am as wide as all the worlds, deep as the whole field of living energy from which all forms appear …” And so forth.

If you read my other DC series, you will see this kind of awakening to “natural superman consciousness” is my main theme – in Clash, The Nazz, and My Name is Chaos. My plan was to do that with Superman himself, but as I recall editor Mike Carlin resisted the idea.

Now Travis is dead, and trapped in cyberspace. Buck Samson has had his own superhero apotheosis, awakening to the power of mind-over-matter and giving himself the name Metaman. “Metaman” is a character I invented for a comic my brother Rick was doing for DC. I decided to add substance to the name and reincarnated him here, in Animal Man, and I destroyed him as well.

Now the Animal Masters gather in Labrador. Old Stone tells the story of the origin of the Antagon, who is a kind of anti-creator and annihilator … “even the anti-Christ”. The Animal Masters, on the other hand, are given the power to create animals! The struggle between the Animal Masters and the Antagon has been going on for millions of years!



#50: "Journal of a Plague Year"

The whole 18-issue story is an impossibly vast yarn of light vs darkness, good vs evil, creation vs destruction … And it comes to a head is #50, a double-issue, with myself as a main character and voice-over.

Here, in “real life”, the writer meets the Antagon and witnesses the destruction of half of Vermont! We see Metaman vs. the Antagon, we see Moonlight Jackson die, we see the Animal Masters rally and destroy Antagon, we see Maxine get her powers under control, and oh by the way we see Tom Veitch hit on Ellen Baker, who says “I don’t know what it is about you … I feel that somehow I am contained in you. But that that’s all it is. I could never love a person like you …” And enter Buddy Baker aka Animal Man, who proceeds to beat up the writer (me)…

ELLEN: Buddy … please, just tell him to leave.

ANIMAL MAN: Right. Pack your toothbrush and get out of my life, creep!

Veitch tries to get physical with A-Man, even kicks him in the balls. Next thing you know Veitch is sailing through a window and ending up face-down on the front lawn.

ANIMAL MAN: Cheer up, pal. It could have been a lot worse. Now get up. You and I are going to be friends.

Closing narration in which I describe working on the screenplay with Buddy, and then Buddy sharing some of his secret thoughts …

ANIMAL MAN: I’m still sort of ordinary, you know. But when I lay down at night and close my eyes I see the world … the animals … men … from a place that can’t actually be described … an uncreated place that’s not of time and space … I’m not alone there. There are others. Stone is there, living on… And then something dark surface in the well of thought … a feeling of great dread… I see him, the Antagon, the one who cannot be destroyed because he is destruction. He can only be contained. …For the moment he is our prisoner … but I sense he’ll find a way back into the world. He’ll take a new form, a new name. He’ll become something we don’t recognize, something we can’t control.

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Again, a big thanks to Tom for sharing his notes on his Animal Man run -- which included a few items that I completely overlooked the first time.

Justin

Mike Deodato's Wonder Woman in the Extreme '90s

Everyone seems to unanimously agree that 1987's Wonder Woman #1 relaunch (credited to George Pérez, Len Wein, and Greg Potter) gave the character a much-needed revival and was hailed as a critical and commercial success. Depending on how closely you were following Diana of Themyscira's exploits in the late 80s/early 90s, you probably remember her appearing all over the DCU, the re-introduction of legacy Wonder Woman characters, and the War of the Gods cross-over. So how did Wonder Woman fare following that? By the mid-90s, comicdom had reached the apex of the 'Extreme 90s' and the market was overflowing with Bad Girl anti-heroes and X-book knock-offs. In response to this, new penciller Mike Deodato came on board with issue #90 (1994). 

With the Wonder Woman film now breaking box offices records and her popularity at an all-time high, Michael Campochiaro explores a time when she wasn't handled nearly as progressively or sensitively as she is today.

Mike Deodato's Wonder Woman: long legs, tiny waist, gravity-defying breasts, and of course a thong. Must be the '90s.

Everything you've ever heard about '90s comics is true. The obscenely large muscles, the balloon breasts, and the massive guns. The excessive amount of pouches on everybody's clothing. The gratuitous, leering obsession with the female form. Everything, and I mean everything, was Extreme!!!! It's all true, which is partly why I drifted from comics for a while during the decade.

Don't get me wrong, I loved and still love me some classic '90s Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, and Marc Silverstei art. Those guys were superb. Plus you had Grant Morrison's JLA and Mark Waid's Flash, and also writers like Chuck Dixon seemingly churning out seven books a month, all of them solidly crafted and well written. But the decade is often remembered for the excesses listed above.

When I recently read the collected edition Wonder Woman by Mike Deodato I assumed I was in for more of the cliched '90s comic book tropes, including an abundance of brokeback poses and lots of violence and mayhem. And Deodato certainly delivers. Boy, does he ever. Make no mistake, he's a talented comic book artist, with a real flair for dynamic and kinetic panel designs and gloriously over the top fight scenes. And William Messner-Loebs, who writes all of the issues in the collection, matches Deodato's energy with crisp dialogue and a propulsive forward momentum throughout. There's a b-movie feel to the run, with Messner-Loebs telling fast-paced, action-packed stories, and Deodato providing the cult movie exploitation-style gonzo art.

The trade collects Wonder Woman #0, #85, and #90-100, plus Legends of the DC Universe #4-5. That's fifteen issues of prime early '90s era Wonder Woman and all that entails, including a new and absurdly revealing costume and increasingly objectified depictions of the female form over the course of the run. I'll discuss some story elements here, but this won't be a straight review of the plots. Instead I'll focus on Deodato's art. After all, it's his name in the title of the collected edition and it's his art that's most associated with this era of the character.

I don't even know what to say about this choice of camera angle. How about,"Frank Cho would be proud?"

As was de rigueur in those days, women are usually drawn posing in ridiculously contorted positions, both in action and in static scenes, for maximum extreme objectification. I lost count of how many times Diana and her Amazonian sister Artemis -- who wrestles the mantle of Wonder Woman from Diana during the run -- stood with rear ends extended impossibly high in the air behind them, backs arched dramatically, while at the same time pushing their chests forward with gusto. Deodato's art on Wonder Woman reminds me at times of Silvestri's Uncanny X-Men and Wolverine from earlier in the '90s. No stranger to dramatic exaggeration or highly stylized sexuality in his art, Silvestri still looks tame when compared to the way Deodato deploys both. Of course, if you bring Jim Balent's '90s Catwoman into the conversation, Deodato's style suddenly looks as innocent as Curt Swan's. So it's all about degrees of "Extreme!!!!" when it comes to '90s "Extreme!!!!" artists, I suppose. I also get a strong Norm Breyfogle feel at times from Deodato here, with characters dramatically leaping across the page, nearly flying right out of panels and into your lap.

Before reading the issues, the only thing I knew about the run was that *this* was the infamous era when Diana wore an insanely tiny thong. Seriously, she must have been awfully uncomfortable fighting in that thing. Even as the most famous woman in comics, Diana still isn't immune to being objectified by both readers and creators. Her costume has often been derided as "skimpy" but rarely did it look quite so revealing until Deodato arrived. Not only does she start off sporting the teeny tiny thong, but after losing her title as Wonder Woman in "The Contest" Diana dons one of the most '90s outfits imaginable. It consists of hot pants and a cropped leather jacket that's always open to expose her gravity-defying breasts, which are barely contained within a BDSM-style bra. It's risible attire for the preeminent female superhero, but dammit if Diana doesn't pull it off. Certainly, Deodato makes her look great, but it's all so unseemly in its overt sexualization that you can't help but cringe. Deodato also draws her as lithe and strong, with a confident gait and a smoldering intensity. In those regards, he does justice to her iconic status. It's just that he does so while also outfitting her in a thong, and then in the so-'90s-it-hurts bondage bra.

One of the top items on the '90s checklist: Gratuitously torn clothing revealing even more female flesh. Click here for image [NSFW]


With Artemis though, Deodato really outdoes himself. She too charges into battle in the most microscopic thong imaginable. Seriously, it's hardly even there. It makes Diana's look like boxer briefs. Artemis' legs are ludicrously long, while her absurdly large breasts are usually spilling out of her tops. They're also always standing at attention, whether she's sitting, running, or flipping upside down. Her waist is impossibly small. Her measurements must be the stuff of legend. Basically, she's drawn in a way that will satisfy every adolescent boy's fantasy. Yet, in a lot of ways, the art fits with Messner-Loebs characterization. Artemis is hilarious throughout precisely because she's a tough Amazonian supermodel-warrior with no sense of humor who's constantly flummoxed or downright annoyed by all of the idiot humans around her. Consequently Deodato renders her in permanent withering scowl mode. She's a hoot and her interactions with the kind and calm Diana are a highlight of the book.

Still, at times Deodato also lets the prurient art style run amok. There's no better example than when Artemis is brutally beaten by the White Magician. Artemis' Wonder Woman costume is ripped to shreds and she's tossed around like a well-endowed rag doll. And of course she maintains her alluring sensuality even when being pummeled. It reminds you of the "Death of Superman" showdown with Doomsday, except here it's filtered through a pure fanboy drool-worthy style. Eventually, her thong is just a string of fabric, held together by a few worn threads, and her bustier is torn to pieces, exposing huge portions of her breasts. In fact, Deodato strategically places the rips where nipples should appear—but if he was going to draw them in, DC editorial must've nixed the idea. Nevertheless, it's gratuitously executed, obviously meant to titillate. You can imagine the slobbering '90s male readers stammering, "Look, you can see her boobs!!" Ugh.

While William Messner-Loebs story arcs are engaging and often well written -- although a Boston mafia war plot is a bizarre fit for Wonder Woman -- it's the Deodato art that sells the book and is ultimately what led me to try it out. I've heard so much about this era over the years -- some of it positive, much of it negative -- that I finally had to judge it for myself. How do I rate it? Certainly not in the upper echelon of Wonder Woman stories, but it's still a jaunty and exciting yarn. It's solid '90s comics, and overall quite fun. My opinions on the art are more complicated. The adolescent comic book fanboy that still resides somewhere in the darkest nether-regions of my soul would blush at Deodato's art, but still enjoy it. The adult comic book reader I've become finds the overly sexualized style both problematic and tiresome, but also still appreciates Deodato's talent for drawing exciting superhero action adventure. Besides the elements of '90s excess, the art is compelling and energetic.

Artemis: scowling, twisting, and contorting while wearing very little clothing and kicking copious amounts of butt.

In many ways the era this collection comes out of seems to be a curio of sorts -- a time when DC was far less progressive in their visual representations of their Amazonian Princess, and instead dressed her in what amounts to butt-floss and posed her like a soft-core porn actress. It's strange stuff, for sure. It's still worth a look though, both for historical perspective and for some entertaining art. Just keep in mind it's also filled with cheesecake. In today's more progressive era with an increased sensitivity to issues of equality, representation, and the importance of symbolism in fictional portrayals, this '90s era feels like a hundred years ago. That's probably because in Patty Jenkins' new Wonder Woman film, Gal Gadot gives such an exceptionally inspiring performance. She perfectly embodies the strength, compassion and love inherent in Diana. I'm a big fan of that version of Wonder Woman -- the one most associated these days with George Perez, Nicola Scott, Gail Simone, and Greg Rucka, to name a few creators. Still, it's worth remembering a time when the character was presented more as a pouting supermodel in barely-there clothing than as a true champion of the oppressed in more warrior-appropriate body armor. If only to gauge the representational progress made over the years. Diana has come a long way, clearly.

As a postscript I'd like to give special mention to Brian Bolland's gorgeous covers from this era, many of which are included in this run. His Diana is still sexy like Deodato's version, but Bolland dials down the objectification aspect. Instead, his Diana is never anything less than beautiful, empowered, and fierce. It's worth noting that he designed the roundly disliked black hot pants and leather jacket outfit, but even he didn't like it. It seems he was following directions from editorial. So, if DC is reading this, please know that I would buy the hell out of of a Brian Bolland Wonder Woman covers collected edition. A quick online search reveals that he did covers for issues 0, 63–92, and 94–100. The slim collection could be fleshed out with cover sketches and maybe even commentary from Bolland and/or editorial. I realize this isn't likely to be published, but I can dream, can't I? I'll conclude this piece with a few examples of the stunning Bolland covers included in the Deodato collected edition.

One of several Bolland action covers featuring Wonder Woman battling various aliens and other assorted creatures.

Diana looks nothing short of majestic here.

Here's a side-by-side of Bolland's preliminary sketch for #90 and the final version of the cover.

-Michael

Michael Campochiaro is a seasoned veteran of retro pop culture journalism and has written for Sequart, The After Movie Dinner, Spectrum Culture and his own blog, Words Seem Out of Place.

Myth: 1980s English rock band, Killing Joke, took their name from the Alan Moore Batman graphic novel of the same name

While that would be totally cool from an 80s pop culture perspective, it’s actually false since Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland was published in 1988, and Killing Joke (the rock band) was formed about a decade prior (1978).

When asked about the origin of the band name, Jaz Coleman (Killing Joke’s vocalist and keyboardist) once explained:

“the killing joke is like when people watch something like Monty Python on the television and laugh, when really they’re laughing at themselves. It’s like a soldier in the first world war. He’s in the trench, he knows his life is gone and that within the next ten minutes he’s gonna be dead … and then suddenly he realises that some c*nt back in Westminster’s got him sussed - ‘What am I doing this for? I don’t want to kill anyone, I’m just being controlled’. (Laugh At Your Peril With Killing Joke. Allied Propaganda. May 1979.)

The band itself is still kickin’. Check their Facebook page: www.facebook.com/killingjokeofficial