Invasion! Eight-Hour War and a pint (classic comic-book retrospective).

Back in 1977, when British comics weren’t afraid of being shouty, satirical, and stuffed full of morally dubious antiheroes, Invasion! exploded onto the pages of 2000 AD like a sawn-off shotgun blast to the face of polite storytelling. Created by the reliably revolutionary Pat Mills and written primarily by Gerry Finley-Day, this was dystopian political fantasy played out in real-time – except the Soviets had gone full fascist, Heathrow was under enemy occupation, and the Midlands had been nuked into something resembling a post-apocalyptic carvery.

At the centre of it all? Bill Savage – a gruff, vengeful, shotgun-toting East End lorry driver who didn’t wait for an underground resistance to recruit him. No, after the Volgans (the fascist rebrand of the USSR under Marshal Vashkov) flattened his home and family during their suspiciously well-organised 1999 invasion of Britain, Savage cracked open a crate of rage and went full vigilante. Think Love Thy Neighbour crossed with First Blood, but with fewer civil niceties and a higher body count.

The premise was simple: the Volgans storm Britain in what’s dubbed the “Eight-Hour War”, assisted by a treacherous fifth column of upper-class turncoats. The Royal Family legs it to Canada, the government collapses, and the People’s Republic of Britain is born – all puppets and propaganda under the Volgans’ bootheel. Enter Savage, swinging his hook (literally – he’s got a ship-hauling hook) and blasting his sawn-off through fascists like a Cockney Terminator.

But this wasn’t just action for action’s sake. As with most of Pat Mills’ output, Invasion! was spliced with class consciousness and anti-authoritarian fire. The military is portrayed as impotent or complicit, while it’s Savage’s working-class grit and streetwise cunning that sticks a spanner in the occupiers’ gears. Later joined by resistance fighter Peter Silk, Savage leads the delightfully named Mad Dogs out of the Isle of Dogs, turning Britain’s suburbs and council estates into battlegrounds.

And if it all feels a bit pulp and preposterous, well, that’s sort of the point. Here at SFcrowsnest magazine, we love this kind of boot-stamping-on-a-human-face-forever dystopia… especially when it ends with said boot being ripped off and thrown through a Volgan’s windscreen by a bloke who says “Bleedin’ ‘ell!” like punctuation.

The original Invasion! series wrapped up with Savage escorting Prince John out of the country in a finale so bombastic it made The Eagle Has Landed look like an episode of Last of the Summer Wine. But that wasn’t the end.

In 1979, we got the prequel Disaster 1990, because clearly Britain wasn’t miserable enough already. In this eco-apocalypse, London floods thanks to a nuclear detonation melting the ice caps (classic), and Savage gets to show off his aquatic survival skills while society once again collapses like a bad soufflé.

Then there’s Savage, the revival series that launched in 2004 – now darker, cleverer, and absolutely steeped in cynicism. It retcons the Volgans as long-term occupiers, weaving them into the backstory of the ABC Warriors and other 2000AD universes. Here, the war never really ends – it just simmers. Propaganda is rampant, collaborators wear “Double Yellow” uniforms like jaundiced nightmares, and the resistance turns increasingly murky. Savage himself becomes a grimmer figure, fuelled by revenge, operating as both symbol and saboteur in a land where most Brits seem to have shrugged and said, “Could be worse – we’ve still got telly.”

One of the many joys of this revived strip is the creeping techno-fascism. There are American-supplied weapons, robot armies, secret teleportation projects, and collaborations that would make a Vichy official blush. Savage kills. A lot. He loses his brother, gets betrayed by allies, takes out the Volgan leader, and thwarts a false flag terrorist plot. And still, by the end, Britain remains under the cosh.

It’s telling that even with Volgan defeat, we get a bitter coda: Savage’s long-lost brother is reborn as a cyborg agent of the regime. The robots we built to free us start shooting into protest crowds. Howard Quartz, future villain of the ABC Warriors, gets a new cybernetic body. Victory is never clean. Peace never uncomplicated.

There’s something brilliantly, unflinchingly British about the whole saga. Not in the flag-waving, jam-and-spitfires way, but in the bleaker tradition of Orwell, The War Game, and Threads. It’s what you’d get if you asked Coronation Street to direct Red Dawn. It’s Dad’s Army with PTSD.

And let’s not forget – the whole thing started in a kids’ comic. A comic! One sold next to The Beano and Whizzer & Chips, filled with smiling fascists, nuclear craters, and a geezer yelling “Let’s ‘ave it!” before ventilating the nearest occupier.

Invasion! may not have the star power of Judge Dredd or the philosophical flair of Nemesis the Warlock, but it remains one of 2000AD’s most brutal, biting, and bizarre achievements. A saga that gave us blood, politics, resistance, and a hero who never stopped fighting – unless it was for a quick pint between explosions.

So here’s to Bill Savage – the patron saint of East End vengeance, the man who made the humble sawn-off shotgun a symbol of freedom. God save the King? Nah. God save Bill.