Strontium Dog - Series Background

Series Background

Nuclear wars had led to the birth of a sizeable population of mutants through showers of Strontium-90 in nuclear fallout. After the Great War of 2150 ("Nobody ever knew who fired the first missile - but suddenly the whole world went crazy!"), wiping out 70% of Britain's population, the number of mutants increased and was met with loathing by the "norms" and institutionalised racism: laws were passed forbidding mutants from owning businesses and segregating them into ghettos such as Milton Keynes, and only a vicious guerilla war prevented total extermination of all mutants and ensured some basic freedoms.

By 2180, one of the few jobs left is that of bounty hunter, a job considered too dirty for normal humans. The strongest of mutants hunt down criminals throughout the galaxy for the Search/Destroy agency, whose distinctive SD badges give them the nickname Strontium Dogs. The SD agents operate from an orbiting space station known as The Doghouse.

The mutants of Strontium Dog differ from the usual depiction of mutants in American comics, such as those published by Marvel, in that they are generally afflicted with severe physical deformities and only rarely granted with superhuman powers. Often this leads to humour and character names being puns, as Spider-Dan in the Young Middenface spin-off and skull-faced Welsh mutant Dai the Death in Strontium Dog: Traitor To His Kind.

Even by the standards of 2000 AD, Strontium Dog plotlines could be bizarre. In one story Alpha travels to an alternate dimension that passes for Hell. In another he is sent by time machine to 1945 to arrest Adolf Hitler. There was also a bleak, minimalistic edge to the series at times reminiscent of spaghetti westerns.