Warrior #1

The magazine sized book was edited by Dez Skinn and published by his company Quality Communications and featured early work by numerous writes and artist who would soon go onto successful careers in the comic book industry. This book is highlighted with the first appearance of V for Vendetta, written by a budding Alan Moore and wonderfully illustrated with a gripping, darkly atmospheric mood and accented with an chilling sense of approaching doom by artist David Lloyd. V was a masked violent vigilante who battles an oppressive fascist British government in a futuristic dystopian London. This tale was eventually produced as a feature film.

This book also featured the first appearance of Marvelman, who would later become Miracleman (drawn by Alan Davis), again written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Garry Leach. Marvelman was originally created by artist Mick Angio and published between 1954 and 1963 by L. Miller & Son, Ltd., who had contacted Angelo to come up with characters and material to replace the Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. stories they had licensed to reprint from Fawcett Publications. Fawcett chose to cancel their Captain Marvel related titles due to the ongoing legal battle with DC Comics over alleged Superman copywrite infringement, which cut off Miller & Son's source material. Marvelman was revived from these older adventures by Moore for this first issue.

The striking cover featured the sociopathic cyborg assassin Axel Pressbutton drawn by artist Steve Dillon, a character who was originally created by Steve Moore and Alan Moore for a music magazine titled Dark Star in 1979 and subsequently appeared in the more widely read Sounds from 1980. For this issue, Skinn requested the additional creation of a sexy female co-star, and thus, Axel was accompanied by Laser Eraser Mysta Mystralis, one of the galaxy's most dreaded assassins. Mysta appears on the cover alongside Axel.

Another intriguing series starred Father Shandor...Demon Stalker, that told the adventures of a medieval Transylvanian monk who turned demon hunter. This character had been created by Steve Moore for House of Hammer and was being continued on in this book. The stories were initially reprints with artwork by the super-talented John Bolton with subsequent original stories drawn by David Jackson.

Warrior #1 likewise features other series as well, such as The Spiral Path, a fantasy sword and sorcery tale written by Steve Parkhouse with artwork by Bolton and The Legend of Prester John, a retelling of the story of the legendary Christain king, also written by Parkhouse with art by Bolton.

In short, this first issue is just simply LOADED with epic sagas, thrilling tales and exciting adventures from cover to cover.