Johnny Alpha

Johnny Alpha
Johnny Alpha Art by Carlos Ezquerra.
Publication information
Publisher	originally IPC Media (Fleetway) to 1999, thereafter Rebellion Developments
First appearance	Starlord #1 (1978)
Created by	John Wagner Carlos Ezquerra
In-story information
Alter ego	John Kreelman
Team affiliations	Search/Destroy Agency
Notable aliases	Johnny Alpha
Abilities	Mutant eyes allow him to see through solid objects and read brainwave patterns, limited telekinesis, superb military skills, has mastered Yogi trick of stopping & restarting his own heartbeat

Strontium Dog is a long-running British comics series featuring in the British science fiction weekly 2000 AD, starring Johnny Alpha, a mutant bounty hunter with an array of imaginative gadgets and weapons.

The series was created by writer John Wagner (under the pseudonym T. B. Grover) and artist Carlos Ezquerra for Starlord, a short-lived weekly science fiction comic, in 1978. When Starlord was cancelled the series transferred to 2000 AD. In 1980 Wagner was joined by co-writer Alan Grant, although scripts were normally credited to Grant alone. Grant wrote the series solo from 1988 to 1990.

The premise of the series is that the Great Nuclear War of 2150 wiped out 70% of Britain's population and led to a huge increase of mutant births due to exposure to nuclear fallout (strontium-90). The mutants faced a high degree of racism, similar to that faced by the Jewish population of Nazi Germany. Laws were passed forbidding mutants from owning businesses and segregating them into ghettos such as a giant mutant settlement at Milton Keynes.

Following the end of this storyline, in 2180, one of the few jobs left for mutants is that of bounty hunter, a job considered too dangerous 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.