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Born John Kreeler in 2150, after a savage nuclear war, Johnny was one of many babies with freak mutations. His father, Nelson Bunker Kreelman, was a bigoted anti-mutant extremist, who hid the young Johnny's secret by telling him he would die if he ever saw light without protective glasses.
When school bullies ripped off his glasses, Johnny suddenly found himself able to see through walls and read minds, rather than dying in agony. Running home to tell his parents, he was confronted with his father's hatred of all mutantkind.
Johnny ran away to join the Mutant Rebel Army, taking the name of Johnny Alpha. After a bitter struggle, the Mutant Army was victorious, but Johnny was exiled from Earth. Looking for something to do, he signed up as a "Search/Destroy" agent, or "Strontium Dog" - a galactic bounty hunter.
Johnny has teamed with various partners - notably Wulf Sternhammer, a genuine Viking from Eighth Century Earth, Middenface McNulty, a barney-loving bump-bonced Glaswegian mutant, and the Gronk, a timid alien healer who eats metal.
Introduced in Starlord, soon to merge with 2000AD in 1977, Johnny Alpha was an instant success. The tough yet sensitive mutant's job as a bounty hunter allowed creators Wagner and Ezquerra to show him roving the galaxy, chasing strange and evil criminals of all kinds.
In 1990, Johnny Alpha was one of the few long-running 2000AD characters ever to be killed off, at the request of writers John Wagner and Alan Grant. You can't keep a good mutant down, though, and Johnny was revived by the comic a decade later.
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Introducing Johnny Alpha
