They don't need to threaten Tharg on the cover - killing the alien editor of 2000ad is my idea of a good time, not a threat - because the 1987 annual is just an absolute monster of a book. Many of the annuals have peaks and troughs of quality, but this one really seems like a complete package of thrills.
There is Carlos Ezquerra on Strontium Dog, and Kevin O'Neill on Nemesis, and Brendan McCarthy with a more down-to-earth Judge Dredd effort from the mind expanding artist, (although it's yet another annual plot that is more than a little familiar, with glamorous female perps turning out to Wally Squad).
And the 1988 effort is also packed with more O'Neill and Dave Gibbons, with reprints of the Ro-Busters story about Hammerstein's adventures on the front line of the Vogon war. It's beautiful artwork with a story that actually hits harder now than it did in other times - all that Vogon stuff felt quite dated for a while, but now seems scarily topical.
It doesn't have any of the very best stories in this run of annuals, but the overall book has a pleasant feeling of completeness, or getting everything you could possibly want from mid-1980s 2000ad, and just a little bit more.
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