Canon Fodder

Publication history

Canon Fodder debuted in 1993, with a 1995 sequel by Nigel Long writing as Kek-W. A dispute between Fleetway and Mark Millar over ownership halted further development; Millar had left 2000 AD by the second series and objected to its continuation. Artist Chris Weston later said he agreed to illustrate the sequel only because he believed the character belonged to 2000 AD.

Cast

Canon Fodder is the last surviving Priest Patrol member; his comrades Deacon Blue, Father O'Blivion, and Cardinal Syn were killed while he judged a beauty pageant. He is a skilled fighter grounded in his faith, but impatient and quick to anger, issuing harsh punishments even to voluntary confessors. He has a mechanical right hand, lost fighting Lucifer. His housekeeper Sadie shares unspoken mutual feelings with him.

Plot

The story opens with a wounded Canon Fodder confronted by Lucifer, who apparently kills him. A flashback shows Dr. Watson discovering that Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty have died in a suicide pact to reach heaven and kill God for not appearing on Judgment Day. Fodder and Watson recruit Mycroft Holmes, portrayed as a psychopath similar to Hannibal Lecter, to get them to heaven before Holmes and Moriarty. However, Holmes and Moriarty find that Lucifer has overthrown and killed God.

As Lucifer prepares to finish Fodder, God unexpectedly returns, kills Lucifer, and asks why he should not wipe out mankind. Fodder argues that without humanity, God will never learn who created him. The story ends with Dr. Watson completing his Purgatory journal entry as the last Sherlock Holmes adventure. In a later story, after a failed hostage crisis at a church, Canon is confined in Bedlam asylum under Sigmund Freud's care.

Deacon Blue, one of the vanished Priest Patrol members, frees him and reveals that the Patrol (except Fodder, who was judging the Miss Purity 2000 pageant) were investigating the League of Anabolic Atheists when they were sucked into another dimension. Blue escaped and wants Fodder to help rescue the others. Freud, Fodder, and Blue travel to the other dimension, which appears to be the collective unconscious. Deacon Blue is revealed as a demon in disguise, and the rescue is a trap.

Fodder is rescued by a trans-dimensional airship captained by Jules Verne. Back in the normal universe, Albert Einstein and Wilhelm Reich explain that the dimension is composed of dark matter, feeding on humanity's fears and desires, and expanding. Reich has built an Orgone Bomb to destroy it. Fodder returns to the dimension, detonates the bomb, and instead of dying frees a Goddess imprisoned there, who returns him to the normal universe.