h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There was a further incarnation of Dan Dare around 1989 / 1990 - it was written by Grant Morrison, and illustrated in a retro-fifties style by Rian Hughes. Originally serialsed in Revolver comic, and then collected into a single slim volume, it was fascinating and unpleasant in equal measure. Set in a Thatcherite England of class division and poverty, the ageing original characters have to come to terms with shifting moral boundaries, a new Treen plot [a really nasty one, too] and eventually their own mortality. This was dismissed at the time as another in a wave of gratuitously "grim" reworkings of favourite comics characters - especially true in this case. Dan Dare fans can hunt it down, but with this caution - it's strong stuff.