The Six Million Dollar Man & MACH 1 - Origins

Let's compare & contrast the origins of the two premier artificially induced supermen of the Bronze Age, as suggested this time by pal of this here blog Nefarious Neil Hansen ( or Friend Of Old Bronze Age as I'm now calling you lot. We're completely FOOBA, every one of us! )
The Six Million Dollar Man magazine was from Charlton, by way of Continuity Associates, or in other words Neal Adams & Dick Giordano, and though it was short-lived ( 7 issues and out ), it was all solid stuff, with some magnificent covers. Not to mention better special effects than the TV show.
Here's Steve Austin's origin, courtesy of uncredited Continuers, and Charlton's hardest working writer, the ubiquitous Joe Gill. Race you round the playground in slow motion.

Pat Mills, of course, never met a TV show he couldn't do a harder, cooler, nastier version of.
Initially, to me at least, MACH 1 actually seemed like the least interesting of the early 2000AD's strips, being as it was absolutely the most derivative. John Probe, the secret agent with the vaguely porn star sounding name, was of course Steve Austin crossed with Deathlok, except he was British and he got to kill people.
Later on, of course, the strip rang the changes with the introduction of the Hulk-like Mach Zero, and Probe himself started to question just who and what he was busting a gut for, particularly in a superb serial where his sleazy boss killed a couple of friendly aliens.
But before that, we got a series of short, brutal adventures for the Hyper Hero, which very quickly convinced me about this guy, being as they were increasingly similiar in tone to Dredger's early exploits over in Action. In fact, clearly I was wrong by dismissing Probe out of hand as, if anybody was the inheritor of nasty, vicious two-fisted action from Action's secret agent, it was him.
And looking back on his adventures now, I can't help going 'Ah yeah! Remember the one where he kills the guy with one karate chop to the neck?!'

Ro-Jaws' Christmas

Two of my all-time favourite 2000AD characters of all time have to be Ro-Jaws & Hammer-Stein ( Geddit? D'ya geddit? ) off of Ro-Busters and ABC Warriors.
Hammer-Stein is the perfect straight man, but the real star is Ro-Jaws, the garbage eating, garbage talking droid who has to look up to even see the lowest rung of the social ladder, but still sees no reason why he should show anybody the slightest bit of respect.
Coarse, shouty and completely loveable, he even got his own film review page back in the day ( 'Wotcha Humes! Cor! I'd sooner eat rotten banana peels than sit through THAT pile of poo again! But then 'oo wouldn't?' )
Here's how he got started, in a Christmas tale aimed to tug at the heartstrings ( well, in a typically cynical Pat Mills kind of way. )
Pat is joined here on art duties by the great Mike Dorey ( no relation ) and in keeping with the season, Mike dips his ink pen in soot from his victorian chimney, and the whole thing gives you a nice warm Christmassy glow. Until, presumably, Ro-Jaws eats everything in the house.
Including the house.
' Appy Chrimble, humes! '

Shako

Ok, time for the best strip ever about a polar bear. Nope, not that guy, although he was around at the same time and was nearly as cool as our star today.
No, THIS polar bear:

Shako ( The Only Bear On The CIA Death List ) was a great example of the early 2000AD's mission statement of fat-free action strips that mostly involve people's heads getting chomped off.
Shako, a polar bear who's swallowed a mcguffin is, like his predecessors Hookjaw and the dinosaurs of Flesh, an example of nature run amok, and delights in eating the human bad guys of the story, including the brilliant Jake ' Foulmouth' Falmuth, who's gonna get that goddamn bear, dammit!
Like a lot of my favourite comic strips, Shako has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and is all the better for it. Twelve year old you will not be able to stop yourself going Cor! Look at that!!
In these days of adult, nice, worthy graphic novels that are reviewed in The Guardian, we still need comics like Shako. 
Put it this way, Jim Warren would've loved it.