Big Dave

Big Dave is an infamous character created and written by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar, with artwork by Steve Parkhouse, for 2000 AD.

The character was created for The Summer Offensive, an experiment in which the magazine was handed over to Millar, Morrison and John Smith for eight weeks.

Publication history
Big Dave first appeared in prog (the 2000AD term for issue) #842 in his first story which featured Saddam Hussein trying to take over the world and turn everyone into "poofs" with the aid of some scary aliens. Big Dave, "the hardest man in Manchester", manages to stop Saddam's plan with the help of Terry Waite.

If this story was controversial then the next story surpassed it. It featured the British Royal Family as robots plus The Princess of Wales and The Duchess of York as a pair of horny drunks. The story ends with Dave in bed with both royals.

A third had Dave leading a minibus full of disabled children to the football world cup final where they defeat a German team managed by Adolf Hitler.

Both Morrison and Millar appeared happy with such controversy but the character did split 2000 AD fans' opinion down the middle, with some praising it as the best series the comic had ever run, while others thought it was nothing more than puerile rubbish.