Billy Whisper

Created by Mark Millar and Brett Ewins, Billy Whisper was a teenage genius, boy billionaire pop star, male model, martial artist, brain surgeon, astronaut, England's top footballer and had bought the Presidency of the United States after World War III - all by the time he turned seventeen. Not bad for a lad from Newcastle, not that it impressed his mother. Though it did give pause to the aliens who had come to reclaim the fallen bodies of their comrades who had died in 1938 during the invasion that Orson Welles had reported on before the government hushed it up and forced Welles to claim his radio broadcast had just been a hoax. While many were fans of Billy, the Legion of Decency, a subsection of the government, were not, and assigned their best assassin, Agent Slaughter (see below left), to take him out.

   Presumably intended to debut in later issues of Earthside 8 since he appeared on the cover but not the interior of that pilot issue, Billy Whisper's first episode instead appeared in Alternity#1; Billy was also the cover star. However, this proved to be his one and only appearance, which was never reprinted.

The Burning Man

Created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, The Burning Man was the story of assassin Johnny Goodnight who discovered he had been poisoned with a slow-acting alien toxin, Pyrocyllus, which would gradually make the inflicted feel like their internal organs were on fire before killing them. With no known cure, Goodnight decided to use whatever time he had remaining to him to hunt down and slay his own killer.

   After the first episode appeared in both Earthside 8 and Alternity, it finally saw wider publication in the 2000A.D. Yearbook 1994. However, no further installments ever followed.

Canned Heat

Created by John Wagner and Colin McNeill, Canned Heat told the tale of L.A. police officer Rocky Schwartenburger who had to have his entire body amputated after suffering horrifying injuries after his hoverpad was ambushed by a gang. Luckily for him the force had been developing a new robot law enforcement officer, and so they implanted Rocky's brain into it, creating Cybo-Cop.

   A very tongue-in-cheek parody of both Arnold Schwarzenegger action movies and, clearly, Robocop, Canned Heat appeared in both Earthside 8 and Alternity, and then saw wider publication in the 2000A.D. Winter Special 1993.

Dinosty

Created by Pat Mills and Clint Langley, Dinosty was a tale set in a world where sentient dinosaurs ruled the planet. Because the first five of ten episodes had already been drawn when plans for Earthside 8 were scrapped, it was the only series from the pilot comic that was brought over to 2000A.D. and completed.

Gameworld

Created by Mark Eyles, Gameworld starred Scott Glenn, the wheelchair-bound son of scientist Professor Glenn, who had invented an experimental protein based biocomputer no bigger than a peanut. To test it, Professor Glenn then programmed the biocomputer with computer game to create a terrifying Gameworld. When burglars broke into the house seeking to steal his father's invention Scott swallowed it to keep it from the thieves, but the biocomputer merged with his nervous system, plunging Scot's body into a coma while his mind found itself trapped in Gameworld, forced to play games to survive.

   Titled Alternity when it appeared in Earthside 8, the strip was renamed Gameworld for the new pilot comic which had appropriated the Alternity name. A mixture of regular art and computer graphic art, it never got a wider reprint. Scott's digital form, never seen clearly in the single available episode of the story, appeared on the cover of Earthside 8