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Halo Jones: return of the 50th-century galactic adventurer

One of the great comic book characters of all time, and a pioneer for all women who seek powerful roles, gets a new lease of life

By Rowan Hooper

18 May 2018

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

The setting is the Hoop – a vast floating housing project tethered off the east coast of America. It is the 50th century. No one on the Hoop has a job, no one born here has any aspirations for the future.

Enter Halo Jones, a young woman growing up in this hopeless environment who is ordinary in every way except one: she decides to get out. She has no superpowers and no particular special abilities but she is bored and frustrated.

In 1984, when she was introduced in the pages of British comic 2000AD, she was unlike anyone else in…

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