The Return of the Mekon treatment

At the exhibition marking the centenary of Frank Hampson's birth sits some foolscap paper in an exhibition case... 

It's a copy of Paul De Savary's treatment for his planned 'Return of the Mekon' film that was planned in the mid-1970s (there's a little bit about it here). As far as I'm aware little is known about this film project, much more is known about the later ATV series, that is also covered here. 

Anyway, you could just about read what was written on the first page of De Savary's film treatment so I scribbled it down for posterity when I went back to Southport the other day... 

A History 1969-3469
Year 1969
Apollo moon landing, on 20th July, the USA land the first man on the moon

Year 2321 = NOVEM [???] accord
This was signed by the major powers on Earth and...200 year plan for the development of space and the various planets within the solar system. It proved to have far reaching impacts not only in space, but also on earth, where it acted as a catalyst for the unification of Earth.

The …of the established areas of life on the various planets in order to enable their colonisation. The success of the...space exploration...gave inspiration to politicians and gained public support for...exploitation of the planets and the distant stars...and technology came inti...Syco-Conductivity hyper electro-magnetic...having been perfected a decade earlier. Numerous inventions and alternative sources of energy had come about since the total exhaustion of the earth's oil reserves/ The integration of advance technologies resulted in the possibilities of easy...and also enabled space craft to reach incredible speeds.

So, what does this tell us then? Well not much, it's only a page after all, the document itself looks like it could be 5-8 pages long, and I couldn't read all of if [denoted as … in the above].

The main thing is that by apparently setting the adventure in 3469 the film will take place a long time after the comic adventures had taken place (the late 1990s). Also, that the Mekon that returned could not be the same Mekon as Dan first encountered as Mekon's 'only' live for hundreds of years, so he certainly wouldn't have lasted until 3469 [i.e. about 1,500 years after Dan first encounters him]. The treatment also mentions the Earth being unified, that agrees with the narrative in the Dan Dare universe where the world government is in place as a 'thing'.

So, just a glimpse of what the file could have been, I guess we'll never know more unless that file treatment makes it out into the public domain somehow.

Also in the same cabinet - Harold Johns as Digby

...and photographic reference material