[15] Mills was planning on resigning once 2000 AD had become established, and following the interview, had decided that Landau would make a suitable chief sub-editor, saying: Nick was clearly an exceptional person and I knew he would be of great value, but [IPC publisher John] Sanders rightly regarded most comic fans with deep suspicion, irrelevant to a mainstream undertaking.
[17] Gosnell was overwhelmed by the amount of work needed to launch 2000 AD's new sister title Starlord, and Landau took up the slack.
They were responsible for "The Cursed Earth", credit cards and encouraged talented artists like Garry Leach and Brian Bolland.
Concerns were raised over the violence in the story, but the sequence of events is unclear, as detailed in the 2000 AD history Thrill-Power Overload, "[t]rying to determine exactly what happened next is problematic, due to conflicting memories and the passage of time.
86 (cover-dated 14 October 1978), when Starlord was merged into 2000 AD, Landau was moved into the same role at the war comic magazine Battle (swapping places with Steve MacManus).
[25] While “resting in the trenches of Battle” Landau devised a new British comic-book concept called Heroes, coming out of his experience at 2000 AD and Action.
The title was to feature heroes of past, present and future in their own strips, all secretly linked with each other (a fact that would only reveal itself over time) to battle a trans-time corporation.
Although Landau was promised editorship of this title by IPC’s publisher, he was disappointed to find that Kelvin Gosnell was ultimately named editor.
The last straw for Landau was when Gosnell returned from an IPC board meeting where the Heroes name was jettisoned in favour of Tornado.
By 1977, Landau and his distribution partners Lake and Luckman had become increasingly concerned about their key customer’s ability to pay its bills.
They decided their recourse was to open up their own retail outlet, named Forbidden Planet and based in London’s Tin Pan Alley, Denmark Street.