He first appeared on 3 November 1950 in the 30th episode of the Eagle comic strip Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, having been created by Frank Hampson.
[5] Elton John, in his "Rock of the Westies" album recorded in 1975, had a song called "Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future)".
British satirical magazine Private Eye ran a cartoon strip from 1987 titled "Dan Dire - Pilot of the Future?
Dire's arch-enemy was The Maggon, a Mekon-like parody of Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher, whose followers were the Toreens.
[6][7] In May 2013, the BBC radio soap opera The Archers featured a storyline in which regular character Brian Aldridge was aggrieved by a local newspaper article that compared him to the Mekon.