"Computer Warrior" (initially "The Ultimate Warrior") is a British comic strip, appearing in titles published by IPC Magazines. The story was published in the anthology Eagle from 6 April 1985 to January 1994, initially written by John Wagner and drawn by John Cooper. The story followed the eponymous Computer Warrior - a video game expert called Bobby Patterson, who gained the ability to enter computer games. Both fictional and real games were featured in the story, which ran until Eagle was cancelled in 1994.

Creation

In April 1985, Eagle incorporated sister title Tiger. As well as continuing selected strips from both Eagle and Tiger, as was customary for merged IPC titles Eagle and Tiger also featured a brand-new story. This was "The Ultimate Warrior", devised by John Wagner - a prolific contributor to IPC comics in general (most notably as co-creator of 2000 AD<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Judge Dredd) and the relaunched Eagle in particular - and his writing partner Alan Grant. While the pair worked together on the concept, only Wagner would submit the scripts. The initial four-part story was drawn by the experienced John Cooper, who had worked with Wagner on Valiant story "One-Eyed Jack". as such the story was initially credited to 'D. Spence', which Wagner had previously used for boxing strip "The Fists of Danny Pyke".

Bobby then discovered the purpose of the challenge was to find a champion to defeat the dark forces of the Nightmare Zone. The realm's ruler, the Computer Warlord, gathered together all qualified Computer Warriors and eliminated them one by one before banishing them to the Nightmare Zone in a series of tests to find the 'Ultimate Warrior'. As before, each test was the successful completion of a popular computer game of the time. Bobby made friends and enemies amongst the other Computer Warriors as the tests went on, but eventually Bobby emerged triumphant and became the Computer Warlord's champion; the other Computer Warriors being freed from the Nightmare Zone.

The Computer Warlord then set Bobby five more tests to defeat the Nightmare Zone creatures once and for all. In the final test the Nightmare Zone creatures picked a champion to defeat Bobby - his evil self. Bobby defeated this last enemy and the Nightmare Zone creatures were trapped in a 'cube of holding' by the Warlord.

In later stories, Bobby defeated various Nightmare Zone creatures who refused to enter the cube and then became the Computer Warlord, the old one having died and bequeathing the title to Bobby. Bobby used his new found status to invite Eagle readers to play real life games.

In one of Eagle's many revamps, a new attempt was made to refresh the Computer Warrior storyline. Bobby was summoned before the Council of Warlords to be told he wasn't really a Computer Warlord, and they demoted him back to Computer Warrior. Another Warlord named Baal explained to Bobby that they too were being attacked by Nightmare Zone creatures and he needed a champion to defeat them. Bobby then proceeded to complete more video games under Baal's direction.

The Eagle concluded its run in January 1994. For the final video game test, Bobby played Another World. When this was successfully completed, he was told by Baal that "no test had been too great" and he had now defeated the Nightmare Zone forces. How he achieved this was left unexplained. Bobby was returned to his home and told that all his adventures had taken place in seconds in the real world and he would no longer be needed. Bobby pleaded with Baal to come back but had to contend with himself that he would miss being the Computer Warrior.

While the comic featured both fictional and real games, the majority of the titles were games published in the UK by U.S. Gold for 8 and 16 bit computers.

In earlier issues, the computer used had the appearance of a Commodore 64, but was later changed to resemble an Atari St without explanation

  • † = Fictional game.
  • ‡ = Fictional game, devised by Eagle readers.