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Begin with List of Life
A standalone mystery, extraordinary machines and a fight for humanity’s future. Discover the full-colour hardback.
Explore the comic →Comics, toys & graphic novel
Project SWORD
Earth is in crisis. SWORD’s extraordinary machines may be humanity’s way out — but who gets to be saved? Explore a world born in Century 21’s toys and comics, and rediscover it through the new graphic novel, List of Life.
- Origins: Century 21 toys & publishing
- First comic strip: SOLO, 1967
- Classic annual: 1969
- New graphic novel: List of Life
Project SWORD
Where to begin
A few rewarding routes into this world. Choose the one that catches your imagination.
Discover the original world
Follow SWORD’s journey from space toys to SOLO, TV Century 21 and its celebrated annual.
Read the history →Inside the new adventure
Meet the writer and artist, see their comic previews and discover how they brought SWORD back to life.
Meet the creators →Project SWORD
Machines
Choose a machine to discover its role, its story and where it can take you next.
SWORD mining crawler
Built for difficult terrain, this substantial crawler is one of the new comic’s striking machines. The preview identifies it as a SWORD mining crawler optimised for Mars geology. James Gray’s design gives it huge tyres and an industrial, working-vehicle presence.
- Appears in List of Life
- Designed and illustrated by James Gray
- Modern comic artwork
The selection computer
The computer decides which survivors are considered useful enough to be evacuated from Earth. In List of Life, something has gone badly wrong with that process. Its choices drive the mystery — and place human lives behind every decision.
- Central to List of Life
- Story by Lizbeth Myles
Project SWORD
Characters
Meet the people at the heart of this world. Open a card and follow their story.
Agent Peake
A SWORD operative caught up in the investigation at the heart of List of Life. Follow the agents as they try to uncover why the organisation’s own technology is threatening its mission to save humanity.
- Appears in List of Life
- Written by Lizbeth Myles
- Illustrated by James Gray
Project SWORD
Places
Explore the headquarters and locations that make this world possible.
Earth after the catastrophe
Volcanic devastation has made much of Earth uninhabitable. In the new comic’s opening pages, survivors shelter beneath a vast dome while SWORD prepares evacuations. This is the world its people are struggling to leave — and its rescuers are trying to save.
- Setting of List of Life
- Opening preview dated Earth, 3036
- Modern comic artwork
Stories
Go deeper into this world
Fresh perspectives, familiar heroes and adventures beyond the screen.
Shop
Bring the adventure home
Explore the available editions and stories connected with this world.
From the archive
The story of Project SWORD
Trace its journey from space toys and the pages of TV Century 21 to a new mystery among the stars.
A world on the brink. Machines built for impossible journeys. A rescue mission with an unsettling question at its heart: who gets to leave?
What is Project SWORD?
SWORD stands for the Space World Organisation for Research and Development. Its spacecraft, explorers and extraordinary vehicles belong to a lesser-known corner of the Century 21 universe: an adventure created through toys and publishing.
In its darker TV Century 21 incarnation, a meteorite has left Earth dangerously unstable. SWORD must organise evacuations, help those still on the planet and investigate the catastrophe. The optimism of the space age meets an uncomfortable struggle for survival.
The modern graphic novel, List of Life, returns to that dilemma. A computer chooses which survivors can escape the devastated Earth. When its decisions go wrong, SWORD's own technology becomes part of the mystery.
From toys to the newspaper of the future
Project SWORD began with space toys acquired by Century 21 Merchandising. Publishing gave those machines a world to inhabit. It was not an unmade Gerry Anderson television series: the toys and stories had an identity of their own.
- 1967 — SOLO: an early black-and-white strip introduced SWORD's space exploration adventures.
- 1968 — TV Century 21: SWORD returned as illustrated text stories, with a much darker premise centred on a devastated Earth.
- The 1969 annual: editor and writer Angus Allan helped develop the world further, with artwork chiefly by Malcolm Stokes, Tom Kerr and Michael Strand.
- 2026 — List of Life: writer Lizbeth Myles and artist James Gray bring SWORD into a new full-length graphic novel from Time Bomb Comics.
Explore SWORD and the other secret heroes of TV Century 21 →
Read a preview of List of Life
Supervolcanoes have devastated Earth. People wait beneath protective domes, while spacecraft carry selected survivors away. These opening pages introduce the world of List of Life without revealing the mystery's solution.
The people behind the new adventure
Lizbeth Myles — writer. Drawing on the original annual, Myles builds a mystery around the system that decides who is worth saving. Her interview explores the story, its links with the earlier material and the appeal of old-fashioned space adventure.
Read the interview with Lizbeth Myles →
James Gray — artist and letterer. Gray's work gives the vehicles, uniforms and environments a fresh visual identity. In his interview he discusses his affection for the original designs, the influence of his former tutor Mike Trim and the pleasure of inventing a whole fleet of machines.
Read the interview with James Gray →
Time Bomb Comics — publisher. The team also publishes the Spectrum anthology, featuring new adventures for Terrahawks, Space Precinct and New Captain Scarlet.
A good place to begin
Project SWORD: List of Life is a standalone adventure, so you can begin here without owning the original annual. The edition in the store is a 48-page, full-colour hardback, perfect bound and measuring 257 × 168 mm.
The cover and comic artwork throughout this hub come from the new Time Bomb Comics edition. The annual cover is labelled separately. For publication history, our TV Century 21 retrospective provides the wider context; for the new story and its design, begin with the two creator interviews.
Follow the creative thread
Your next world awaits
Shared makers, familiar ideas and unexpected connections. Choose your next world.
Space: 1999
More survival among the stars
Join Moonbase Alpha for another vision of humanity facing the unknown.
Explore the world →
Space Precinct
Another world drawn by James Gray
Explore the series whose Time Bomb Comics adventures also feature Gray’s artwork.
Explore the world →
Thunderbirds
Extraordinary machines. Lives at stake.
Return to International Rescue and the craft built to answer impossible emergencies.
Explore the world →