IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 22

Two contributors to EAGLE had been prisoners of the Germans during the War and both recalled their experiences in significant post war films. Guy Morgan, who wrote the Storm Nelson strip for EAGLE, using the nom de plume of Edward Trice, wrote The Captive Heart, which was made just a year after the War and was filmed in the actual camp where he had been held. Although the central plot of this film is fictional, it focuses on a large group of characters and convincingly conveys the experiences of prisoners of War. Morgan also worked on the script of Albert R.N. (1953) which is a fictionalised account of a real event that had involved another EAGLE contributor, the artist John Worsley, who illustrated The Adventures of PC 49 from 1951 until 1957. As a prisoner, Worsley made a dummy to fool the Germans at roll call, enabling a prisoner to escape without being missed. (See above). The original 'Albert' dummy did not survive the War, but Worsley made another one for the film and this can still be seen in the Royal Naval Dockyard Museum in Portsmouth. 

EAGLE TIMES Vol. 34 No.2 Summer 2021

 

The latest EAGLE Times is out now. It includes tributes to the late Don Harley and the Duke of Edinburgh and articles about the back page biography of Sir Walter Raleigh and the Riders of the Range strip The Heir of Duncreiff. Dan Dare features in articles about his Phantom Fleet adventure and Frank Hampson's studio ideas book. There is also a feature about how the EAGLE Book of Cars and Motorsport inspired some young readers to restore a jeep and the final instalment of the latest Archie Willoughby adventure The Case of the Plastic Cowboys. Details of how to join the Society and obtain copies are on the right.

THE IRON MAN

STEVE WINDERS EXAMINES THE CAREER OF EAGLE'S POPULAR ANDROID

1963 was a good year for iron men. First there was the American Marvel super hero Iron Man who debuted in issue 39 of Tales of Suspense in March. Created by Stan Lee, this strip features a millionaire engineering genius, Tony Stark, who is wounded when a piece of shrapnel lodges itself close to his heart. He is captured by a Vietnamese warlord and forced to develop weapons for him. Stark then colludes with Yin Sen, another prisoner, to build himself a suit of powered armour, primarily to keep him alive. However, such is the strength provided by this armour that he is able to use it to help him escape and ultimately to fight evil and injustice. The armour completely disguises his features and in the finest traditions of super hero fiction, Tony Stark is able to keep his identity a secret. 

The second Iron Man, who is the subject of this article, appeared four months later in the British weekly comic Boys' World. The strip began in issue 24, dated 6th July 1963. This iron man was really a powerful robot, but wearing a suit of plastic skin, appeared to be human. Consequently he was the exact opposite of Marvel's Iron Man who was a human inside an exoskeleton.     

Boys' World was a magazine which closely resembled the sixties EAGLE and came from the same publisher. Like EAGLE, it contained a mixture of adventure and humorous strips, text stories and features. Its first editor was American born Jim Kenner, who brought a lot of ambitious and imaginative ideas for the new paper. Unfortunately his knowledge of the British market and its writers and artists was extremely limited and EAGLE's editor Bob Bartholomew was called in to oversee its production, becoming editor of both weeklies. Issue 24 marked a relaunch, with new stories, features and layout changes in response to relatively low sales in the first few months.  

Bob Bartholomew introduced more strip stories to the comic to replace some text stories and features. Among these were The Iron Man, which occupied one and a half pages in black and white and The Angry Planet, a science fiction story based on the first Deathworld novel by Harry Harrison, who would achieve international fame by the end of the decade. Harrison had already contributed a text serial called Spell of Magic, featuring Merlo the Magician, which began in issue 11 and Merlo's adventures continued in strip form from issue 24, with Harrison still as writer. The Iron Man's authorship is not so clear though. The most prolific writer of the strip was Ken Mennell, who took over the scripting in August 1964, shortly before Boys' World merged with EAGLE and continued to be involved until the strip ended, with EAGLE's merger with Lion in April 1969. Mennell may well have been involved with Bob Bartholomew in the creation of the character as he was regularly consulted as an 'ideas' man. He created EAGLE's popular Heros the Spartan in 1962, although he did not subsequently write the strip and he was also involved in the creation of The Steel Claw for Valiant, but again he did not write the strip. However there is no documented evidence of his involvement with The Iron Man until a year later and Bob Bartholomew couldn't remember. After the first scene setting episode, which was written by someone on the editorial team, possibly Bartholomew himself, the stories were subsequently written by one or more members of the editorial team. Payment details do not identify the writers as payment was made through the Alec Harrison and Associates Literary Agency and it is their name that is recorded. This was because when the Mirror Group took over Odhams Press and Amalgamated Press in 1961, they did not pay staff members additional fees for writing stories or lettering strips, claiming that this additional work was part of their jobs. Previously these had provided opportunities for staff to supplement low incomes. In order to receive pay for this additional work, staff would submit work through agencies or using relatives or friends. The first Iron Man story to be credited to a named individual was the third story, where the Iron Man fights a villain called the 'Ruler' who finds a way of controlling the weather. Running from the issue dated 4th January 1964 until the issue dated 4th April 1964, it was written by Derek Long, who mostly wrote Women's fiction and occasionally detective stories.   

In the dramatic opening episode of The Iron Man the readers meet Tim Branton, a man aged about twenty, who will be the only regular character in the series apart from the Iron Man himself. The story begins at the home of Tim's uncle, Professor Wentworth Farad, who is demonstrating his latest invention of a steel robot to his nephew. Tim, who has studied sculpture, suggests that the robot could be made to appear human, with a 'skin' made of a special plastic material and he goes to Edinburgh to get some from a friend. During his absence, enemy spies led by a sinister figure called the 'Whisperer' plan to kill the Professor to prevent Britain from gaining from his inventions. When Tim returns, he hears an explosion from the house which quickly burns to the ground, killing everyone within. The episode ends with the robot emerging from the blazing ruin. 

In the second episode, as Tim approaches the house he is knocked unconscious by one of the murderous agents, who starts to drag him towards the flames. However the Iron Man appears and frightens the villains into fleeing from the scene. Tim disguises the Iron Man in the plastic skin and over the next nine episodes, the robot, whose advanced mechanical brain has already enabled him to learn to speak, quickly acquires a vast knowledge and a range of skills as he and Tim battle and eventually defeat the Whisperer and his men. The villains are really no match for the Iron Man, who quite apart from his ability to assimilate information with remarkable speed , also has the strength of a hundred men. Nevertheless the suspense is maintained by his tendency to suffer slight damage which temporarily incapacitates him. For example, although he is resistant to electrocution, when he is electrocuted some of his fuses blow and whenever his 'control panel' is bumped, it either activates or deactivates him. This control panel is presumably a safety measure in case the Iron Man goes out of control, as he functions perfectly well independently of it and it was soon dropped from the strip. Although the Iron Man would suffer further technical breakdowns in future adventures, these were mercifully rare and so the writers were obliged to create ever more powerful opponents to provide a realistic challenge for him. 

The death of Professor Farad in the first episode was a shrewd development, because it meant that the Iron Man became an independent character. He alone could carry out repairs to himself and if he was destroyed there was no one to rebuild him. While Tim Branton initially acted as a kind of mentor to introduce the Iron Man to the world, he was a young man and definitely no scientist and the relationship between the two became one of trusting friends. Tim was the human character for readers to identify with. 

The first story, which ran to eleven episodes was drawn by Gerry Embleton, who later illustrated Dan Dare in the early issues of the 1980s EAGLE in 1982. Embleton depicted the Iron Man in his plastic skin as a stocky character with a broad expressive face. (See above). At the start of the second adventure the strip was taken over by Martin Salvador, who changed his facial appearance significantly. Salvador gave the Iron Man a long angular face, which allowed him to look sleeker and more streamlined when shown without his plastic skin and and slightly less human when wearing it. The change was made deliberately to convey the Iron Man's robotic nature, as he would normally be featured wearing his plastic skin. (See below). 

Both artists produced detailed frames, although Embleton's backgrounds tended to include more fine details and Salvador's face illustrations were slightly more caricatured. In his first story, Salvador created a memorable villain in the mysterious 'Doctor', who used plastic surgery and drugs to enable his accomplices to impersonate men of power and influence, including senior police officers and politicians, in order to carry out major crimes. With his heavily lined face, squat nose and wild staring eyes, the Doctor cut a sinister figure. 

After the Iron Man defeated the Doctor he went on to face more criminal masterminds, mad scientists, megalomaniac dictators and other powerful robots. Villains such as Dynamo, Maskface, Count Barlac and Doctor Fear provided the opposition in stories which ran from between six and fifteen episodes. Throughout his adventures, the Iron Man maintained the pretence that he was human, adopting the name 'Robert' to identify himself, with only Tim Branton knowing his secret. 

Boys' World ran for 89 issues until October 1964, when it merged with EAGLE during the course of the Iron Man's fifth adventure. Ken Mennell took over as writer on The Iron Man six issues before the merger and continued when the strip was one of four which transferred to the combined weekly. The Iron Man was the only one to establish itself in EAGLE, continuing right until the last issue in April 1969. 

Martin Salvador proved a successful and long serving artist on the strip, remaining until late October 1967. As in Boys' World, the story occupied one and a half pages in black and white, but its popularity saw it increase to two weekly pages with the second issue of 1967. Salvador's comic art career had begun in his native Spain, where he created the Western strip Mendoza Colt for Chicos comic. He illustrated a strip called The Golden Sword in Britain's Sun comic and carried out work for Britain's Thriller and Cowboy Picture Libraries, before coming to The Iron Man. After leaving EAGLE, he illustrated European comic versions of The Saint and James Bond. He also drew the Wildcat Wayne strip in the Ranger section of Look and Learn in 1969. In the seventies and eighties he produced a lot of work for the American publisher Warren Comics on titles like Creepy.    

As the sixties progressed, the American TV series of Batman became a success in Britain and Marvel Comics' new super heroes also crossed the Atlantic. These stories began to have an influence on the Iron Man's adventures, with more exaggerated and costumed villains appearing. The strip also took on more science fiction and fantasy elements, with monsters and lost civilisations featuring in several stories. The influence of Marvel Comics was never more evident than in Salvador's final strip, where Professor Ollson, an archaeologist, becomes unhinged, believing himself to be an ancient Viking warrior, Ragnar the Red. He forms an army of criminals who dress as Vikings and terrorise Britain with powerful force ray weapons. Marvel's super hero Thor was a Viking warrior god whose secret identity was Donald Blake, a medical student. Professor Ollson reverts to his former law abiding self when he recovers from a fall down stairs after seeing the Iron Man without his plastic skin and realising he is really a robot. He then sacrifices his life in destroying the force ray dynamo. Several other villains discovered the Iron Man's secret in the course of his adventures, but all were conveniently killed off at the end of their stories. 

Another Spanish artist, Miguel Quesada, took over the strip in the issue dated 18th November 1967, after the former Dan Dare artist Desmond Walduck completed the last two episodes of the Professor Ollson story. Coincidentally, a repeat of the Dan Dare story Prisoners of Space illustrated by Walduck was running in EAGLE at the same time. Quesada had previously worked on many comics in Spain including Pantera Negra and shared a studio in Valencia with EAGLE stalwarts Jose Ortiz and Luis Bermejo. Quesada's work was slightly more detailed than Salvador's and he drew with a finer line. In his first story set in an unexplored mountain area of Bolivia, the Iron Man encounters intelligent anthropoid apes and a reptilian swamp monster and discovers a lost city. The story provided plenty of scope for imaginative artwork and Quesada made an impressive debut with his detailed backgrounds, confident figure work which conveyed action well and expressive character faces. He depicted the inhabitants of the lost city in costumes that echoed both traditional South American dress and Tibetan clothes and contributed greatly to the exotic mood of the story. 

Quesada illustrated seven more Iron Man adventures before the series ended when EAGLE merged with Lion in April 1969. These included battles with a giant sponge creature, an army of robots whose creator 'Dynamo' briefly gained control over the Iron Man and giant robotic insects built by a race of intelligent troglodytes from the bowels of the Earth! For the last year of EAGLE's life, the most prominent strips took turns to feature on the front page in colour, so in the issue dated 15th June 1968, The Iron Man made its first appearance in colour, subsequently featuring on the cover on six more occasions. (See above).   

In his final adventure The Hands of Kyrac, which is the only Iron Man story to bear a title, an avaricious man called Strickman, searching for Viking treasure, discovers an ancient sword hilt. When he grips the hilt, great strength passes into his hands and he begins to wreak havoc and destruction with them. He almost crushes the Iron Man in the fight that ensues between them, but he suddenly loses his power and the damaged Iron Man is saved. While the Iron Man repairs himself, Strickman escapes and after grasping the hilt again his strength is restored. He fights a final battle with the Iron Man, who defeats him when his strength again fades. The Iron Man destroys the hilt to protect mankind from its evil. This last adventure again contains echoes of Marvel's Thor, for Donald Blake gained his power from grasping the hammer of Thor!

The popularity of The Iron Man might have seen it survive the merger but for the presence of Lion's own robot hero, 'Archie'. Although essentially humanoid in shape, Archie was not an android. With a head resembling an oxy-acetylene mask and an armoured steel body he was very obviously a robot. His career began in a strip called The Jungle Robot in issue one of Lion in 1952. This story finished in issue 25 and Archie did not return for another adventure until January 1957, following the success of Robbie the Robot in the 1956 film Forbidden Planet. Archie's second adventure finished in June, but was successful enough for him to be brought back on a permanent basis in November. With his childlike boastful personality, Archie now established himself as a most popular and memorable character. 

While Archie had a strong clear personality, the Iron Man had none. This highlights a weakness in many stories in both the sixties EAGLE and Boys' World, where humour was completely absent and the heroes had no personality beyond their courage, sense of justice and whatever skills they possessed. While there was some light humour in the form of witty remarks in The Guinea Pig and the U.F.O. Agent and Smokeman adventures, Heros the Spartan, Blackbow the Cheyenne and The Iron Man were devoid of humour. Even Digby in the Dan Dare strip was significantly less funny in the sixties stories. In the fifties, strips such as Luck of the Legion, Storm Nelson, PC 49 and Dan Dare featured many humorous incidents and amusing characters and were better for them. As a robot, the Iron Man might reasonably be expected to lack personality and humour, so as such he fitted comfortably in the sixties EAGLE. In the fifties, when EAGLE's editor Marcus Morris publicly rejected heroes with superhuman powers, the strip would not have been seriously considered for publication.

With its downplay of character and relationships, the sixties EAGLE ignored any real examination of the Iron Man's motivation to combat evil and injustice, except to suggest it was part of his original programming. Whether his acquisition of knowledge ever adjusted his motivation is not considered and whether he ever reflected or was able to reflect on the nature of his existence is also ignored. On several occasions, villains were able to gain temporary control of him, but although he carried out robberies and other crimes while under their influence, he never killed anyone or caused irreparable damage before he regained control. Consequently the moral questions of his potential for evil were never explored. 

                           

The new EAGLE, launched in 1982, did explore these issues in a strip called Manix, about a powerful android robot who worked for British Intelligence and who was surely inspired by The Iron Man. Originally featured as a photo strip, but later drawn by Manuel Carmona, Manix was written by Alan Grant and John Wagner, using the pseudonym Keith Law. The stories examined the whole nature of robotic thought and reason and their limitations. Manix was initially controlled by Colonel Cameron, who used him as an assassin to further his own quest for power, but after applying his survival impulse logically to his situation, Manix was able to override Cameron's orders and bring about his defeat. In succeeding stories he was used to carry out legitimate missions by British Intelligence. 

Despite its shortcomings, The Iron Man maintained a steady popularity throughout the life of Boys' World and the last four and a half years of EAGLE. Regardless of the fact that it did not explore wider themes of robot consciousness and moral awareness, the basic premise of the story was a strong one and at the time of its creation, a highly original one. In the hands of Bob Bartholomew and Ken Mennell and its three excellent artists, The Iron Man kept the readers of EAGLE and Boys' World well entertained. 

I am most grateful to the late Bob Bartholomew and to Steve Holland, Adrian Perkins and Ian Wheeler for providing and confirming some details for this article, which first appeared in EAGLE TIMES in the Spring edition 2008. It has been slightly updated in the light of subsequent information coming to light.

Steve Holland has produced an excellent highly informative book about Boys' World. He can be contacted at  http://bearalleybooks.blogspot.com/2013/08/boys-world-ticket-to-adventure.html

THE SMOKEMAN STORY

 STEVE WINDERS EXAMINES THE UNUSUAL CAREER OF EAGLE'S SUPER HERO FROM THE 1960S AND THE BACKGROUND TO HIS DEVELOPMENT IN THIS ARTICLE THAT WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN 2006. 

In Volume 17 No.3, dated January 15th 1966, EAGLE launched a new science fiction strip called U.F.O.Agent. It replaced Can You Catch a Crook?, a contemporary police series, where readers were encouraged to spot the clues in the pictures, which enabled Sergeant Dave Bruce of Manningham C.I.D. to catch the villains. U.F.O. Agent also initially included clues for readers to spot, as the strip's heroes, Major Grant and and his friend 'Boffin' Bailey fought terrorism around the world as the human agents of a benevolent alien race called the Zetans. The new series was originally illustrated by Paul Trevillion, who had been the principal artist on Can You Catch a Crook?. It also occupied two pages in black and white and each week told a new complete story. 

Starting in a 'free gift' issue, which was a strategy used to attract new readers and encourage newsagents to take more copies, EAGLE obviously had high hopes for U.F.O. Agent. the free gift of a 'Morse Code Flasher' sounded a lot more promising than the disappointing card and tinfoil gift that readers actually received, but the 'flasher' was strongly promoted in an impressive full page cartoon, drawn by Leo Baxendale, the week before. 

The first episode of U.F.O. Agent was no let- down however. It introduced the two heroes and their alien allies and set the scene for the series that followed. The story begins with Grant and Bailey racing in Grant's sports car towards an old mysterious house in answer to an intriguing call from a professor Galbraith, who said that it was vital to the world's security that they meet him. Arriving at the dilapidated house, Grant and Bailey find a clue, which readers are invited to spot. Observant readers could see that the clue is strange circular indentations in the grass beside the house. The circles are quickly revealed to be the supporting legs of a flying saucer, as one now flies into view and catches our heroes in a paralysing beam as the try to run for cover. Happily, the saucer contains benevolent aliens who watch over Earth from 'Satellite Zeta'. These aliens land and declare that they have chosen Grant and Bailey to be their agents on Earth to combat the forces of evil. The Zetans are humanoid in shape, but slightly smaller in height. Their heads, concealed by space helmets with dark visors, are apparently oval shaped and larger than human heads. They seem to require spacesuits on Earth, for they are never seen without them. 

The Zetans aim a beam at Grant and Bailey, which enables them to use and understand their advanced technology. Grant is given a telescopic power-stick that enables him to defy gravity and which he can also use as a weapon to stun enemies. Boffin is given the ability to control and pilot their flying saucers. A second saucer arrives to take the Zetans back to their satellite and Grant and Bailey fly the first one to a volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean, which will be their base. 

The introductory episode covered all the background to the series that followed. Always a capable artist, Paul Trevillion put more detail into this important opening instalment than in his work on Can You Catch a Crook? and he adopted a finer line in his drawing throughout his time on the new strip. He created a simple but effective design for the Zetan flying saucers, with a ridged dome like a beehive above a central saucer section and a circular cabin with a flatter base beneath. His Zetan spacesuits are ribbed at the shoulders and elbows and from the waist down. The alien nature of the Zetans is conveyed by the large egg-shaped white/silver helmets and the mysterious dark visors. 

Trevillion's Grant is similar in appearance to his Sergeant Bruce. With a firm jaw and no large distinguishing facial features, he actually resembles most EAGLE heroes! Grant is dark haired, while Boffin Bailey is fair and bespectacled. Bailey is tall, with a lean athletic figure and Grant has a slightly more muscular build. 

Several elements of U.F.O. Agent are reminiscent of Gerry Anderson's television series Thunderbirds, which had begun three months earlier and was enjoying huge popularity. The 'Thunderbirds' also operated all over the world from a secret base on a Pacific island. Although they rescued people from major disasters rather than fighting crime, they too were directed from a satellite in space, which bore a significant resemblance to Satellite Zeta. They too used advanced technology, in the form of the 'Thunderbird' rescue craft and , while this was not alien technology, it was developed by their resident genius 'Brains', whose role in U.F.O. Agent was clearly taken by Boffin Bailey. As the strip developed, Boffin contributed new inventions to the fight against crime, which emphasised the similarity of his role to 'Brains'. Unlike Thunderbirds, Grant and Bailey's island is apparently volcanic. However the volcano is dead and the smoke that billows from it is provided by the Zetans. The base is inside the volcano. This idea was adopted later in the year for the James Bond film You Only Live Twice, which went into production in October and was released in June 1967. We will never know whether any of the film's production team got the idea from EAGLE, but it is certain that U.F.O. Agent got there first, as there is no secret volcano base in Ian Fleming's original novel of the Bond story. 

In order to fit so much into the first instalment, the writer Edward Cowan ignored many details. Grant and Bailey are introduced simply as 'two superbly trained adventurers' who are now unemployed following the closure of the 'Ministry of Unusual Activities'. We never learn their first names or anything else about their backgrounds. Cowan also wastes no time on the Zetans' background either. They operate from their satellite, which we must assume is in Earth's orbit, but why they wish to help the Earth and where they originally come from is never addressed. They have chosen Grant and Bailey to be their agents and the pair accept this without question or even comment! Having been chosen, they acquire new knowledge and skills instantly. In one frame the pair are bathed in a light beam and in the next they can fly a Zetan saucer. Grant and Bailey then fly directly from the old house to their new base and no reference is made to them settling their affairs in Britain before they go. Having created the scenario, the following episodes settle into a familiar pattern, with Grant and Bailey, directed by the Zetans, using their technology and a little human ingenuity and muscle to tackle crime around the world. While Boffin controls the flying saucer, Grant usually flies down to the scene of the operation using his Zetan force stick. Occasionally, Bailey also assists on the ground and the saucer is either landed or left to hover in the sky. The crimes are usually carried out by a sinister organisation called Enemies of Society. In early episodes, Grant and Bailey rescue a president from kidnappers in the south Pacific, prevent a mail train robbery in England and recover a priceless ruby stolen from a pagoda in south east Asia. 

Paul Trevillion illustrated seven episodes, with the old EAGLE stalwart, Richard Jennings, who had illustrated Tommy Walls and Storm Nelson in the 1950s, drawing ten. The strip was taken over by the Spanish artist Jose Ortiz in May 1966 and with the exception of one more episode drawn by Jennings and two by Luis Bermejo, he illustrated all the rest of the U.F.O. Agent saga.

The clues for readers were discarded after just seven instalments, although the single episode stories were maintained. In Can You Catch a Crook? clues had often emerged from suspects incriminating themselves when being interviewed by Sergeant Bruce. However in U.F.O. Agent, Grant usually arrived as crimes were in progress and did not need to question people. Can You Catch a Crook? also used many observational clues, such as revealing footprints and, while they were used in U.F.O. Agent, they did not fit as comfortably in a strip involving advanced technology and sophisticated international criminals as in a detective series. In order for the stories to maintain tension and excitement, the villains needed to be powerful and dangerous, or it would be too easy for the alien assisted Grant and Bailey to beat them. By giving away simple visual clues, the villains were shown to be inept and vulnerable in comparison to the powerful U.F.O. agents. 

This change was actually the opposite to what had happened on Can You Catch a Crook? That strip had started as Sergeant Bruce C.I.D., a series of single episode police adventures without clues for readers, before the idea was introduced and the strip retitled.

Ortiz proved an excellent choice of artist for the strip. With a combination of fine detail and subtle use of different shades to set a scene, he could create interesting and evocative backgrounds, such as an eerie graveyard and dark haunted house in Volume 17 No.24. After fighting more conventional villainy in the early strips, Grant and Bailey were later pitted against apparently supernatural forces, such as spectral hounds and floating hooded figures, which always proved to be mechanically operated or projections, created by criminals to scare people away from the scene of their skulduggery, but actually having the opposite effect, because the U.F.O. agents arrived to investigate precisely because of the strange goings on! Ortiz also captured facial expressions well, using both fine line work and shade. His only weakness was his unfamiliarity with Britain at that time and this is most evident in his depictions of British vehicles. His cars are never specific models and tend to look more American in style and his London buses are badly proportioned. English street scenes are similarly devoid of authentic details and buildings are more continental than British in appearance. Ortiz was employed through the Bardon (BARcelona - LonDON) Art Agency and his work was posted to the Agency's London office from his native Spain, which was still ruled by the dictator General Franco and although increasing numbers of Britons were holidaying in Spain, it was not easy for Spaniards to travel abroad.    

The series proved popular with readers and replaced Dan Dare on the colour centre-spread with the twenty fifth instalment, in the issue dated July 2nd 1966, although as the image shows, two short factual features occupied part of the second page. Ortiz rose to the challenge of colour. Using inks instead of water colours, he produced bright and impressive pages and his art continued to be a significant factor in the success of the strip. 

The single episode stories continued until the issue dated October 22nd 1966. The following week, 'Doctor Satann, the evil head of the Enemies of Society organisation, made his first appearance and the story became a continuing serial. Boffin developed a new mode of transport called the 'Baffle Bubble', to replace the flying saucer. This was simply a transparent flying bubble, just large enough to carry the two agents on their missions. In the issue dated November 5th 1966, Grant and Bailey change from their ordinary conventional clothing to tight fitting one piece costumes. Grant's was blue and Boffin's was red, for easy recognition. Following these apparently minor changes, a major story development took place in the next issue, Volume 17 No. 46, dated November 12th, when Doctor Satann fires a vaporising gun at Grant and one of his Zetan allies, hitting them both with the blast. As a consequence of this, the vaporised forms merge and the Zetan passes his energies on to Grant, giving him the power to change into a smoke form at will. Thus 'Smokeman' was born. In his smoke form, Grant retained his human shape and was fortunately able to see, hear and direct his movements. He could flow under doors and up into the sky. He could also maintain part of his body in human form when the rest was smoke. For instance, he often kept a hand solid for opening doors, picking things up and punching villains! EAGLE had its own super hero.

It was unique in EAGLE's history for a strip to undergo such a significant change to its main character. Despite apprehending the most dangerous villains in post-war London, PC 49 remained a constable throughout his adventures, Luck of the Legion always remained a sergeant, as did Bruce of the C.I.D. While Jeff Arnold served time as a Texas Ranger, a Deputy Sheriff and an army scout, he always returned to work at the 6T6 Ranch at the end of each story; and although he saved our whole solar system from tyranny on several occasions, Dan Dare remained a Colonel until the very end of his adventures, when he was finally rewarded with promotion. U.F.O. Agent's contemporaries, The Guinea Pig and The Iron Man underwent temporary changes during the course of individual stories, but the status quo was always restored by the end. Major Grant however changed from an ordinary man to a super powered hero and consequently the mood of the strip changed, as well as the title. 

This change was undoubtedly prompted by the success of the American television series Batman, which was shown in Britain from May 1966. Based on the long established DC Comics character, Batman did not actually possess super powers, although thanks to his array of impressive gadgets, his 'Batmobile' car and his costume and mask, he was certainly regarded as a super hero. Additionally in America, another comic publisher, Marvel, had boosted the popularity of comics and emerged as a rival to D.C. with a family of new super heroes created by Stan Lee. Anticipating the success of Batman on television prompted Alfred Wallace, the managing editor of Odhams juvenile publications, to negotiate with DC Comics to publish reprints of his syndicated newspaper adventures under licence in his recently launched Smash! comic. Wallace also negotiated with Marvel to reprint The Hulk's adventures in Smash! and this strip began in Issue 16, dated 26th May 1966, with Batman beginning in Issue 20, dated 18th June.   

Smash! was originally developed as a predominantly 'funny' comic, to be a companion for Wham!, a comic which began in 1964 to utilise the talents of  Leo Baxendale, the famous humour strip artist, who had joined Odhams after becoming disillusioned with D.C. Thomson. By 1966, sales of Wham! were steadily declining and Smash! was undoubtedly created to grab a few new readers and then merge with Wham! Baxendale was offered a year's extension to his original two year contract and stalled on signing. When he touted a proposed new monthly comic among other publishers, Odhams withdrew their offer. Although they had gathered a number of other humour artists and writers over the two years of Wham! Baxendale's departure was a major loss and this may well have prompted Wallace to turn to American super heroes to fill his comics . 

Enthused by the positive response of readers to Batman and The Hulk, Wallace negotiated with Marvel to reprint more of their strips. In August 1966, Marvel's Fantastic Four began in Wham! and in 1967, he launched three more comics, all of which ran Marvel reprints. Pow! began in January 1967 and ran Spiderman as its lead strip. Fantastic began just a month later and Terrific began in April. These last two were almost entirely composed of Marvel reprints and were produced in the same shape as the American comics, for easy reproduction. These five comics became collectively known as Power Comics.     

As a well established British adventure weekly, EAGLE's style and pace of story telling was very different from American comics. Strips were divided into weekly instalments of one or two pages, with a cliff hanger at the end of each episode. American strip serials were published in monthly instalments and their comics usually contained just one strip, so each instalment was much longer and the cliff hangers were much reduced. Therefore a reprinted Marvel super hero strip would not have fitted well into EAGLE. Wallace addressed these problems in Fantastic and Terrific by producing them in an American style, with long instalments in each issue. In Wham!, Smash! and Pow!, the frames were edited into fewer but larger pages, so a substantial part of a story could be told in each issue. One Marvel reprint did find its way into EAGLE, but it was not a super hero strip and it did not begin until 1968. It was Tales of Asgard, a retelling of the myths of the Norse gods, which Marvel had produced to accompany their Mighty Thor super hero strip. This strip ran in EAGLE from Volume 19 No.7, dated February 17th 1968, until Volume 19 No. 48, dated November 30th and it fitted better than adventure strip would have done, because it had been originally written in smaller instalments; so with the artwork edited down to fill just two pages, it had episodes which were the same length as Dan Dare and The Guinea Pig. However, Tales of Asgard did not blend seamlessly into EAGLE. The Marvel house style of artwork, with its extremely bold lines and simple figure and detail drawing, lacked the sophistication of EAGLE artists. The dialogue was notably different too. Every single sentence in the speech bubbles ended with an exclamation mark!  

While American super hero reprints were not suitable for EAGLE, Wallace clearly believed that a home grown super hero strip could succeed. The reason why U.F.O. Agent was developed into that strip seems fairly obvious. It already featured contemporary crime fighting heroes who travelled the world in extra-terrestrial craft, so Major Grant's change to Smokeman did not vastly alter the nature of the strip. Also, U.F.O. Agent was quite successful, without being long established and so the change could be helped by the audience's familiarity with the characters and situation, without being hindered by any deeply rooted preconceptions that long running characters engender. 

Doctor Satann, the evil mastermind behind the Enemies of Society, was in many ways a pantomime villain. Bald and obese, he wore a tight red costume with a red cloak, like the clothing that his biblical namesake is often depicted wearing. He was clearly inspired by the comical villains in the self-mocking Batman television series. Some of these characters originated in the Batman comics, which were aimed at a less sophisticated readership than EAGLE, but all were made more ludicrous on television. However, Smokeman was not a parody and the Doctor needed to be powerful and dangerous to be a worthy opponent for the U.F.O. agents. Fortunately Ortiz rose to the challenge and in several impressive close-ups he depicts the character's gloating malevolence and gives him the required menace to prevent him from being ridiculous. The Doctor's power came from the fact that he had stolen Zetan technology, making himself their equal. Armed with this technology he tracks Grant and Bailey to their island base and inadvertantly creates Smokeman when he tries to kill Grant and his Zetan ally. The continuing story then takes the action all over the world as Grant and Bailey fight a running battle with the Doctor and his minions. Grant requires great concentration to change to Smokeman and sometimes struggles to do so, providing perilous situations for himself. Doctor Satann also develops weapons which manage to trap and neutralise him, but fortunately Grant and Bailey always outwit him, until eventually they chase him to his own lair and destroy it.  

Fourteen weeks after the emergence of Smokeman, the strip was moved to EAGLE's front and back cover, with the issue dated February 25th 1967 and retitled Smokeman the U.F.O. Agent. It was only the second fictional series to be accorded front page status. Doctor Satann's plans to undermine the world order were finally thwarted in the issue dated April 8th 1967, with the Doctor escaping from our heroes in a stolen Zetan U.F.O. Although the door was left open for his return in a future adventure, he never appeared again and the strip reverted to mysterious ghostly stories.

 In Volume 18 No. 25, dated 24th June 1967, the strip was retitled Smokeman C.I.D. as the strip underwent yet more changes, when the Zetans developed a machine to rescue their compatriot from his enforced bonding with Grant. Surprisingly, this did not completely remove his ability to change into Smokeman, but his power was greatly reduced. Now Grant and Bailey would no longer be based on their volcanic island or travel the world fighting crime. Instead they would work as detective constables in the English town of Belminster. The skin-tight costumes were replaced by suits and mackintoshes as the strip almost went full circle, with our U.F.O. agents now becoming policemen like their predecessors, Sergeant Bruce and Detective Constable Prior. However, their adventures were still far removed from the contemporary crime solving stories of Can You Catch a Crook?  They were again pitted against ghostly apparitions and other apparently supernatural phenomena.in stories reminiscent of Rory Macduff in Lion, Maxwell Hawke in Buster and John Brody in Boys' World. This new development suggests that the strip's popularity was waning along with the Batman television series. 

Five issues later, in Volume 18 No.30, the strip moved back inside the weekly to occupy just one page, although still in colour. Reduction from two colour pages to one had previously proved to be the kiss of death for EAGLE characters in the mid sixties, with Heros the Spartan ending after a short period on one page. Even Dan Dare had just one adventure on a single page before the saga was brought to a close and replaced by repeats of his stories from the 1950s. However this was not quite the end of Grant and Bailey, who would undergo yet another change before their adventures finally ended. 

As members of Belminster C.I.D., Grant and Bailey gained a human boss. This was Inspector Hanson, who bore a remarkable resemblance to the actor Dudley Foster, who regularly played police officers in television programmes. Whether Ortiz was sent Foster's picture as a reference or whether he chose to use the image himself is not know. Certainly programmes featuring him were shown on Spanish television. Hanson was unaware of Grant's powers or his unusual background and treated his assistants as inexperienced rookies. When they reported back on the strange phenomena they encountered, he invariably responded with incredulity and sarcasm. However, after they had demonstrated their ability to deal with such cases, Hanson always sent them to deal with the strangest report

In the issue dated September 23rd 1967, (Volume 18 No. 39), EAGLE gained a new printer and underwent several changes. The page size became slightly smaller and paper quality was reduced, although the number of pages increased. There were also several changes to the layout and these included the final change to the U.F.O. Agent saga. The strip now occupied one black and white page instead of colour and was titled Grant C.I.D. because it also marked Grant's loss of the power to change to Smokeman. Obviously an editorial decision had now been taken to remove the advantage of super powers. The similar stories to Smokeman C.I.D. in other comics had all featured conventional heroes, who had to rely on their own normal strength and ingenuity to defeat their unusual opponents. The fact that these heroes were ordinary men gave the stories more tension. They did not have additional powers to get them out of a crisis and so the plots worked better.   

All of this seems to be self evident in hindsight and begs the question why Smokeman was not given more powerful super villains to fight, instead of apparently supernatural forces. But at the time EAGLE thrived on such elements. In Blackbow the Cheyenne and Heros the Spartan, encounters with ghostly apparitions and legendary creatures had proved popular with readers and such stories appeared to be guaranteed successes. However, neither Blackbow nor Heros had super powers and in their adventures the writers tried to tailor the mysterious aspects to fit in with the times when the stories were set. For example, Heros featured druidic magic potions and Blackbow featured the legendary 'Bigfoot' and elements of Native American mysticism. 

Grant's first black and white story was called The Island of Fear, as from now on each serial would have its own title. Our heroes investigate a mysterious island off the coast near Belminster, following the discovery of a plea for help in a bottle washed up on the beach. On the island they meet two frightened men in an old house and are regaled by eerie music and ghostly figures, before the two men are trapped in a giant spider's web. It eventually transpires that the two men are embezzlers who have cheated a film maker out of his fortune. The 'monsters' are actually mechanical film props and special effects, used to scare the two men into confessing where they have hidden the money and GRant and Bailey were lured to the island to witness their confession. This story ran for fifteen episodes and was well paced and intriguing, even though the end reveals that Grant and Bailey were never in any real danger. The basic premise was not original, with John Brody, Maxwell Hawke and Rory Macduff all having visited islands in similar circumstances. Before them, several horror films used the idea of luring villains into remote houses to take retribution for their crimes or to scare them into admissions of guilt. Good examples are The House on Haunted Hill and the Bob Hope comedy The Cat and the Canary.

The next story ran for just three episodes and was really a lead in to the third and final adventure. In The Haunted Highway, Grant and Bailey investigate ghosts appearing on the Belminster Bypass! A beckoning ghost leads them to the Zetans, who have set up the entire ruse in order to contact their agents. They warn them about a new and terrible danger to Earth, but do not know any more details! They return Grant's ability to become Smokeman, but this can only be maintained for periods of about thirty seconds. He is able to control his changes using a special wrist watch. 

In Sign of the Crab, Grant is pitted against his most powerful enemy since Doctor Satann. Created in a research laboratory, the Jell is a shapeless jelly creature, which has the ability to control the mind of anyone it touches. The title comes from the impression of a crab which appears on the wrist of those controlled by the Jell. The creature takes control of Boffin Bailey, but as Smokeman, Grant avoids contact. His ability to change for such short periods causes problems and creates perilous episode endings throughout the story. Eventually he tries to evade the Jell by turning to smoke and clinging to an overhead electric power line with his solid hands. As he changes back, the Jell reaches up to grab him and touches the power lines first. Being in contact with the ground it is electrocuted and destroyed. Grant of course is not touching the ground and is therefore safe from electrocution. Watching from their flying saucer, the Zetans use an anti gravity ray to prevent Grant from falling to his death. 

It is fortunate that the apparently invulnerable Jell is not resistant to high voltage electricity. In science fiction indestructible menaces usually have a single weakness, which saves the day at the end of the story. The most famous example comes from H.G Wells' The War of the Worlds where the unbeatable Martians are destroyed by tiny bacteria. This original use of the idea makes the important point that all the power of mankind has failed to defeat the Martians, but that they succumb to the tiniest and most simple form of life. Subsequently the single vulnerability idea has invariably been used just to solve the problem of how to beat the apparently unbeatable enemy. This is certainly the case in Sign of the Crab, although at least Smokeman makes a real contribution to the defeat of the Jell, as it is he who causes it to touch the cable.  

The story ends with all the controlled humans recovering and Grant announces that this is the end of Smokeman. The Zetans gave him back the power temporarily to defeat the Jell and so its destruction evidently means that it will now be withdrawn. The last adventure ran for fifteen episodes, ending in Volume 19 No. 16, dated April 20th 1968, finally bringing this unique and interesting series to a close. U.F.O. Agent was featured in two four page black and white strips in the 1967 EAGLE Annual, drawn by the Turkish artist Sezgin Burak and Grant C.I.D. appeared in one six page colour strip in the 1969 Annual, drawn by Jose Ortiz.

Despite the unprecedented number of changes within the Smokeman saga, it was written throughout by Edward G. Cowan. In keeping with all the strips in the mid and late sixties in EAGLE, no writer or artist credits were given, although Ortiz usually signed his pages. Therefore I am grateful to David Gould, who worked as a letterer on EAGLE, for identifying Cowan as the writer. The unusual phraseology in Cowan's dialogue is a notable feature of his work and it is easy to see that this is the same writer who produced Blackbow the Cheyenne. His attempts to fit as much information into as little conversation as possible led to many examples of oddly structured statements by his characters. He often omitted conjunctions and even verbs in favour of very short phrases and he uses dashes to link these phrases. His Smokeman scripts are littered with examples. Here are two examples of individual speech bubbles from The Island of Fear: 

"Grant - look out! I heard a switch pressed - gas!" 

"Two men - frantic with fear!" 

While it is reasonable to suppose that characters in perilous situations might speak in a kind of frenetic shorthand, Cowan often also included quite sophisticated words in their desperate cries: 

"No Grant - wait! It's too late to save him. The ghastly weed shape has enveloped the whole boat!" 

Cowan liked this word, so he used it again two weeks later: 

"It's gone for Grant! He's enveloped by whatever it is!"

While it is commendable that Cowan helped his readers to extend their vocabulary, I do not think that a character in imminent danger would use a word like 'enveloped' in a desperate situation. Surely he would have said 'covered'. Similarly, in another incident when our heroes become entangled in wires, Boffin says "Web strands! They're like steel ropes. We're encircled."

Most people would have said "We're trapped!"

There is no doubt that factors outside EAGLE at least partly dictated the strip's fortunes. Just as the popularity of American super heroes begun by the Batman TV series was a significant factor in the creation of Smokeman, Batman's subsequent decline in popularity must have contributed to Smokeman's end. By April 1968, Odhams' five Power comics had contracted to three and all would merge into Smash! by October, which shows that they were losing a lot of money. While the falling value of the pound against the dollar at this time meant that the cost of licensing the American super heroes was steadily rising and therefore contributing to the Power Comics' problems, it is nevertheless clear that enthusiasm among British readers for super heroes was over, at least for the time being.    

In terms of long standing popularity, the Smokeman saga does not compare favourably with other EAGLE strips of the time. Blackbow the Cheyenne. The Iron Man, The Guinea Pig and of course Dan Dare, were all running when U.F.O. Agent started and all survived Grant C.I.D. What set the saga apart was its unique rise and fall and the remarkable changes it underwent. While these were due to the fact that EAGLE could not find the right formula for the series and sometimes it failed quite badly, it was nevertheless sometimes original and innovative and could genuinely surprise the reader. Not many strips in the sixties could make that claim.

I am grateful to Lew Stringer for his scans of some of the EAGLE covers. 

EAGLE TIMES Vol. 34 No. 1

 The new EAGLE TIMES is out now and now is a good time to subscribe for all four 2021 issues. A subscription is just £30 for U.K. addresses and cheques should be sent to: Bob Corn, Wellcroft Cottage, Wellcroft, Ivinghoe, Bucks LU7 9EF.

This 48 page Spring issue features articles about the Dan Dare adventure The Phantom Fleet, the Riders of the Range adventure The War With Geromino, the 1960s TV show Ready Steady Go, Ashwell Wood's Cutaway drawing of the 1953 National Radio Show, the new 'humorous' Ladybird books, the 1961 strip The Golden Man about Sir Walter Raleigh and the first part of a new two part Archie Willoughby story The Case of the Plastic Cowboys.   

DON HARLEY (1927 - 2021)

Sadly, Don Harley who was one of the great Dan Dare artists on the original EAGLE has died. Born in London, he attended Epsom College of Art and after hearing a talk by Frank Hampson about Dan Dare and EAGLE in 1951, he applied to join his team. He became Hampson's principal assistant and remained with his studio until 1959, when it was disbanded. Then he assisted Frank Bellamy on the strip for a year, before taking it over himself with another former studio member, Bruce Cornwell. They produced the artwork for the strip until March 1962 and subsequently Don illustrated several Dan Dare strips for EAGLE Annuals. He also drew a 29 part Dan Dare strip for the Sunday People newspaper in 1964, called Mission to the Stars. Like many former EAGLE artists, he worked on TV Century 21 and other comics relating to Gerry Anderson's television series. He drew Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Lady Penelope and a non-television strip The Investigator for TV21, Mark of the Mysterons for Solo comic and the subsequent Mysterons strip for the combined TV Tornado and Solo. In 1971 he drew Thunderbirds for Countdown comic. His later work included Sam for the young children's comic Twinkle and illustrations for information books from various publishers over many years. In 1979 he redrew many opening frames from the Dan Dare adventure  The Man From Nowhere for Dragon's Dream's album reprint of the story. When the 1980s EAGLE brought back the original Dan Dare, Don illustrated a colour strip for the 1991 Dan Dare Annual. He also drew much of Rod Barzilay's Dan Dare story The Phoenix Mission for Spaceship Away magazine, beginning in 2003. He attended several fan events in later life, sharing stories of his time in Frank Hampson's studio and drawing sketches for fans. I was fortunate to meet him on several occasions, including the EAGLE Society Gathering in Southport in 1988, which was the first time he visited EAGLE's birthplace. A most talented artist, he was a modest and unassuming man who will be greatly missed.

A full account of his professional work can be found in the tribute to Don on the Down the Tubes website. 

In Memoriam: Dan Dare and Thunderbirds comic artist Donald “Don” Harley – downthetubes.net

  

Steve Winders 

Don (right) with Rod Barzilay at a Dan Dare Exhibition in Bristol 

IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 21

Junior Boy’s Own is a record label launched in 1992, specialising in ‘acid house’ electronic dance music. It has released works by Underworld, Xpress2 and The Chemical Brothers. The above CD cover is for a compilation album, featuring music by all the above groups and P.L.C., The Ballistic Brothers, Sycamore and Dylan Rhymes among others. Of most interest to EAGLE Times readers is the cover of the album, which is clearly ‘heavily inspired’ by the Dan Dare strips The Man from Nowhere and Rogue Planet.  Released in 1997, the CD itself is red with an eagle like the one on its cover and there are pictures of a Crypt and a Phant inside the case. The back cover is also red. The cover reflects the name of the label and not the contents of the CD. As far as I am aware, this is the only album of theirs to adopt a comic themed cover. 

 

The artist was David Jukes, whose work has ranged from comics (including Roy of the Rovers and Disney Big Time), through newspapers (The Sunday Telegraph), magazines and books to CD and record covers for Sony Records, Arista Records and BMG Records as well as Junior Boy’s Own. He has produced a lot of cartoon art.  

The name Junior Boy’s Own has a complicated history. In 1987 a group of Chelsea supporters started a fanzine called Boy’s Own. They were also interested in acid house music and began to cover the scene in the magazine which quickly became the main chronicle for this music. Subsequently they began to organise their own acid house raves. In 1990 they formed Boy’s Own Recordings and in 1992 two of them, Terry Farley and Steven Hall formed Junior Recordings Ltd. which started to use the name Junior Boy’s Own.