IN AND OUT OF THE EAGLE 34

Martin Mere was the title of one of several strips that Frank Hampson created for EAGLE after The Road of Courage ended, but were never developed. Only one episode was illustrated but it was arguably the most intriguing of all the proposed strips. Produced in colour and set in the swamplands of Mercia during Saxon times, the hero was Martin Mere, who was Guardian of the swamplands. Martin Mere is also the name of a wetland area in Lancashire, which was once the largest body of freshwater in England. As late as 1579 it extended from Burscough in the east to Churchtown in the west where Frank’s first studio would be located. Today Martin Mere is significantly smaller than it was in Saxon times.

 It houses a popular Wetland Centre managed by the Wetland and Wildfowl Trust. Frank Hampson located his strip in the Saxon Kingdom of Mercia,whose power base was in the Midlands leading some fans to assume the marshes in the strip were also in the Midlands, but for several centuries Mercia extended as far north as the River Ribble, meaning that Martin Mere was actually located in Mercia, close to its border with Northumbria. As Frank described his hero as the 'Knight of the north', I believe that the mere that Martin protected was actually Martin Mere. A track called 'the Ridgeway' is mentioned in the strip, but it does not refer to the ancient road known by this name, which follows a ridge of chalk hills in southern England. Sadly only a poor black and white copy of the episode survived, but the comic artist Martin Baines, who was a member of our Society in his boyhood and is still a keen Dan Dare enthusiast, improved the resolution on the page using Photoshop and this is reproduced below. 

The single episode introduces the hero and the basic plot. Martin and his men meet a group of Moorish travellers on the marsh and accompany them to their Lord. The episode ends with one of  Martin's men being alarmed by what he finds in the travellers' cart. We will never know what he found. 

Had circumstances been different and Frank had been allowed to develop this strip, it is possible that some changes would have been made before publication - Dan Dare was originally a clergyman! The name of the hero might well have changed, as although there was already a saint called 'Martin', I have never heard of any Anglo Saxons taking the name before the Norman Conquest. Despite there being only one episode, it is possible to date the events of the story to around 700 A.D and certainly between abut 650 and 800 A.D. In 700, Mercia was a powerful kingdom and was Christian from around 650. The Moors in the story are apparently from Morocco as they are trading the 'riches of Barbary' which is in north west Africa. A Moorish army invaded Spain, in 711 A.D.