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

SMILE PLEASE! YOU'RE IN EAGLE.

            STEVE WINDERS EXAMINES THE PHOTO STRIPS IN THE 1980s EAGLE

 

When the new version of EAGLE appeared in 1982 a key element was its use of strip stories composed of photographs, known as ‘fumetti’ (singular: fumetto), where the characters were played by actors and in some cases, members of the publisher Fleetway’s staff. Photo strips had proved successful in a new version of Girl launched in 1981, but those stories had been contemporary, featured ordinary people and were set in familiar surroundings. While EAGLE’s photo strips were also usually set in the present day, they were adventure stories which invariably featured characters who were anything but ordinary and in the days before widespread digital photography and computer use, this often posed significant challenges for the writers and photographers.

 The most popular and successful fumetto was Doomlord, created by John Wagner and Alan Grant and written by Grant. The two had worked closely together on Wagner’s creations Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog in 2000 A.D. The photographer was Gary Compton. Beginning in the first issue, dated March 27^th 1982, it was originally intended to be a single thirteen part serial about a monstrous alien sent to Earth to ‘judge’ mankind’s suitability to protect the planet. Able to absorb the memories of people he killed, Doomlord could also change his appearance to look exactly like his victims. In his original form, Doomlord was played by an actor wearing a rubber mask and long ornate robes. In the story, he decides we are too dangerous as a species and almost succeeds in destroying us. Fortunately the selfless sacrifice of the strip’s human hero, Howard Harvey (portrayed by actor Mike Mungarvan), destroys him instead. The strip was so well received, that a sequel brought another Doomlord to Earth in a story beginning in Issue 23, dated 14^th August 1982 and this one judged in favour of humanity and stayed to become our protector. However he was still utterly ruthless in pursuit of his goals. As with several stories in the new EAGLE, Doomlord raised many questions about the morality and the consequences of actions. Subsequent stories often focused on Doomlord’s efforts to force mankind to address issues like nuclear disarmament, protecting the environment and fairer distribution of wealth. The strip continued to be popular and when EAGLE discontinued photo stories, Doomlord survived as an illustrated strip, drawn initially by Heinzl and later by Eric Bradbury. It ran until 1990 when it was finally dropped in EAGLE’s last major revamp. However it soon returned in reprints when EAGLE became a monthly publication in May 1991. 

The only other fumetto from the first issue to survive beyond issue 79 when photo strips were dropped was Sergeant Streetwise, about an undercover London policeman, Sergeant Wise, who posed as an odd job man and operated from a boarding house to fight crime. Wise reported to Inspector Taggert, who pretended to be his uncle to maintain his cover and he was occasionally assisted by the incompetent Constable Botham. The strip appeared intermittently and stories were one-offs or short serials with simple and often unlikely plots. Streetwise photo stories also appeared in the EAGLE Annuals for 1983 and 1984 and the EAGLE Holiday Special in 1983. Wise was portrayed by actor and model Bill Malin, whose other credits include playing a Cyberman in Doctor Who and a vampire in the film Lifeforce. The strip was written by Gerry Finley-Day, who wrote Invasion! and several Dan Dare stories for 2000 A.D. It was photographed by Dave Watts. After a long break from the weekly it returned as an illustrated strip drawn by John Vernon in issue 97, finally ending in issue 106.

 Also beginning in the first issue was Thunderbolt and Smokey, about two boys who transform their school soccer team from a complete shambles into Schools’ Cup Finalists. Running for 27 episodes, the strip was largely photographed at the Magna Carta School in Egham Hythe, Surrey. Colin ‘Thunderbolt’ Dexter was portrayed by Richard Cray and Leo ‘Smokey’ Beckles by Ian Green. Both actors were pupils at the school, along with the other boys featured in the story. A further Thunderbolt and Smokey photo strip appeared in the EAGLE Annual 1983. As a photo story, the strip achieved levels of realism rarely achieved in drawn soccer strips, because most of the action shots were taken during real matches or dedicated set plays. In a surprise ending, the boys narrowly fail to win the cup, but are praised for their dedication, belief and spirit. The strip was written by Tom Tully, whose credits also include Heros the Spartan in the original EAGLE, Roy of the Rovers in Tiger and Roy of the Rovers Weekly and the later adventures of Dan Dare in the new EAGLE. It was photographed by John Powell. West Ham’s goalkeeper Phil Parkes made a guest appearance in one episode when he coached Colin Dexter who had to act as goalie after the regular keeper was injured by a bully. Predominantly set in the school and on football pitches, it was a particularly easy photo strip to produce.

The final fumetto to appear in Issue One was The Collector, an anthology strip of ‘one off’ morality tales. Each story was introduced by the ‘Collector’, drawn by artist Pat Wright to avoid the need to call in the same actor repeatedly to pose for just one or two pictures. The Collector would show readers an item from his collection which would form the basis of his tale, which was told as a photo strip. Several writers contributed stories, including Roy Preston, Alan Moore, Brian Burrell and Gerry Finley-Day and photographers included Gary Compton, Sven Arnstein, Carin Simon and Henry Arden. Almost all the stories featured horror or supernatural elements and the single episode stories meant that the settings changed each issue. While most were contemporary, there were also stories set in the Second World War. The Collector ran until Issue 48, with two photo strips appearing in the 1983 EAGLE Annual, another in the EAGLE Holiday Special in 1983 and a final one in the 1984 Annual. The 1984 Holiday Special and the 1984 Annual each also carried an additional Collector strip, both drawn by Ron Turner.

Beginning in the second issue was a short occasional humorous strip called The Adventures of Fred. Portrayed by EAGLE’s Group Editor, Barrie Tomlinson, who also wrote the strip, Fred was an odd looking character - Barrie Tomlinson was heavily disguised in large glasses, with a small moustache and wearing an old mac and a hat. His ‘adventures’ appeared sporadically during the first few months of EAGLE and featured visual jokes which usually occupied no more than half a page. A final episode appeared in the 1983 Annual. Slightly reminiscent of Chicko in the original EAGLE, there was no dialogue in the strip.

Another photo strip with humorous elements was Joe Soap, which first appeared in Issue 12, dated 12^th June 1982. Written by Alan Grant and photographed by Gary Compton, it was about an incompetent private detective called Joseph Soaper. There were three serial stories in EAGLE with a break between the second and third serial. Joe’s final appearance was in Issue 45. However, after featuring in a photo strip in the Annual for 1984, he later appeared in drawn strips in EAGLE Annuals and Summer Specials in stories that were the inverse of the original EAGLE’s Can You Catch a Crook? strip, because readers were asked to spot the clues that Joe missed. Can You Catch a Crook? had asked readers to spot the clues that Sergeant Dave Bruce had noticed. In the photo strip Joe was portrayed by actor Michael Scott. A trans-sexual, Michael has subsequently become Mjka Scott.

Most photo strips were filmed in London and usually not far from the editorial office. King’s Reach Tower, where the new EAGLE was based, provided a remarkable number of backgrounds.  Further afield was the location of the ambitious western photo strip Saddle Tramp, which began in Issue 14, dated 26^th June 1982 and ran for thirteen episodes. It was principally photographed in Frontier City, a replica wild west town at Littlecote Manor near Hungerford. The hero was a bounty hunter called Trampas, a name borrowed from Owen Wister’s novel The Virginian. He was played by Malcolm Warriner, a western re-enactor, with other parts played by members of his western enthusiasts group. A recurring theme in the strip was that Trampas would lose his horse and have to earn more money from chasing bounties to buy a new one. In the thirteen episodes he managed to catch and often kill a fair number of villains, but the last episode ends as the first began, with Trampas carrying his saddle on his shoulder and off to chase new bounties to buy yet another horse. Saddle Tramp also “narrated” a western text story in the 1984 EAGLE Annual, which was illustrated by photographs. The strip was written by Gerry Finley-Day and photographed by Howard Payton. Sadly, Frontier City was demolished after Peter de Savary, the brother of Paul, who once owned the TV and film rights to Dan Dare, bought Littlecote in 1985!

Beginning in Issue 24, dated 4^th September 1982, Manix was EAGLE’s second most popular photo strip. Clearly inspired by the original EAGLE’s The Iron Man, Manix was also about a powerful android robot, who passed for human. However this strip took the concept to another level, tackling questions that The Iron Man barely touched on. While the Iron Man’s computer brain was occasionally controlled briefly by villains, he was always freed before he did any serious damage. However Manix was controlled for a considerable time by the self-seeking Colonel Cameron and killed several people on his behalf. When Cameron ordered him to kill ‘O’, the head of British Intelligence, his own survival impulses enabled him to override his orders and he began to work for ‘O’ against Cameron. Subsequently he carried out missions for British Intelligence. As with Doomlord, Manix was able to change his outward appearance. He could be given new faces, thereby avoiding the need to keep the same actor, who might not have been available. Also, as with Doomlord, there was more than one Manix. Two were destroyed and replaced in the course of the series and there was also a foot high ‘Mini Manix’ who helped the full size version for a while! The series was developed by Alan Grant and John Wagner and photographed by Mike Prior. Alan Grant wrote later stories on his own, using the name ‘Keith Law’. The first Manix was played by Steve Long. When EAGLE dropped fumetti, Manix continued as a drawn strip, with Manuel Carmona as artist. Scott Goodall eventually took over as writer. Goodall’s previous work had included Thunderbirds for TV Century 21 and Fishboy and Galaxus, The Thing From Outer Space for Buster.

Beginning in Issue 28, dated 2^nd October 1982, was Invisible Boy, which replaced Thunderbolt and Smokey. It was written by Scott Goodall and photographed by John Powell. When the young hero, Tim Talbot stumbled into one of his scientist father’s experiments it exposed him to a strange radiation which enabled him to become invisible whenever he touched a micro-cell battery. Initially Tim used his powers to deal with school bullies and similar problems, but later turned his attention to fighting crime. The strip ran initially for thirteen episodes, but returned for a longer run in January 1983. However it did not survive the dropping of photo strips. An Invisible Boy photo strip also appeared in the 1983 EAGLE Holiday Special and a text story appeared in the 1984 Annual, but was illustrated with drawings.

Issue 41, dated 1^st January 1983, brought another historical based strip. This was Jake’s Platoon, about a small group of British soldiers, separated from the main force after landing on Sword Beach on D Day. With their sergeant and corporal dead, it fell upon Lance-Corporal Jake Jackson to lead his men back to their battalion. A brave attempt to produce an action strip, Jake’s Platoon was only partially successful. While there were some well presented skirmishes with small groups of Germans, the houses were clearly English, as was the countryside and several characters needed haircuts – a problem with many war films in the seventies and early eighties. The strip was written by Gerry Finley-Day and photographed by Carin Simon and ran for seventeen episodes.

Another strip with a wartime setting began in Issue 64 (11^th June 1983). House of Correction lasted for twelve episodes. An unusual story, it was about an R.A.F. Officer and his team working behind enemy lines in France to destroy a Nazi scientist and his evil brainwashing serum and thwarting his plan to blow up the leaders of the French Resistance.  It was written by Chris Lowder (as Jack Adrian) and photographed by Mike Prior. Lowder’s previous work had included Adam Eterno for Thunder and later Lion and five Dan Dare stories for 2000A.D. 

The final fumetto Walk or Die began in Issue 65 (18^th June 1983) and was about a group of seven schoolchildren who survived an air crash in the Canadian wilderness and were forced to walk through remote hazardous country to reach safety. Two teachers with them were killed in the first episode following an encounter with a bear! The story shows how the group are saved by Jim Hardy, an unpopular boy who put all sentiment and sympathy aside in leading the others to safety. This was another strip that examined and questioned moral judgements. When the others ignored Hardy’s warning that the rivers were too dangerous for a raft, one of them was drowned and an injury which almost led to Hardy’s own death was caused by the reckless action of one of the others. Walk or Die ran for thirty three episodes, continuing through the change from photo stories to illustrated strips. It was written by Scott Goodall and the photographer on the first fifteen episodes was Howard Payton. Two photo episodes of the strip were included in the final issue to use fumetti (Issue 78) and subsequently the strip was illustrated by Ramon Escolano. It concluded in Issue 96.     

The novelty appeal of the photo strips undoubtedly contributed to the early success of the new EAGLE, but writers were severely limited by the constraints of photographed stories, having to use great ingenuity to devise interesting plots that could be achieved with a camera and actors. Similarly the photographers and actors achieved some remarkable shots, but many action scenes looked posed, because they were. In his autobiography Comic Book Hero, Barrie Tomlinson wrote:

“Within a few months, it became obvious that readers preferred drawn picture-strips, rather than photo-strips. To the delight of artists everywhere, we reverted to all picture-strips. It had been something worth trying. Doing special effects had been really difficult.”

Fumetti were also more expensive to produce that illustrated strips. Interviewed for Hibernia Books’ 2018 publication, The Fleetway Files, Editor David Hunt admitted that the “photographic process was both time consuming and expensive,” before going on to say, “When sales started to slip after the first year, then the photo-story process became difficult for me to justify."

Issue 79 did not merely dispense with the photo-strips though. It also marked a change in size and paper quality for EAGLE. Now it was printed on cheap newsprint paper where photo strips would not have reproduced satisfactorily and it resembled the old Lion and Valiant in appearance and content, with several more comic strips replacing the photo strips and features. It now became more of a traditional comic than a magazine.

Despite their limitations, the photo stories are fondly remembered today and in the early issues Doomlord was more popular with readers than Dan Dare.  

I am grateful to Jim O’Brien, David Ronayne and Stephen Reid, who provided some information for this article.