The Eagle (1980s version)
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I only periodically read The Eagle, I was too young to remember the original and found it in many ways a little too macarbre for my taste, preferring the more conventional military storys in The Battle etc. But it did have some great tales;
The Collector scared the hell out of me, I remember the story where these 2 guys rear a carnivorous plant that ends up eating them gave me nightmares
Doomlord, again amazingly callous and sadistic, the way it just arbitarily killed off people was horrifying. I never liked it in the photo form (save that for the girl's romance comics) but got much better once it was drawn
Manix was my favourite, again rubbish as a photo strip, I remember 2 characters in one story that were supposed to be transformed into monsters and this was achieved by having them wear masks that looked like they came from a joke shop. Also they kept changing Manix's appearance presumably because the actor who played him got a better gig? Once it was drawn it was excellent, then he could deal with hijacked nuclear submarines and knock down attacking jets by hurling the tailplane from a shot-down transport aircraft at it.
I also liked the one where there were two brothers, one of whom had been mutated by radiation (back when nuclear power was the big scary and not the solution to global warming). Was Death Wish in The Eagle? The story of a millionaire playboy who was horribly disfigured and was incredibly brave in his adventures because he no longer cared if he lived or died?
The Collector scared the hell out of me, I remember the story where these 2 guys rear a carnivorous plant that ends up eating them gave me nightmares
Doomlord, again amazingly callous and sadistic, the way it just arbitarily killed off people was horrifying. I never liked it in the photo form (save that for the girl's romance comics) but got much better once it was drawn
Manix was my favourite, again rubbish as a photo strip, I remember 2 characters in one story that were supposed to be transformed into monsters and this was achieved by having them wear masks that looked like they came from a joke shop. Also they kept changing Manix's appearance presumably because the actor who played him got a better gig? Once it was drawn it was excellent, then he could deal with hijacked nuclear submarines and knock down attacking jets by hurling the tailplane from a shot-down transport aircraft at it.
I also liked the one where there were two brothers, one of whom had been mutated by radiation (back when nuclear power was the big scary and not the solution to global warming). Was Death Wish in The Eagle? The story of a millionaire playboy who was horribly disfigured and was incredibly brave in his adventures because he no longer cared if he lived or died?
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I was a big fan of The Hand, in which a man gets a gangster's hand sewn onto his arm, after a car crash, and it seems to start to possess him.
Crowe Street Comp was the comic's own version of Grange Hill, and veered bizarrely between silly comedy and gritty storylines about things like brutal teachers and delinquency. It was interesting how Clobber Gates, who started out as the villain of the piece, had become the main character and almost a rough diamond hero by the end.
Also for some reason I always remember a flexi-record which came attached on one issue with a Dan Dare song on it (with such great lyrics as Dan Dare can you pull us through, Dan Dare it's all up to you)
There was a story in which a man called Boothby got transformed into a monstrous looking mentally-subnormal creature, in some sort of scientific experiment. I recall the sequence with him roaming the streets going, 'Boothbbyyy!' -trying to tell people that was who he was, as they all fled in terror.
Does anyone recall that strip in which two blokes have a man prisoner and put a poisonous tarantula spider on him, and taunt and gloat over him, with evil laughs, before one of them tickles him with a feather to make him squirm and get the spider to sting and kill him?
Death Wish was in SPEED which ran for a while and was then incorporated into TIGER
http://www.britishcomics.com/Speed/index.htm
I have most of the SPEED comics, not sure if they are worth anything though.
the ORIGINAL plan was to relaunch dan dare in 2000AD, but due to no one liking it, they decided to relaunch the entire comic!
and i bought it from issue one, with the free frisbee thing
as i said, there was no merger with 2000AD, but with SCREAM, TIGER, BATTLE and WILDCAT ..... my fav was with SCREAM, with the likes of THIRTEENTH FLOOR, but plenty of others including BLOODFANG, COMPUTER WARRIOR, ROBO MACHINES and NEWS TEAM (that had THE most downbeat to a story in the whole comic run!!!
but the likes of mr dare, doomlord, the invisible boy, joe soap, sgt streetwise, manix, deathwish, the four horseman and thunderbolt and smokey kept me enthralled ..... but i read them all :cool:
my fav comic
Well Dan Dare was in 2000AD for pretty much every issue from prog 1 but was then dropped abruptly mid story for some reason, it either being unpopular, squeezed out due to the merger with Tornado or just the impending return of the Eagle (80's version).
While some 2000AD stories did end up being reprinted in the Eagle it never merged with 2000AD, in fact when the title Tiger was merged into the Eagle its lineage meant that the Eagle had ultimately merged with its original self.
Also Saddle Tramp, Crowe Street Comp and that strip with the kids stranded on a desert island (can't remember the title).
I remember the Big Mouth section was quite funny. They got people to write in to have a good moan, but the letters would get printed replies from the editorial staff slagging the kids off, if they thought the kids were stupid or out of order with what they were complaining about.
Death Wish was just so awesome... I'd love to read it again! :eek:
Loved Scream!! Even liked the Doomlord photo strips!
Yeah, I remember The Hand, great story where he get's arrested and his fingerprints baffle the police. The villain ends up being a senator who is trying to sabotage the space shuttle?
Are you sure that wasn't in The Battle? They had a character called Tarantula in Storm Force who'd do that sort of thing.
I think that's 'Walk or Die' you're referring to, a bunch of kids trying to survive in the Canadian wilderness after a plane crash (luckily one of them had a dad who was a Sgt in the SAS)
Thunderbolt and Smokey was the one with the two boys in the schools' football tournament, wasn't it? I recall there was a bully, called Jaws Jenner, and an obnoxious teacher, Mr Ferris, who were the nemeses of the two heroes.
I'm fairly certain I saw the man who played the lead character in Joe Soap the photo strip, in an old episode of The Sweeney that I saw repeated not long ago.
Eagle (1950) > Lion and Eagle (1969) > Valiant and Lion (1974) > Battle Picture Weekly and Valiant (1976) > Eagle and Battle (1988)
Enjoy.
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/30-year-flashback-new-eagle-no1.html
Thanks for sharing... I had forgotten how good The Tower King appeared at the time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFz3K2nmh2U
I don't recall it ever being given away as a flexi-disc. I paid good pocket money for my copy.
Does anyone remember the edition of the ITV schools programme Middle English which went behind the scenes at a shoot for the Doomlord photo strip? I keep hoping it will show up on YouTube.
dan dare in 2000ad never did come back did it? still an unresolved storyline all these years later.
Yeah, I remember that because it was a copy I had, Doomlord gets on a soapbox at the local shopping centre to warn the human race that they must change their ways or else and the reporter plays the onlooker who heckles him and gets disintegrated for his trouble
Unusually for the time Eagle and Tiger had equal billing for about a year, a lot longer than most amalgamations of the time (Battle-Action springs to mind as being equal billed for a long time).
I did a big re-read of Eagle a few years ago, I'm stalled in late 1988, probably about the time my 13 year old self stopped reading it originally! Skipped a lot to finish Doomlord (bizarre Vampire stuff going on!), but I'll get back to it.
Trying to get my oldest into it, maybe have to grit my teeth and just read him the photo strip ones to get that first year out the way.
Survival was another fave of mine - kids with a certain blood group are the only survivors of a world virus. Quite bleak and they killed loads of kids off
Sounds reminiscent of the old Action strip 'Kids Rule OK'?
I think you might be referring to a story from Mannix which had a similar theme?