1982: THE 'LAST' BATTLE

From February 1982: Relaunch alert!  BATTLE is about to get a bold new mission!

It's generally agreed that IPC's BATTLE (created by Pat Mills and John Wagner and launched in March 1975) was a cracker of a comic... not least because it gave us Johnny Red and Charley's War, two strips that outlived (albeit by reprints) the comic itself.  And still in print today.

The critics are quick to claim the at the rot really set it when IPC signed a deal with the 'devil' and gave over half the page count to strips promoting the ACTION FORCE toys.  I have to disagree with that... I'm a big fan of the Action Force era and recently aquired an almost-complete run of that period in Battle's history.

I'd argue that the last true issue of BATTLE is this one.  The last to pretty much (mergers allowing) to follow the 'total war' formula as concieved back in '75.

As you can see by this two-page teaser before... BATTLE was about to become an 'adventure' comic, throwing in new strips that tapped into the popular trends of the time... action TV shows, martial arts and - ahem - CB radio.

'The Hunters' were two special agents of the sort that can be assigned to any mission, anywhere, at the whim of the writer.  The comparisons to LWT's THE PROFESSIONALS were numerous.  'The Fists of Jimmy Chang' channeled the martial arts boom... probably about a decade too late.  Marvel London had been serving up Masters of Kung Fu across a variety of titles since the Seventies (and would continue to do so.. a strip even made it into their version of ACTION FORCE).  Indeed, so tired was the franchise looking in 1979 that Dez Skinn reworked the reprints, in MARVEL COMIC, to create his own Professionals inspired knock off.  'Truck Turpin' was Battle's trucker movie, and quite possibly hoping to excite fans of BJ AND THE BEAR.

The reboot did at least hang onto some of the older strips... a tradition that would continue even after the Action Force takeover.

The changes must have worked... at least for the moment.  The new formula continued right through 1982 and most of the following year.  The first Action Force strip, initially a four week booking, appeared in July 1983.  The powers-that-be must have been chuffed because - just in time for the Christmas sales season - Battle became BATTLE ACTION FORCE in October.  The licensing deal ran through to late 1986, at which point the comic reverted to being BATTLE and slipped into a holding pattern until it could introduce Storm Force (basically a great idea for a toy line... without the toys) in 1987.  That move kept Battle in business a bit longer... but those last issues were pretty scrappy (despite better print quality) and it was clear that, under the ownership of Robert Maxwell, everyone was just managing decline.  It was cancelled, after 673 issues, in January 1988.

1983: PALITOY ACTION FORCE ADVERT

From the summer of 1983: Timed to coincide with the ACTION FORCE IPC mini-comics promotion (free fortnightly inserts in EAGLE and BATTLE which - I think - also went out as giveaways to toy stores) Palitoy also ran a multi-buy promotion on the figures.

Unfortunately, the ad's designer or typesetter didn't think through the font size and colour combination very carefully.  The artwork isn't up to IPC standards either.  Maybe it was an advertising agency jobbie...

Once again, someone has been briefed to make heroes-of-the-moment the SAS the main part of the image.  But there's also an attempt to capture the more futuristic elements of the range (Buckethead not withstanding) which is more than BATTLE ACTION FORCE usually did when it got going later in the year.

1983: ACTION MAN TOY ADVERT

From 1983: a Palitoy ACTION MAN promotion, as published in EAGLE.

I was never much of an AM fan (indeed, I never owned one) but this must have marked the dying days of the big-doll-for-boys.  He was being out-maneuvered on the toy shop front line by two other Palitoy products: STAR WARS and Action Man spin-off ACTION FORCE.  The line was shuttered the following year as part of a General Mills (yup, the food people also did toys) restructure which saw Palitoy as surplus to requirements.

It's interesting to note that the 'space' and SAS figures are front-and-centre, reflecting the ongoing interest in science fiction as the Star Age continued and the popularity of the SAS in British pop culture (see also: ace action movie WHO DARES WINS) following the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in West London.

SAS FORCE, along with traditional land army Z-FORCE, were also the major players in ACTION FORCE, particularly in the pages of BATTLE ACTION FORCE.  The more 'out there' Q-FORCE and obligatory SPACE FORCE were only drafted in when Palitoy's marketing and sales departments had some products to shift.

1984: BARON IRONBLOOD BATTLE ACTION FORCE HOUSE AD

From 1984: It looks like - judging from the illustrations in the new issue of the Diamond PREVIEWS door-stopper - that a certain BARON IRONBLOOD is about to be introduced to the new IDW/ Hasbro shared universe.  Which - if I'm reading the runes correctly - would make me want to snap up a copy in a round three months time.  They've given him a makeover so he looks a little less like Ned Kelly.  I can't imagine why...

In the meantime, here is a bit of vintage Baron Booby Buckethead in an IPC House Ad for another buy-it-for-the-next-month retention ruse: a Baron Ironblood poster hogging one of the colour pages of BATTLE ACTION FORCE.

Good luck making the four parts line-up!

1983: ACTION FORCE TOY ADVERT

From July 1983: a Palitoy advert for the ACTION FORCE toyline, originally published in the EAGLE.

1987: MARVEL UK SIGNING FOR THUNDERCATS AND ACTION FORCE AT BIRMINGHAM'S NOSTALGIA AND COMICS

From May 1987: The Annex of Ideas takes a road trip to Birmingham for a signing by the MARVEL UK ACTION FORCE and THUNDERCATS (so also - inevitably - TRANSFORMERS as well) creative teams.

Did you go?  Was it good?  Do you still have your signed weeklies?

1988: ACTION FORCE WEEKLY ISSUE 50 (MARVEL UK)

From February 1988: Marvel UK's much heralded ACTION FORCE weekly runs out of road after a mere fifty issues, one less than SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS mustered... and considerably less than the three year run in IPC's BATTLE ACTION FORCE.

The cancellation came as so drying of a shock at the time. It felt like the British Bullpen had a surefire winner. THE TRANSFORMERS had been selling well for several years and it seemed a sure bet that this fellow Hasbro property would fair equally well. Hasbro had taken over the toy franchise, from Palitoy, a year or so earlier and reinvigorated it with more ambitious packaging designs, punchy TV advertising (using Marvel animation) and a multimedia merchandising roll out (modeled on G.I. JOE) which included, for the first time, episodes of the Joe animated series (redubbed, but not reanimated, and with a new title sequence to remove the most obvious Joe references) albeit only on VHS because they couldn't score a broadcast deal.

Marvel's package was also pretty attractive: a full colour 24 page weekly on decent paper (none of the surplus newsprint dumped on the IPC weeklies from Reed International's paper mills) which combined new UK material (focused to plug whichever toy Hasbro were desperate to shift at retail) and reworked GIJ strips, seen in the UK for the first time.

Despite the setback, AF continued to be part of the British Marvel arsenal. The US reprints transferred to THE TRANSFORMERS and the UK strips moved into a monthly, also sold in the States as G.I. JOE EUROPEAN MISSIONS, which clocked up 15 issues.

US reprints also appeared in THE INCREDIBLE HULK PRESENTS in late 1989. Marvel also published several annuals and specials.

1989 also saw the toys rebadged as G.I. JOE: THE ACTION FORCE to bring them in line with international marketing efforts.

1987: ACTION FORCE WEEKLY LAUNCH AD (MARVEL UK)

From February 1987: the launch ad for MARVEL UK's new ACTION FORCE weekly.

Based, of course, on the toys, Marvel had wrestled away from the strip rights from IPC's BATTLE ACTION FORCE the previous year. This was an exciting relaunch: 

the first regular AF comic (with the exception of five mini-comics, IPC had always barracked the team within BAF); 

the first colour AF comic (BAF had laboured under IPC's antiquated print technology); 

the first time the G.I. JOE strip had appeared in the UK (a handy way of the British Bullpen to slice the origination budget); 

and the first time Marvel had given away a copy of issue two with the launch edition;

It was all part of a wider reboot which saw the toys relaunched (now manufactured and sold by Hasbro rather than Britain's Palitoy), the US animated series make its UK debut (albeit straight-to-tape as British broadcasters passed on yet another extended toy commercial) and some punchy TV spots to plug both the toys and the comic (borrowing from the successful US formula that catapulted the G.I. JOE comic books to the top of the sales charts thanks to TV commercials that also just happened to circumvent strict toy advertising rules).

1987: ACTION FORCE ISSUES 1 & 2 (MARVEL UK)

From March 1987: two-for-one thrills: the first two issues of Marvel UK'S ACTION FORCE 'revival'.

This came only a few months after BATTLE had lost the toy franchise (and, indeed, the Annex had already teased their new signing by running a G.I. JOE reprint in the back of THE TRANSFORMERS) but this was a significant change of direction. For a start: it was in colour.

Marvel also tried something that, as far as I know, they never tried before or since. They bundled issue two with the first as a freebie. Two comics for the price of one, held together by a plastic strip. The first issues (which, I believe, were supported by TV advertising as part of Hasbro's push to relaunch the toys) stayed on sale for a fortnight. 

Whether this strategy was a winner is debatable. It meant that if you somehow missed out, you couldn't jump on until issue three. Which is a big gap if you are a kid collector. But it did mean you got double the thrills... even if you had to wait a fortnight for the third outing.

The weekly itself shuttered after a mere fifty issues although the may have been as much down to the decline in British weeklies as it was a flaw with this particular title. 

The British strips from the weekly were reprinted as back-up strips in its successor ACTION FORCE MONTHLY (aka G.I. JOE EUROPEAN MISSIONS if you were reading imported copies in the States). 

1987: ACTION FORCE BOOKS (Marvel UK)

From October 1987: A competition to win copies of the two very hard-to-find ACTION FORCE storybooks, published under the Marvel Books banner, by MARVEL UK: OPERATION RAGING RIVER and OPERATION STAR FLIGHT.

I didn't see either of these back-in-the-day (probably because I wasn't visiting the children's book department anymore) and I've never seen copies since. That probably makes them amongst the rarer M-UK publications... Albeit non-comics ones.

I've always assumed that these are rebadged versions of similar books, published by the US branch of Marvel Books (which did licensed tie-ins in a big way) as a G.I. JOE tie-in. Although I have no idea whether that is true. The left-hand "tea towel" version of Cobra Commander certainly looks more like something that would come from the States (Palitoy ignored that version of CC altogether when they held the UK license). 

There is, of course, no writer or artists credits here. It remains to be seen if the books themselves were credited.

Many people, including myself, hold the original Baron Ironblood era of AF in high regard but there's no doubt that Hasbro were able to leverage that previous success and the weight of the G.I. Joe franchise (Marvel strips, the animated show, the reworked TV adverts) to really reinvigorate the line. 

Unfortunately, the Marvel weekly only had a few more months to live and it shuttered, making way for the transatlantic monthly, early in the new year. 

1985: IPC JUNE FREE GIFTS HOUSE AD

From 1985: a June free gift boom courtesy of the IPC weeklies...

The humor (BUSTER and WHIZZER AND CHIPS) and boys 'adventure' weeklies (EAGLE AND TIGER and ROY OF THE ROVERS) served up, courtesy of a hook-up with stodgy breakfast biscuit provider (now, apparently, making inroads into China if the SUNDAY TIMES is to be believed) WEETABIX for cover-mounted promo badges featuring the briefly ubiquitous marketing creations (stars of TV ads, the improbable Weetabix Club and on-packaging appearances).  The badges were, probably, randomly distributed across the four titles.  

Odd-man-out was BATTLE ACTION FORCE who were fully engaged in the battle against global terror with a free, no-doubt Palitoy bankrolled, ACTION FORCE poster.

1987: ACTION FORCE Issue 1 (Marvel UK)

From March 1987: the first issue of MARVEL UK's new ACTION FORCE weekly.

This glossy, 24-page opener (accompanied by the second issue... a launch strategy never repeated... possibly because if you missed the first one then the next available jumping-on point was the third issue... possibly a disincentive to would-be readers) was certainly a blast after years of IPC's relatively low-rent treatment of the license in the pages of BATTLE ACTION FORCE (although, in retrospect, there's a lot of good stuff to be found therein and its a real shame that the chances of an official re-release are near to zero).

Most issues had a three-strip line-up: a new British strip (primarily used to align the weekly with whatever toy Hasbro were currently trying to shift through TV and print advertising), heavily edited (to create a unique British continuity pegged to the main strip) reprints from the core G.I. JOE book (hitherto unseen in the UK outside comic book stores) and a third feature which, in typical Marvel fashion, bounced around a bit (Masters of Kung Fu, now integrated in to AF continuity, popped-up at one point).

The new license and publisher was part of the fallout from structural changes in the British toy industry.  Palitoy, creators of Action Force, had shuttered and the brand transferred to Hasbro, the maker of G.I. JOE.  Action Force, after a strong independent start, had essentially already morphed into a British interpretation of JOE anyway.  Hasbro used the relaunch as a chance to apply their glossy marketing muscle (including key art, box art, slick TV advertising and episodes of the Marvel made TV show) to the line.  

The British Bullpen were already publishing THE TRANSFORMERS and had a strong relationship with Hasbro through their US parent (who, on both coasts, were heavily involved in several of Hasbro's lines of the time) so it was a no-brainer that the license would shift from Kings Reach Tower to Redan Place.  The existing Transformers weekly was used to prime readers for the impending launch of this title and, throughout the year that AF appeared, crossovers and other plugs were a regular feature.  

I think this launch issue revived the old British tradition of hyping a new title with a TV advert.  It rings a very strong bell.  Can anyone confirm?  Hasbro were certainly plugging the toys in a series of spots that utilized animation (from Marvel Productions) originally created for either US advertising or the TV show itself.  The US JOE book had benefited from commercials, bankrolled by the toy company, who used them as a handy way of circumventing strict toy advertising rules by plugging the comic... which just happened to feature whatever toy they wanted to shift in any particular season.  

The AF weekly ultimately only notched up a paltry fifty issues.  A quite surprising failure considering the quality of the product and the corporate backing for the brand.  Presumably the changes in the British comic industry conspired to make it too difficult to gain traction. 

The franchise bounced back with a US-format monthly which benefited from distribution in the States under the alternate title of G.I. JOE EUROPEAN MISSIONS.  The reprints of the core JOE title shuffled to THE TRANSFORMERS (apparently much to the disappointment of Simon Furman who favored using the slot to showcase a revolving door of reprints) and reprints from G.I. JOE SPECIAL MISSIONS were slotted into the short-lived THE INCREDIBLE HULK PRESENTS in 1989. 

1987: ACTION FORCE House Ad (Marvel UK)

From July 1987: a MARVEL UK House Ad for the (ultimately short-lived) ACTION FORCE weekly.

1987: MARVEL UK ANNUALS House Ad

From 1987: a cavalcade of MARVEL UK ANNUALS.

It says a lot that there's no SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL in the bunch... that's how far the mighty had fallen in the second half of the eighties.  The MARVEL SUPERHEROES edition was, however, an excellent alternative and must rank as one of the very best single annuals of the Star Age.

The rest are a motley bunch of licensed titles... and equally good indicator of the direction of travel for the Annex of Ideas... and the state of the annuals business.

The ACTION FORCE edition was the first from Marvel UK... and also the first time the Force had gone solo in a yearbook.  The previous three years had (logically enough) seen them sharing the pages of the BATTLE ANNUAL from Fleetway.  Unlike the previous years, this was (with the exception of a new text story) an all-reprint affair, drawing on the US G.I. JOE strips.  

THE TRANSFORMERS ANNUAL was the third, and the first year that the movie characters had featured.  For some... this marked the end of the golden age of the Robots in Disguise.

THE THUNDERCATS edition was the second, spun-off from the popular weekly, toys and animated series (aired on the BBC). 

The seldom seen DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS book, presumably (like the one-shot special I've covered before), reprinted the Spanish strips based on the Marvel Productions TV show. 

The rest, pitched at younger readers, are all based on toy or animated (or both) characters.  I think the INSPECTOR GADGET (who I'm sure also had a slot in LOOK-IN... although I don't know if the two licenses overlapped) strips also came from Europe.  ACORN GREEN was a toy line that also had it's own Eco-themed comic from the British Bullpen.  POPPLES, CARE BEARS and MADBALLS all had Star Comics in the States.  MY PET MONSTER was another toy tie-in which spawned an animated series (and straight-to-tape movie). 

1988: THE ACTION ADVENTURE COLLECTION HASBRO VHS (Tempo)

From 1988: Three of Hasbro's Eighties multi-media franchises on one tape: ACTION FORCE (rebadged episodes of G.I. JOE), TRANSFORMERS and INHUMANOIDS.  

All three of which would also have been familiar to anyone who was buying MARVEL UK's weeklies.  Indeed, regular readers of Transformers saw both the other series rotate through the back-up slot. 

1984: BATTLE ACTION FORCE House Ad (Marvel UK)

From 1984: a half-page House Ad for IPC's BATTLE ACTION FORCE, promoting the first instalement of a four-part BARON IRONBLOOD mask.  

It utilized one of the colour pages each week to print one quarter of the poster which, when all were removed from the comic (yikes), and accurately aligned, could be used as a poster. 
 

Marvel UK would have just given away a glossy poster...

1984: BARON IRONBLOOD MASK HOUSE AD (IPC)

This is the IPC house ad, published in weeklies dated 6 October 1984, promoting the BARON IRONBLOOD cardboard mask giveaway in the following week's copies of EAGLE AND SCREAM!, TIGER and (of course) BATTLE ACTION FORCE.

I'm sure the giveaway was bankrolled by Palitoy as a way of drumming-up a bit of extra business for the toys in the crucial pre-Christmas sales period.

The mask, which (sadly) I no longer have (despite having at least two at the time: I was a regular reader of both Eagle and BAF), was a flimsy cardboard affair which, when elastic was added, made you look (a bit) like Action Force's bucket-headed villain.  Why anyone at Palitoy thought the Ned Kelly look was a good one is beyond me (although the mighty Hasbro made a similar blunder with G.I. JOE: Cobra Commander first appeared with a tea towel as a disguise).

The top of the page is a plug for the third of the (new) EAGLE ANNUALS.  Click here for a full rundown. It's weird to think that, by 1984, it had already become a Birthday/ Christmas tradition.  

1984: EAGLE OCTOBER ISSUES (IPC)

Here's a cover gallery for the four issues of EAGLE AND SCREAM! with October 1984 cover dates. The highlight of the month was, undoubtably, the cardboard BARON IRONBLOOD mask inserted into the 13th October issue.  Now you too could look like the bucket-headed bane of Action Force's life!

1984: ACTION FORCE FIGURE FREE GIFT (IPC)

Was this the greatest gift ever?  At the time it certainly seemed like it!  Yup, in the summer of 1984 IPC and Palitoy paired-off to give away (surely surplus*) ACTION FORCE figures with copies of EAGLE, BATTLE ACTION FORCE (inevitably) and TIGER.

With the figures selling for between £1 and £1.50 each (I think), it certainly seemed a no-brainer to stock-up on multiple copies of the three weeklies, at 22p a time, to get as many different figures as possible.  Indeed, this was the only time I ever bought a copy of TIGER prior to its merger with the EAGLE.  I'm certain I didn't read any of it.

The figures were bagged (not carded) with each issue.  I seem to recall Palitoy's marketing mandarins also chucked in a glossy toy-flogging poster, or something similar, although I don't recall exactly what now.

I distinctly recall thinking it was a shame that Palitoy couldn't do a similar deal with Marvel UK to shift some Star Wars figures but - sadly - it was not to be.

* I recall a depressing abundance of Black Major figures.  Was that a regional thing or did they have an awful lot of 'em to shift?

1984: EAGLE JULY ISSUES (IPC)

Back to the summer of '84! 

The flying R2-D2 wannabe ("Oh my, Oh my!") and a giant one-eyed purple space brain are vivid reminders that this wasn't Dan Dare's finest run, but the on-going KP Skips free comics promotion and best-of-all - a free Palitoy ACTION FORCE figure (wowsa!) still ensured July was a memorable month for IPC's EAGLE.