1989: RING RAIDERS ISSUE 1 (Fleetway)

RING RAIDERS was another late eighties (September 1989 to be precise) toy tie-in comic which never looked like it was going to - ahem - fly but top marks to the Fleetway creative teams for taking an exceptionally thin premise (the toys, as the name suggests, were tiny planes launched from a finger-mounted platform. Really) and expanding it into something resembling a fully-formed storyline.

Apparently there was also an animated series from the States although I have no recollection of it at all and I'm not sure it ever crossed the Atlantic.  It only ran five episodes which sounds like it was a mini-series try-out which failed to muster the necessary enthusiasm amongst station managers to progress to a full series.

The comic (no US edition) ran for six fortnightly issues before being cancelled suddenly with all the story lines in mid-flow.  A one-shot wrap-up, using the existing commissioned (and paid for!) inventory surfaced a few months later.

The cover below is by the ever-excellent Ian Kennedy.