1977: MERGER ALERT! BATTLE PICTURE WEEKLY AND ACTION MERGE

From 12 November 1977: Big News Issue!  BATTLE PICTURE WEEKLY announces the impending merger of the once-loved (especially if you were a journalist or a campaigner looking for an easy target or something to get all worked up about) ACTION.

I wasn't reading BATTLE (or ACTION) back in 1977 (or, indeed, anything at all) so it's hard to judge whether this merger would have been welcomed by the readers of Battle.  I'm assuming Action's reduced readership would have been less chuffed by the news their weekly was doomed.  On the face of it, Action still had some strong strips but it's hard to see how Spinball Wars (formally Death Game 1999 before Action's tone-it-down-now reboot and then Spinball after the hiatus) fits the war weekly formula.  Despite yet another tiitle change.  At least we didn't get 'Hookjaw Wars', which meant Action's best-known strip didn't survive the closure.  The other strips seem a more natural fit and probably spiced things up sitting alongside the surviving Battle troopers ('Fighting the Japs... Indian style'. Ahem).

Don't be tempted to confuse the BATTLE ACTION run with the later BATTLE ACTION FORCE era.  Same weekly: different times.