1969: Final flight of the EAGLE

Final issue of EAGLE, April 1969.

Exactly 45 years ago today, the most famous adventure comic in Britain ended its 19 year run. The final issue of Eagle bowed out on Wednesday April 23rd 1969 (cover dated April 26th) with Vol.20 No.17.

When the publishing giant IPC took control of the Odhams and Fleetway comics they ruthlessly cut through the poorer selling titles. The period from late 1968 to early 1969 saw the end of Fantastic, Pow!, Jag, and Eagle, and Smash! was revamped beyond recognition. (IPC had their own ideas for adventure comics, as the following years would prove... but few had longevity.)

Eagle had been on the decline for years, and ended in a poorer state than its high quality beginnings. Yet even its final edition still contained good artwork. Let's take a look...

I'm sure the cover above must have raised a wry smile with older readers. "The  modern paper for the modern boy" led with a 1950s Dan Dare reprint! Having treated Dare's creator Frank Hampson disgracefully (see Alistair Crompton's book Tomorrow Revisited for the full story) and replaced him on the strip years earlier, the publishers had then added more insult by replacing the new artists with reprints of Hampson's work (without paying him of course).

The first strip inside the issue was The Waxer. A creepy serial about living waxworks, it was illustrated by Reg Bunn, famed for his work on The Spider for Lion. 

The wheelchair-bound crimebuster Lightning Stormm was clearly inspired by TV's Ironside. Art by Barrie Mitchell.

By 1969 Western strips were nowhere near as popular than in their 1950s heyday, and this was the final bow for Blackbow the Cheyanne. Art by Frank Humphries.

Ancient gladiators vs Nazis! Only in comics...

The Circus Wanderers had been given the full colour centrespread for some reason. A somewhat silly strip of circus performers becoming footballers, it never made the leap to the merged comic.

What's that? Merged comic? Yes, the next page explained it all, with a typical "Great News, Pals!" announcement. Eagle was merging with Lion! Ironic, considering they were originally by rival publishers, and that Lion was the younger upstart, initially a poor imitation of Eagle. 

Over the page, The Day the World Forgot, with art by Tom Kerr, may have been a reprint from somewhere. 

Wild of the West was certainly a reprint. (Perhaps from Top Spot?) I think the art was by Ted Kearon but I'm unsure.

Finally, The Iron Man's last adventure. Yes, Eagle had its own Iron Man superhero, although this version was a robot and bore no similarity to Marvel's character. The strip had originated in Boy's World in 1963 before moving over to Eagle. Art by Martin Salvador.

The following week, readers were greeted with Lion and Eagle, with poorer paper quality and less colour than they were used to. Admittedly the title was revived with much publicity in 1982 and ran for several years, but the true original Eagle ended in 1969. 

Mono version of the cover by Geoff Campion.

This week in 1968: LION

Cover artwork by Geoff Campion

 British superheroes! In the issue of Lion that was on sale this week in 1968 the comic had changed a bit since the 1964 issue we looked at a few weeks ago. The standard regulars were still around, such as Carson's Cubs, Robot Archie, and Zip Nolan, but the influence of the Batman TV show and the increasing popularity of Marvel Comics had inspired the arrival of a few home-grown superheroes. 

The Spider had arrived in Lion in 1965 as a master crook but by 1968 his adventures were becoming even more fantastic in nature. This episode sees The Spider and a whole team of British superheroes battle the evil Limbo, climaxing with The Spider being banished to another dimension! 

The artwork on the first two pages is by series regular Reg Bunn, but pages three and four are clearly the work of someone else, presumably because Bunn was perhaps ill or otherwise unable to complete this episode in time...

This issue saw the very first appearance of Lion's newest superheroes, Gadgetman and Gimmick-Kid! It's completely daft but there's something very likable about it and the solid artwork is a treat. Sadly the strip only had a brief life, running just six months and ending in October of the that year. 

The Phantom Viking had joined Lion when Champion merged into the comic in 1966. The super-Viking was obviously the UK's version of Marvel's Thor, right down to his winged helmet and human alter-ego. Perhaps readers saw through it as The Phantom Viking never really achieved comic greatness, running for just two years. 

At first glance I thought this was the work of Jose Ortiz, but it's by Nevio Zeccara according to Steve Holland's Fleetway Companion index (and Steve usually knows his stuff regarding adventure comics). Nice inking technique on the underwater sequence on page two...

Want to see some classic ads that appeared in this issue of Lion 44 years ago? Here's a very stylish sixties Anglo bubble gum ad in comic strip form. There were a few different Anglo Ace strips in this campaign...

Om-nom-nom. Chew. Blow. Repeat forever.

Decimalisation was coming, slowly but surely, with the arrival of the 5p and 10p coins giving us a taster three years before the full system was introduced...

New fangled not-proper money.

The die-cast model vehicles of Dinky Toys (and their rivals Corgi) were still very popular in 1968. A model Ford Escort could be yours for 6/11d (34 and a half pence)...

Impress the ladies.

This week also saw the launch of Fleetway's latest adventure comic, Jag and Lion's centre pages showed us what to expect. You can read more about Jag by clicking here. 

War! Football! The comic for blokey boys!

Fleetway liked to name their comics after big cats.