Eagle and Tiger (1985)

The 1980's saw the gradual decline of the British comics industry though one title continued to stand out, the Eagle. With the long running and well known Dan Dare as it's lead character it was strong enough to continue and became the place other titles merged with.

And so in 1985 that famous slogan "Great news inside" saw the end of the long running sports orientated comic Tiger.

Eagle and Tiger was born.

 

The new comic promise 9 great stories inside and most of them were depending on your tastes. Kicking off with Doomlord, a major feature of the relaunched Eagle under Fleetway we see our hero impersonated by an escaped prisoner Zyn, one of the villains sent to destroy Earth.  A "zombie plague" seems to begin.

Followed by the inevitable football story Billy's Boots (which I skipped over having no interest in sport whatsoever) you then get to a rather charming little adventure Star Rider about an alien youth riding one of those "Mountain Bikes" that were popular at one time. Trouble is spaceship is hidden in two power station chimneys due for demolition....will he be too late to save his ride home?

The Ultimate Warrior seems to have been inspired by those early computer games and the film Tron. Not bad, but Dan Dare takes the centre pages with an adventure involving flesh eating blobs in the shires of England. Charming.

The other stories included a Transformers clone Robo-Machines and Death Wish about a chap with a rather deformed face and some ghosts looking for vengeance.

Golden Boy features  athlete Jamie Speed playing some kind of suicide game in a South American banana republic but I was pleased to see the last remaining feature from the short lived but much loved Scream comic absorbed by Eagle earlier in the eighties. The Thirteenth Floor featuring Max the Killer computer killer, now installed in a department store. Great fun.

This is turning out to be a good run to collect. Like all anthologies this has varied contented depending on ones interests but I'd recommend it.