Action Summer Special (IPC)
Various (w) & (a)
Action started life as a very controversial comic due to it's violent content. The press hounded IPC until Action was suspended for 6 weeks before returning in a much more traditional fashion as a "boy's paper".
I've never read any of the early issues and only a couple of the later ones, but was familiar with Hook Jaw due to the reprints in the short lived Strip! monthly. I rather liked Hellman, the tale of a German tank commander.
However for now I decided to treat myself to a reasonably priced summer special. Besides the Jaws inspired Hook Jaw story there was also Spinball which was a product of it's time with all these Death Sport movies (only ever saw the Arnie one myself). It was readable but nothing special to commend it.
Dredger, a secret agent was much more to my liking and set in a circus. Here the skills of an agent proved useful as a crack-shot act, shooting fags out his mates mouth. Rather him than me!!
In the same vein Code Name: Barracuda was given a feature split into two parts due to it'd length which saw Barracuda refuse to work for the Russians and then having to rescue the scientist they wanted him to protect in the first place.
Barracuda faced a wacky villain, a "sinister albino" who was an agent of WAM (War Against Mankind) the kind of stuff we used to love from James Bond (Spectre) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (T.H.R.U.S.H.). Great story.
Much of the Special is filled with those one page features such as Epics of Sport, Great Escapes and so on., some more interesting than others. There are also a couple of war stories such as Mission Executed and Escape by the Skin of his Teeth.
Worth picking up but beware Summer Specials tend to cost more.
Action lasted 87 issues before it was merged with Battle in 1977. The specials outlived their parent comic until 1980.
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