The second of Hibernia's "Fleetway Files" volumes arrived yesterday featuring the adventures of a little known British comic book character The Indestructible Man which appeared in Jag launched in May 1968.
Jag was a unusually large sized comic even for it's time with only The Beezer and The Topper being i the same range. It was't a comic that I remember particularly well and only had one or two copies back in the day. I certainly don't recall much of the content which means this story was quite fresh.
The introductory notes refer to influences from the superhero genre that was becoming popular as a result of the importation of American comics but The Indestructible Man was more than that being influenced by The Saint and Danger Man which were big British TV shows back the.
Certainly The Indestructible Man or Mark Dangerfield as he became known had a proper origin story and the stories were certainly comparable with much of the Silver Age output of both DC ad Marvel. It is easy to see that this could have been published in that format.
A man from ancient Egypt wrongly entombed alive for the murder of his father, the Pharaoh rises through the use of magics and fights evil wherever he finds it. Mark Dangerfield even has a weakness. Every so often he must enter fire or die of old age.
Readers should be aware that in order to producer this story the pages have had to be substantially reduced which means if you are a old git like me a strong pair of reading glasses is required but it does not ruin the enjoyment of these excellent stories. The last few pages are of "normal" sized reproductions as Jag reverted to the size of Fleetway's other titles in a short run before Jag merged with Tiger.
I look forward to further volumes of old British comics from this imprint which is produced in conjunction with Rebellion.
Rating: 5 Stars
Available from: www.comicsy.co.uk/hibernia
No comments:
Post a Comment