a series of strips which appeared in Valiant Annuals for 1967, 68, 71, and 73; Lion Annuals published in 1968, 70; Mighty Warriors Annual 1979 (1978 indicia); Marvel Comics Annual 1969.
The high point for the British strips was definitely "The Steel Claw", written by Tom Tully with superb, realistic artwork by Spanish artist Jesus Blasco. These adventures took place in his post-James Bond period, when he was working for the secret government agency, the Shadow Squad. The Claw had an artificial hand which allowed him to turn invisible upon receiving a charge of electricity, to discharge small amounts of electricity, and which also contained a variety of others gadgets. The hand itself always remains visible, and the effect of the floating metallic hand is quite eerie (although it would be lost with a less realistic artist). The Claws powers were limited in various interesting ways: he became invisible on receiving a charge of electricity whether he wanted to or not (one story has him doing so involuntarily), and also the metal hand did not absorb all the electricity so the Claw usually shouts "aargh" upon sticking his fingers into a wall socket or whatever (which must be bad for his heart in the long run!); and one episode showed the disadvantage of being an invisible man, when a villains opened a secret panel which the Claw happened to be standing next to, so the Claw fell down a stairwell! The adventures themselves are quite competent secret agent tales, overall quite compelling, and not well represented by the return of the Claw colour comic which came out several years ago.
Next up is "Kelly's Eye", a series drawn by Argentinean artist Solano Lopez (more recently known for mature fare like Ana and Deep City, and silly smut like Young Witches and Peter Kock). The first episode, "How Tim Kelly Discovered the Eye of Zoltec", was the best drawn, the later ones done in a much looser style. Tim Kelly is stranded in the South American jungle and, while hiding in a cave to avoid some giant bats, he finds a stone, the Eye of Zoltec, which when worn around his neck grant invulnerability. He tended to react to surprises such as giant bats by shouting "By Glory!" (or once By George!") but in later episodes he evidently became more jaded. He also became something of a world traveler, and in a story set in Raffino, Italy he fights a vampire who also sets giant bats on him! In the character's revival in 2000 AD the Eye was implanted in the chest rather than on a chain around his neck, which seemed odd to me until I read several of the earlier stories. To generate a sense of danger the chain tends to snap, but when it is protected by the Eye's influence and when it isn't seems very arbitrary on the whim of the writer. The character appears in Captain Britain under the name "Tom Rosetta". The stories themselves, aside from the artwork, were rather bland, as Tim Kelly had no personality to speak of aside from being annoying cheerful.
The "Wild Wonders" is a humour strip featuring to children, Rick and Charlie, who are amazing athletes as a result of growing up on their own in the "desolate Worrag Island in the Hebrides". They are in the care of their "guardian", Mike Flynn, who always involves them in sporting events which they win easily. They seem to become involved in these events mainly because Mike tells them to (although they generally have fun) and it's a wonder how nobody seems to accuse him of clearly exploiting his young charges.
"The Phantom Viking" is Olaf Larsen, a school teacher (called "Loopy Larsen" by his students) who dons a mystic helmet to become the flying, powerful Viking. The character is amazingly similar to Kirby's Thor, down to having an identical helmet, though the slightly more realistic artwork makes the helmet look even sillier. The one complete story I have involves him rescuing two students of his who have made off with an experimental hovercraft, and ends on a light-hearted note with Larsen giving the two boys corporal punishment! Outside of the odd unlikeability of Olaf Larsen, the strip is otherwise unmemorable, and even less exciting than "Kelly's Eye".
"Code Name - Barracuda" is another Bond-influenced strip; the Barracuda (and his bald assistant, Frollo (?)) are the United Nations' "ace trouble shooters". The story opens with the hooded leader of WAM ("War Against Mankind") telling one of his followers: "I am displeased with you, Doctor Aqua. For almost a year the Marine Division of WAM has done nothing to cause terror and death to the people of this earth." The most interesting scene is when Barracuda tricks several WAM agents into shooting at mannequin decoys of him and Frollo, upon which he bursts out of the shadows in this really nifty streamlined car and executes the lot, which is probably plausible in it seems a bit jarring in a kids' strip. The story was very reminiscent of a lesser THUNDER Agents story (i.e. not one by Wood or Ditko).
Texas Jack was a Western character, surprisingly enough, and appeared in an adventure story entitled "Texas Jack and the Snake Chief" which I will recap here. It opens with a wounded Indian on horseback being granted entry into Fort Starke. Later that night Texas Jack foils an assassination attempts against the still-unconscious Indian. It is revealed that the attempted victim is Chief Forked Tongue, who has escaped from a federal penitentiary and must be recaptured lest he lead his tribe on a warpath. Jack visits the tribe and finds someone named Yellow Fang trying to convince his people that Forked Tongue is dead and trying to rally them to war; Jack defeats Yellow Fang in battle and tells the tribe that Forked Tongue had been victim to two assassination attempts and that he had escaped jail to try to prevent a coming war. Jack informs the government of this and they commute the rest of Forked Tongue's sentence so he can lead his tribe in peace. The most peculiar thing about this whole story is that throughout it, Forked Tongue is unconscious, even at the last panel! It's as if the writer doesn't want to portray an Indian acting with any degree of nobility and giving him a speaking part!
There were a few episodes of "The Spider" (who, rumor has it, was created by Jerry Siegel). The Spider started off as a villain who fought other villains to prove himself king of the underworld, and this is the general modus operandi I was familiar with, however in the stories in these annuals he had clearly reformed and was acting as a hero. I suspect the character may have been more charismatic as a villain as the adventures were fairly bland. His pointy ears and sarcastic manner remind me of the early Sub-Mariner.
"The House of Dolmann" featured a puppeteer named Dolmann who controlled a team of robots by remote, and also spoke through them using ventriloquism. Having read about the character I had pictured Dolmann as an elderly Gapetto type, in fact he was youngish and good-looking in standard hero mode. The curious thing about him is that his puppets argued amongst themselves and sometimes disputed Dolmann's judgment behind his back ... I can't figure out whether Dolmann is supposed to be insane or just possessed of a truly bizarre sense of humour.
"The Astounding Jason Hyde" only appeared in text adventures, I don't know if there were any comic strips about him. The stories were serviceable kid's adventure stories, but the character was interesting enough visually to warrant a description: very tall, dressed in old-fashioned black clothes, with blue rays which are emitted from his eyes at all times which allow him to see through solid objects and read minds, but which he conceals behind a pair of opaque glasses.
"Gadgetman and Gimmick-Kid" was a superhero strip played mainly for laughs, and I don't know if the characters appeared elsewhere. The story involved Gimmick-Kid building a bunch of robot pets, which first escape and cause trouble, then proceed to do all the work battling a villain named Maligno, who has Asian features but is coloured completely white with purple highlights (we know he's a villain because he was shown instructing his minions to find the heroes and "destroy them without fail!").
"Captain Hurricane" is the standout among the humour strips which actually predominate the Fleetway comics of the era (Valiant and Lion). It concerns a marine commando who flies into a "raging fury" when necessary, during which he displays amazing strength. The art is cartoony and energetic, and it is easy to understand the character's popularity. May favorite episode had the Captain and his troops playing cricket in the jungle. The unfortunate thing about the series is its vociferous racism directed against the Germans, Italians, and particularly the Japanese. One episode had the Captain exclaiming, "Avast there, slant-eyed weevils -- lemme at you!" He then grabbed the nearest weapon (a telephone pole) and shouted, "Latch onto that you banana-coloured monkeys!"
The standout series aside from "The Steel Claw" was "The Incredible Adventures of Janus Stark". Stark was a Victorian-era escapologist, who was born with the ability to squeeze through gaps of six inches or more. The stories were also drawn by Solano Lopez whose style is shown to more interesting effect in depicting the grime of Victorian London than the South American jungle (or Italy, which he drew to look exactly like South America). Stark himself was rather unusual looking, with an abnormally high forehead, yet dapper and elegant.
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The Mighty Warriors Annual consisted of Gold Key reprints, a scheme I had not known existed. It had a "Doctor Solar" adventure which was appallingly awful, a "Magnus: Robot Fighter" adventure which was reminiscent of DC's Silver Age science fiction stories, and a "Dagar the Invincible" strip competently written by Don Glut and beautifully drawn by Jesse Santos, which could be reprinted now and would look contemporary (albeit pre-Image).
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The Marvel Comics Annual predated Marvel UK and was apparently published by World Distributors Ltd (evidently leasing reprint rights). It opened with a John Romita Captain America & Bucky story, "The Cargo of Death", which had them fighting drug smugglers, and was mainly of interest for being a reprint from the 50's Captain America which one seldom sees. The next story was a Kirby Thor, "The Cobra and Mr. Hyde!" which featured the origin of the duo. Hyde is obviously bad to the core because he is so paranoid; when the Cobra sneaks into his room the former thinks, "Someone behind me! It can only be an enemy!" The story concerns Cobra & Mr. H discovering some connection between Thor and Don Blake (after seeing Thor leave Blake's office by the window); they confront Blake and Jane Foster, and Blake manages to transform into Thor when they are not looking. Thor attempts to conceal his identity by claiming, "While you looked out of the window, he ran to call the police, and I came through the door behind you!" to which Jane Foster responds, "Dr. Blake took a chance like that!! Risking his life -- for me?!!??" One wonders why she didn't query Blake's running away and leaving her presumably alone with two villains. Thor tells her, "Blake's love for you must be greater than you dream!!" which strikes me as somewhat manipulative, and also passive-aggressive considering that, as Blake, he had been earlier bemoaning the fact that he daren't ask her out. The Hulk adventure, "The Gladiator from Outer Space" is peak Russophobia, and curiously (has this been retconned out?) has Banner deliberately irridating himself to transform into the Hulk, and the Hulk later re-irridating himself to turn back into Banner. The Ditko Spider-Man tale, "The Goblin and the Gangsters," details a complicated double-cross involving the Green Goblin and some, well, gangsters ... it probably holds up best among the various stories here for readability. The Golden Age Sub-Mariner tale, "Wings on His Feet", tells the story of how he learned to fly at age 14. Next up was a Don Heck Iron Man which featured the first appearance of "Hawkeye, the Marksman!" Penultimately was the conclusion of the tale from Hulk #1, which has a line that jumped out at me in a way it never did on previous readings: near the end of it Bruce Banner tells the Gargoyle, "I've seen cases like yours! I know how to cure you ... by radiation! But although your features would become normal, your brain would suffer! You would no longer be a brilliant scientist!" The implication here, of course, is that during the 60's the USA had more than one scientific genius mutate on their hands, which they managed to "cure" ... this is worthy of an X-Files. The final story was a profoundly silly Golden Age Sub-Mariner story. Namor answers a telegram which appeals for his help, and finds himself easily seized by a pair of robots and flung into a holding cell. On hearing a ghoulish noise from the cell next door (which raises the response, "Holy Halibut!") he is told by a beautiful but plainly evil (judging from the eyebrows) young woman the sound was produced by "Elmer", an artificial creature created by Doctor Zunbar (who sent the telegram), meant to be amphibious but sadly afraid of water! Zunbar hopes to solve this inadequacy by transplanting Namor's brain into Elmer (which would, it seems to me, make Elmer no longer afraid of water, but then possessed of Namor's rationality, memories, and resentment ... maybe the Doctor is just absent-minded). Namor is brought to an operating table and strapped down ("Jumping Catfish!") but manages to escape. While on the run he accidentally falls down an elevator shaft ("Suffering Shad! What a way to die!") but is stopped by the elevator on its way up. Eventually he manages to confront the villains, but Elmer gets hold of a container of nitroglycerine ("Great Gar!"). Namor manages to trip Elmer so that the latter falls out a window, and the nitro blows him up in mid-air (?). Finally the police arrive, and Namor tells them, "Officers, arrest that man! You'll find that he's a lunatic scientist, practicing surgery without a license!" Excelsior!