Eagle Adventures Special #1

Although I had for the most part given up reading comics by the late 1970s, I rediscovered their pleasures in the mid-1980s and was regularly buying Eagle and Roy of the Rovers—which was a bit of a surprise as I had no great love of football. That didn't stop me thoroughly enjoying the soap-opera antics of Melchester Rovers and the wild and hilarious adventures of Mighty Mouse, who was shortly to become part of an unbeatable double act with Hotshot Hamish.

Eagle's attractions were initially the discovery that favourite artists from my earlier comic reading days were still active: Ian Kennedy on 'Dan Dare', Eric Bradbury drawing 'Doomlord', John Burns on 'The Fists of Danny Pike' and Mike Western waiting in the wings. 

Comics brightened up an otherwise dull existence, living in a cheap, grotty flat in Chelmsford and working at a frozen food warehouse, sometimes until the wee hours of the morning. Eagle was a bright, colourful splash of excitement that reignited the pleasures I felt when I first discovered comics in the late 1960s.

So it's great to see Hibernia tackling more reprints from those heady days, including an Ian Kennedy Dan Dare, plus short but complete tales featuring Comrade Bronski, Dolebusters, Doomlord, News Team and The Amstor

Computer. Bronski, a former KGB Major, is now in a Russian gulag, although he promptly escapes in this, his debut story by Alan Hebden and Carlos Ezquerra.

Dolebusters was entertainingly drawn by John Burns features a rag-bag of young lads who set up a business in a local cafe doing any job going—in this instance acting as bodyguards to a man convinced he will become a werewolf when the moon is full.

Doomlord takes centre stage in a colour yarn in which Vek is sent to retrieve a renegade Servitor named Kel who has laid a planet to waste.

In the debut tale of News Team they are sent to a rebel African state in the midst of a military coup and then to America where the President is kidnapped, both tales giving artist Jose Ortiz plenty of action to get his teeth into.

The Amstor Computer is one of a number of short yarns filling out the issue, with art by Cam Kennedy; Jose Casanovas contributes a one-page one-off and there's an Alan Moore-penned photo story featuring The Collector.

The whole package adds up to 64 pages of pure nostalgia for the days of Summer Specials!

You can order your copies from Hibernia via their Comicsy webstore, price £7.00.