It’s the most wonderful time of the year and time for the most wonderful free gift in the history of comics (not that I’d hype it up and I might be biased) to finally be completed in time for the end of 1986. Part three of Ian Jackson‘s glorious Mount Rushboar calendar poster was coming in the next issue of OiNK and you’ll be able to see it and the finished product in all its glory in the full review of #17 tomorrow.
Poster promo by Patrick Gallagher
But even better than that is the fact it’s the first Christmas Special! I should just get this off my chest now, I absolutely adore Christmas and this next issue of OiNK was my first experience of a festive comic. From the snowy logo on the cover photograph of the Queen making a Christmas dinner out of her corgis, to the spoof TV listings inside making fun of the seasonal telly and a multi-page Uncle Pigg story, it was a hoot from start to finish!
Promo written by Mark Rodgers, drawn by Ian Jackson
Now, finally, I’m getting to read this issue all over again and I can’t wait! The full review will be here at some point tomorrow, Monday 13th December 2021 so come back then for cheer and goodwill to all* in a review which I’m particularly excited to write.
(* except Mary Lighthouse, butchers and, surprisingly, Santa Claus it would seem! Find out why in the review.)
The latest issue of editor Barrie Tomlinson‘s Super Naturals from Fleetway decided the best way to get new readers on board was to bribe them with cold, hard cash. I’m joking, of course, the fact was this Sandy James cover informed potential readers of the prizes for their submissions used in the pages of the comic. As Super Naturals continued some of the best strips would be those based on reader ideas too. For now though, let’s stick to the issue at hand and it kicks off as usual with the latest chapter of The Legend of the Super Naturals, as drawn by Dave D’Antiquis.
Continuing to terrorise the streets of New Orleans during Hallowe’en 1987, the evil forces of Skull seem to be having the time of their afterlives, especially when human law enforcement begins to fight back. The police officers are easily dispatched by Snake Bite who transforms, hypnotising them to the spot. As he closes in to bite them (and kill them I’m assuming) Lionheart and his noble warriors turn up to save the day. Or at least attempt to.
The thing is Skull’s on a roll with his seemingly unstoppable Bat Bopper truck. He goes beyond the police lines, seeking out the military defence cordon we saw mobilise last time. But they’re nothing against this possessed vehicle, their weaponry literally bouncing off the supernatural force behind it. Just to drive home the point it rams the tanks, flipping them out of the way as if they themselves were toys and firing bat bombs at the approaching air forces.
As is the case in stories like this we humans can’t tell the difference between the good and bad guys when we’re faced with something different and the strip ends with Eagle Eye fired upon in his bird form after a pilot saw him transform. Of course, Eagle Eye actually did so in order to take to the air and help protect the pilots. What’s curious here is how he refers to his ‘Power of Truth’ at one stage, but that just results in a powerful energy beam coming from his chest in the midst of battle with his foes. Surely that power would be used to force people to tell the truth?
Anyway, Legend sets quite the pace and while it remains light on plot it continues to do its job of introducing our characters and their abilities brilliantly. This chapter in particular feels like a truly huge battle, the reader left wondering if there could ever be anything us humans could do to stand up against these supernatural forces if they truly turned against us. Or are we forever to rely on the good guys to swoop in and save us, which given the fact we’re shooting them down doesn’t bode well. A good bit of old-fashioned, grand scale action to begin proceedings before we move on to the light-hearted Ghostlings drawn by Anthony Williams.
A new story begins this issue and it has the potential to be quite interesting and a lot of fun. Colliding as they crash through another barrier from Ghostworld, the opposing forces of good and evil appear to have lost a couple of their helpers. Both Weird Wolf and Spooks have fallen off at the moment of transition and ended up in some kind of limbo or void between realities, or so it initially seems. There are only hints so far about where they actually are and I like that, adding a bit of mystery to the fun.
When faced with a giant dinosaur-like creature Spooks immediately concludes they’ve been thrust into the past but Weird Wolf isn’t so sure. For once the dimwitted punk rocker may be on to something. The dino only has one eye and he’s never heard of anything like it before in all his years. Most of all, he sees a chance to do a rare thing for a Ghostling and make a meaningful contribution to the cause.
It’s actually not a bad plan. While the first Ghostlings strip was fun (and actually quite funny in places) this one is far more interesting. Everything from the sudden change in setting, the mystery and Weird Wolf becoming more than the petulant teen wolf of previous issues is really enjoyable. This is only four pages into the tale so I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes from here. A big improvement so far.
Now we go from the interesting to the outright murderous, right from the very first panel! Knowing this is a comic aimed at kids who were the same age as me at the time (that is, roughly ten-years-old or so) this is quite the shocking image from artist Francesc Masi when you turn the page. Any mystery behind whether The Doll would actually kill is wiped away here, but what’s even more shocking is the reveal in the second panel.
Initially, just for a second, I thought the fact it was just younger brother David Wickham was to alleviate the horror, but then I thought about it and it’s so much worse! David’s face says a lot about his state of mind and now that first panel is very clear in its intentions, finding out David was attached to the doll makes this all the creepier.
This is a particularly dark episode of the story. Hearing the commotion, their foster dad enters the room and David throws the doll at Simon for him to take the blame of rescuing it from the bin outside. Well, actually there’s a hint the doll may have leapt onto Simon by itself, but it’s deliberately not overly obvious. Uncle Frank understandably goes ballistic (see earlier reviews to understand why) and, grabbing Simon by the ear, marches them all to the fireplace and throws the doll into the flames. (The scene is completed with a tiny safety message from the comic.)
We know this won’t be the end though, and just a short while later a noise from the living room alerts the family and they find the doll has somehow fallen out of the fire. It would seem the fireguard wasn’t secured properly (or was unlocked from the inside) and the doll’s charred remains have set the carpet ablaze. Again, it’s all smoke (literally in this case) and mirrors.
The Marshalls’ teenage son Clive goes to lift the toy to throw it outside but burns his hand. However, David picks it up with ease, proclaiming Clive must’ve been “unlucky” and touched the wrong bit. Frank is furious, blaming Simon for everything and after the fire brigade have put out the fire he asks them to dispose of the “rubbish” that caused it. This leads on to the final page of the strip for this issue, in which a homeless man searching for scraps of food does so in the skip outside.
The individual events here might seem a little clichéd today but taken altogether they can make for a tense read. You also have to remember this was written in 1987 and for an audience who wouldn’t have been exposed to horror films yet. For all intents and purposes this was their introduction to the genre, and let’s make no bones about it, that homeless man has been murdered by the doll. Its capabilities are now very clear.
Two of the letters sent in by young readers were illustrated by Tom Williams which was quite the honour
That could be harrowing stuff for young kids and while I only read the first two issues (and the last) back then, what I read did frighten me. I don’t know what this chapter would’ve done, but I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed it. Oh, how the other kids in the playground loved being scared by this character. It was fun to be scared by a comic, knowing it was just that, a comic and we could stop at any time, close it and walk off. But we dared ourselves on and kept coming back.
Reader contributions were gathering pace with this issue. Not only was there a gallery page for drawings, A Letter FromSpooks had a double-page spread. Two of the letters sent in by young readers were also illustrated by Tom Williams (Creature Teacher, Tiny Tycoon, Dandy and Beano Comic Libraries) which was quite the honour. One asked Mr Lucky to cast a magic spell for better weather, the other asked Rags to wrap up the reader’s school bus driver!
What could be better than seeing your idea brought to life by a pro and then receiving a fiver in the post for it? How about receiving a tenner in the post when one of Super Naturals’ writers and another pro comics artist turned your story idea into a full six-page strip? That’s exactly what happened for reader Tony Ashworth when his idea became the first to be used for the Scary Cat Challenge.
His Monster of the Lake is a basic tale but it’s well presented. It begins millions of years ago as a Tyrannosaurus rex and a Brontosaurus fight to the death atop a cliff face. Spanish artist Julio Vivas (Tammy, Jinty, Valentine) really exaggerates the creatures which, while they’re not for me, I’m sure young Tony appreciated. The Brontosaurus (which wouldn’t really have been a fighter like this) triumphs and the T-rex falls to its death beneath the waves.
Through some unclear imagery we surmise she was pregnant and for whatever reason the egg inside not only remains perfectly preserved as her body decomposes, but over millions of years grows to huge proportions. None of this is explained. But millions of years later is where we pick up the story when Lieutenant-Commander John Cartwright‘s nuclear submarine hits the giant egg and unleashes a T-rex upon his boat. Again, how did it survive in there? Who knows. It even absorbs one of the Commander’s missiles, then destroys the sub and kills all on board.
Eleven years later young Kevin Cartwright is being taken on a camping trip by his mum to the lake where his dad, John, died under mysterious circumstances. Yes, I wondered why they’d want to do that too. During the night Kevin is summoned by a mysterious voice telling him to walk to a certain cliff face near the lake. Sleepwalking, completely unaware of where he is or what he’s doing, he comes face to face with the dinosaur who lashes out at the young boy.
“I build the flames of my being to the strength of a thousand furnaces!”
Burnheart
But Kevin starts to emit a ghostly glow, startling the ‘rex who then topples over the same cliff as featured earlier. It’s a story full of plot holes but that could be more to do with it being based on a young reader’s imagination and I wouldn’t have cared at the time. But it does have some nice imagery in the latter pages, like the panel showing the passage of time after the sub is destroyed and the final image of father and son.
Much better is the final part of Mount of Athos, as ever drawn to epic proportions by Alan Langford. Each issue, the opening panels of this story have really drawn me in and this time is no different, with his superb depiction of Skull looking on as Burnheart transforms into living flame, ready to destroy the symbol of peace they’ve all been fighting over. It’s a dramatic opening worthy of the longest-running comics of the time, once again making me lament the fact this publication wasn’t to sit alongside them.
Just as Alan crafted his own version of Skull from the toy design, his Burnheart disregards the fiery face the toy’s action figure and shield had. It was never too obvious anyway and was a subtle face in the flames, but Alan instead opts for pure flame and I think it works so much better. It’s scarier to have pure fire, it feels more dangerous than a spooky face.
In this last chapter of the best licenced strip so far, it all boils down to a bit of quick thinking deception by Lionheart. First, Scary Cat transforms into her feline form (which last issue revealed was her true form) to take the container from him by force and once again Alan knocks it out of the park. A stray cat is no match against a lion and ultimately she’s thrown aside, so it’s only a small moment but I just love how it’s been drawn, particularly the attacking cat emerging from the disappearing form of the old witch.
He seems to particularly relish bringing the evil Super Naturals to the page and I hope, like editorBarrie’s Ring Raiders where the same creative teams would continue to bring each subsequent serial to life, that Alan returns for the next story. We’ll find out in a fortnight.
The battle has gone back and forth several times by this point over the issues, frustrating Lionheart so much he appears to suddenly lose it! Screaming at Skull and his henchmen for daring to challenge him he transforms into his lion persona and takes them all down in a wild fury. However, he knows this will only delay them, that the battle can’t be won and so in desperation decides on another way of getting the relic out of Skull’s reach, which involves a bit of trickery.
Hiding the actual contents of the casket under a heavy stone in the body of the monastery, he makes a run for it with the now empty canister. Apparently backed into a corner overlooking a cliff he has no option but to throw the canister over the edge into a vast forest below in a final desperate bid to push it beyond the reach of Skull.
Of course, it’s not a desperate bid and even getting cornered was deliberate. Skull and the others take off after the relics. There’s no longer a need to waste time by doing battle, they will spend their time hunting them down and destroying them instead, despite the size of the forest below. He questions Lionheart’s rationale and later we see him come to the realisation he’s been duped.
It’s a basic idea but it’s still early days for the comic and the character of Lionheart, however it’s great to see him beginning to grow beyond the simple fighting warrior. His character has just started to come through and I’m hoping we get to see more of it before we get to the end of the comic’s short run. The story itself has been a blast but it’s the imagery that will stay with me, with plenty of epic scenes and creepy imagery for fans to lap up.
With the back page competition being the exact same as the one in #1 all there is left to write about is the Next Issue promo.
The fifth issue gets a full page promotion because it’s the Christmas issue! Christmas editions of comics are always special, especially for me because I’m a huge nut for the season! Perhaps my comics really celebrating it helped form that part of me that I’d never grow out of. It looks like most of our stories are going to be festive entries too (even some of the serials which surprised me) and that front cover is another piece of Ian Kennedy gorgeousness. So, plenty to look forward to. After all, there’s nothing quite like good ghost stories at Christmastime.
The date on the cover is 26th December but it would’ve been released early because of publisher deadlines and limited opening hours for our shops. While the whole point of this site is to read everything in real time I’ve no way of knowing the exact date it would’ve arrived in my newsagent, so I’ll be sticking to the date on the cover. Come back on Boxing Day 2021 for the full review of Super Naturals #5.
I love this Ian Kennedy cover based on the Wildcat Complete tale inside. We’ve had deaths in pretty much every part of the anthology series so far, but this shows us there’s a ferocious animal-like killer on board, running rampant amongst the last several hundred humans in existence. The claustrophobic horror of being in that situation is perfectly captured here.
This issue we’ve got man vs dinosaur, alien vs murderous plants, woman vs robot men, man vs crazed newt and spacecraft vs Mr Hyde. So a busy issue of editor Barrie Tomlinson‘s creation then. We start off as always with Turbo Jones and the first page is no less thrilling than that cover. Turbo has decided he’s going to tame the untameable Terrosauron and over the course of the first couple of pages the huge beast underestimates the tiny opponent time and again. Using his small weapons in clever ways, Turbo manages to outsmart his opponent and soon he has his steed of choice.
The ‘Next Issue’ promo last time was just an image of The Great Ark, leader of the Arglons. It appears they were just one of a handful of animated corpses. A row of skeletal beings led by The Ark itself bark orders at their minions, killing one of their top military leaders for their apparent failure. Some close up angles of this council (like the one used for the promo a fortnight ago) show what look like mechanics behind their jaws. Could it be they’re all dead? Is this all going to lead to a Wizard of Oz moment later in the series? That’s my guess at the moment although I’ve no recollection of the story beyond this point.
From here the story cleverly flips back and forth between Turbo training the Burroid army and the Arglons using giant mantis-like creatures to dig a tunnel right underneath their enemy, straight to their capital city. There are no captions to explain the back and forth between the two scenes, which to be honest I’d have expected in any comic of mine from back then. But writer Barrie and artist Vanyo credit the kids reading with the intelligence to not need their hands held.
The cliffhanger sees giant cracks appear in the roads of the city and it feels like it’s all building up to an epic climax. It isn’t though. Each character’s story is one ongoing saga rather than being split up into smaller individual tales. So if they’d spent a year on this planet each character would’ve had a 26-part epic, which was an original way to go about things! The tension is building however and by the end of these five pages it’s palpable.
The tree is an alien being that plucked him off the ground and is now holding him hostage
Our pinup jumps from the back cover to page seven and this issue it’s my favourite character, Loner and his new found friends the little fuzzballs. Reading the black and white strip I (for some reason) made the assumption these little balls of fur were a sandy colour but here David Pugh has decided that’s not the case. More from Loner in a bit.
On to Joe Alien now, who we last saw stuck up a tree. Well, it’s a lot more dramatic than that. The tree is an alien being that plucked him off the ground and is now holding him hostage. Joe’s dislodged brain pack is in the hands of his teammates so he’s completely incapable of helping himself. But what about that rather horrific cliffhanger? It’s washed away with a quick douse in a nearby pool of water which luckily (as stated by one of the team) seems pretty normal for once. That is, until some form of seaweed starts to crawl out of the water and wrap itself around their limbs. It seems danger really is lurking everywhere.
Easily able to break free, they’re still at a loss over how to rescue Joe, precariously held high up in the air. To me, it looks like this tree could be planning on using Joe to communicate but maybe that’s the wrong assumption on my part, because his team obviously don’t agree. Their solution? Blow it up, of course.
As you can see it makes a piercing scream as it comes crashing down, so the silent killers from previous issues aren’t quite so silent after all. With his brain pack clicked back into place, Joe has had enough and orders them all to quickly retreat back to their shuttle and return to the Wildcat. This is no place for them to plant their feet (boom) and put down roots (boom, boom) but on their way back they hear another cry, this time a cry for help from deep within a hole in the ground.
What they see down the pit is a two-headed alien covered in bright blue feathers. Speaking our language (able to translate other tongues quickly explained as an ability of his race), Joe and his team set about freeing him from the roots that appear to have trapped him. I’ll admit alarm bells went off for me the second I saw this and it slowly dawns on the team all is not as it seems.
A line of huge trees marches up to surround them, seemingly to make a final stand but suddenly stop. Forming a wide circle around the landing party they just stand there, unmoving. The final panel shows our team looking out at the killer jungle, knowing something is wrong but they can’t quite put their fingers on it, while we the readers see the alien is but a suit and it’s being quietly ripped open. Inside, a few plants are playing the part! This is great fun.
This must mean they’re able to communicate properly (beyond painful screams) as they were able to impersonate this fictional alien creature and, maybe more importantly, decipher our language. Does this mean I was right when I guessed it looked like the tree earlier was attempting to use Joe to communicate? Out of all the strips so far this feels the most alien (suitably enough given its name) so kudos to writer David Robinson, although it’s in no small part thanks to the highly original artwork of Ron Smith.
I don’t quite know what to make of the Kitten Magee strip this issue. First up though, it begins with Kitten receiving the life dust from her robotic pet Crud via something beneath her collar. Whether it’s a device, an injection or an opening in her skin isn’t clear in the shadowy forest and I’m guessing it’s been left deliberately ambiguous by writer James Tomlinson and artist José Ortiz at this point, so hopefully a future issue will clarify.
So the tribes from previous episodes to whom Kitten proved herself by fighting their leader are now attacking her team, and to begin with we think it’s some form of mind control by the fat men hovering above. But when Kitten returns to rescue her teammates one of the aliens is blasted open and it’s revealed they’re actually robots. This is where I don’t know how to feel about it. At this point I had to remind myself this was the 80s, because having fully organic beings revealed as being robots on the inside is a cliché I’ve grown very tired of over the years. But this was written a few decades ago so I have to remember that context. But why would the fat men (one of whom gets the name ‘Hobos‘ this issue) go to all the bother of creating them?
When the innards are revealed all of the other machines stop, as if awaiting instructions. At this point Hobos is spotted and Bonnie tries to take out his hovercraft device with her sniper rifle. Fleeing, he flicks a switch and the tribesmen take to the air, their laser eyes firing upon the women while others take suicidal bombing runs. Where on Earth (well, not-Earth) did all of this come from?
At the time I can imagine I would’ve been thrilled with this sudden change to the situation, but now I found it a bit clunky. But that’s more the fault of the passing of time rather than the comic itself. So who is Hobos? Did his race create these robots? Or maybe they are sentient machines that have been hacked, which would be more original. Perhaps there’ll be some answers next time, although I’ve a feeling I’ll be left waiting for a while longer.
“I still have to go back upstairs and finish off that overgrown newt!”
Loner
There are a couple of interesting nuggets of story information in the Wildcat Time-Warp Data Link pages in response to readers’ letters. One asks how many people are on board since the terms “hundreds” and “over a thousand” have both been used by now and in reply we’re told that it was meant to be around 500 (in the preview it was over 700) but it became clear after leaving Earth an enormous amount of stowaways got on board. Was the number increased when they realised they’d want to kill off plenty of people in the stories (and had been doing so a lot already)? Interestingly, we’re told that, coupled with the animal and plant life, these stowaways have given Wildcat a total weight load far in excess of its original specifications. Will this be a plot point we’ll return to?
Begging for the hallucinations inside his mind to stop, Barrie Tomlinson‘s Loner agrees to the terms of the villainous lizard to track down the beast that poses a threat to him. Making his way into the depths of the caverns with the furry little ball creatures in tow, Loner wonders inwardly how he’s going to be successful when all he has is his six-shooter. A voice echoes in his mind, “We can help you” and he’s surprised to find that outside of the overgrown newt’s telepathic range these little critters can talk to him, and are intelligent.
Their backstory is that they were the pets of the people who once lived on the continent, content and happy with their existence and loved by their owners. But the people soon became obsessed with creating bigger and more destructive weaponry, their wars became deadlier and soon they had wiped themselves off the face of the planet, their pets hiding out in this underground world. What’s more, underneath the fur their flesh is poisonous, sending anybody stupid enough to eat them completely crazy, hence our giant lizard friend’s state of mind. (This is a much better development than humanoid robots.)
They lead Loner to a cave full of the weaponry they gathered and hid away from visitors after the last war. More than enough to see off the beast and free them all from the lizard toom but there’s a catch. The people of this continent had built weapons controlled by mental power alone, so in order to stand a chance Loner will have to undergo a transformation or the weapons will destroy his mind. As you can read above he isn’t keen but the furballs don’t give him any choice in the matter.
We’re left with this image of him screaming in agony as a warning rings out, “At the end, you will consider yourself quite monstrous!” I couldn’t remember anything about this but one look at the Next Issue promo at the back of this issue (further below) brought it all back. What I’ve particularly liked is seeing a slight softening of Loner as he begins to bond with the little creatures.
Boredom and the vast emptiness that surrounds them can, and will, have an effect on the human psyche
Every five-page chapter of this strip takes a big step forward in developing the story and when something this fun to read is all wrapped up in superlative David Pugh artwork it’s no wonder this was my favourite part of the comic. It’s hard to believe we’re only 20 pages in! I think of that thick trade paperback graphic novel collecting the entire Loner saga together and I can only imagine what will happen in all of those pages. I’ll be finding out the slow way.
I mentioned a fortnight ago how 11 people had already died in the pages of the comic and, although we now know there are more on board than originally thought, the Wildcat Complete on which the cover is based is called Death on Wildcat so I’m assuming the trend is going to continue. But first things first, has that picture of the Wildcat craft been pasted on top of the scene? It certainly looks that way. It could be because it looks like a special technique was used to draw the planet and its rings. It’s a lovely effect and then the spacecraft could have been drawn separately and placed on top. Works for me!
The artist hasn’t been confirmed but I believe it to be Enrique Alcatena‘s work, returning for the first time since the premiere issue’s ghosty story, this time with a Dr Jekyll and Mr Vampire Werewolf tale. The Duty Commander, John Anderson is getting a bit cocky with the fact no crime has been reported on board for weeks. (Obviously some time has passed since the last issue.) Now convinced Wildcat is a safe ship with a complete lack of lawlessness, his statement is predictably followed by an alarm.
The Chief of Security barely has a moment to explain how boredom and the vast emptiness that surrounds them can, and will, have an effect on the human psyche before they’re alerted to a murder on board. It’s a simple tale with obvious clues for the chief to follow and soon enough he’s tracked it down to Dr Timothy Lee who had been conducting experiments on animals back on Earth with the hope of creating an army of controllable killers. With Earth evacuated and all animals on board accounted for he had continued his experiments on himself.
The most interesting bits for me are the emphasis on just how fragile the peace is on the ship and the fact there are aliens already on board. They work alongside us, are part of the crew and are helping us navigate the galaxy in search of a new home. With the comic set in 2250 it’s not beyond the realm of believability that we’d have made contact with some races, although this is the first we’ve seen anything of them, when they’re the target of a crazed, bigoted killer.
Wildcat death toll: 14
That’s us for the first of three issues this festive season. The next is the Christmas one itself with a strange cover I clearly remember picking up from the shop. When you see it you’ll understand why it’s so memorable. How about a Christmas pudding wrapped around a spaceship? Think I’m joking? You’ll see.
Just to finish off this issue is the advertisement on the back page. Sharing these contemporary adverts is part of the fun of this site. This is the first time Wildcat has included one in its pages and it’s for a favourite childhood cereal (which I’ll admit is still bought from time to time today).
The special Christmas edition of Wildcat will be reviewed right here on Friday 17th December2021.
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