The decorations are up and Christmas on the OiNK Blog has well and truly begun, and part of the season’s line up is no less than half a dozen Mighty Marvel UK Checklists, including one full of seasonal joy. First up though, fun stories and a… um, summer holiday.
In The Transformers and Action Force, Club Con begins. It’s another much-mocked storyline but again I found it fun and imaginative. The Decepticons have built a tropical island on top of their submerged base and they end up blasting into space with Buster Witwicky on board. This was the first time I’d seen the Seacons on this Bob Budiansky and Kevin Nowlan US cover and as a lover of everything aquatic I thought they were brilliant, even if the squid one did look daft in hindsight.
Anthony Williams and Dave Harwood provide the cover to The Real Ghostbusters and, talking of imaginative, the stories include Janine and Egon on a date and Janine’s pissed off voice shouting in frustration at a ghost actually busts it, and then we find out Slimer pretends to haunt somewhere for his friends when jobs and income are rare! What else did Marvel UK conjur up for us this week 37 years ago?
The Captain Britain trade paperback may have been on sale for a couple of weeks already but that didn’t stop it from taking the big spot. A bit of a blow to the new comics released this week? Not really, there was a promotional signing coming up at, you guessed it, Nostalgia & Comics. I’ll also assume the new Action Force Monthly would’ve been the one not to miss last week if we’d had a checklist, especially with that collection of talent producing it.
The new-look fortnightly Thundercats seems to have taken a leaf out of The Real Ghostbusters’ book if this issue’s contents is anything to go by. Speaking of comics aimed at slightly younger readers, I’ve commented before about the lack of strip information in the checklists for Flintstones and Friends and the annual’s advert seems to highlight that further. Less a comic book and more an activity book? Well, maybe it kept its readers in bed with their stockings a while longer.
I have to say the adverts for the Action Force annuals always made them look just as exciting as those in the Transformers’ series. Why I never asked for any of these books when I was enjoying the back up strip in Transformers is beyond me. Maybe it’s something I should look into for the blog in the future? I’m really loving the Skybound box set and I’ve wanted to see more of the UK content since reading the few issues of their weekly when they crossed over with the robots. Who knows. This advert definitely has me thinking about it.
We move into December itself next week and there’ll be details of some of Marvel UK’s monthly offerings for the festive season. They may not have had snow on their logos but that didn’t mean they weren’t just as special. See you then.
On this day back in 1988 the 23rd edition of Marvel UK’s The Real Ghostbusters and the very special 192nd issue of The Transformers and Action Force were unleashed upon the younger members of the public, their covers by Anthony Williams and Stephen Baskerville respectively.
Why was the 192nd Transformers so special? Okay, I’ll admit it was special for me. This was the very first issue of the weekly I bought back at the time after reading that year’s Christmassy Winter Special, although I didn’t get it until the following week alongside #193. As a first issue this one had a fascinating story for young me involving Headmasters disguised as humans and actual human bounty hunters tracking down Autobots. It also featured one of the toys I’d end up with that Christmas, Sizzle, who produced sparks out his rear end… um, I mean out of his exhaust in car mode.
In The Real Ghostbusters there was a massive moment for fans of two of the characters involved. Sort of. Janine finally got a snog off of Egon, which of course was really only part of a haunted dream. Humour comics giant John Geering was also the main artist for the issue, which only added to the overall laughs. Meanwhile, in this week’s checklist the Thundercats comic certainly doesn’t sound like the relaunched comic for a “younger audience”, with what appears to be an epic showdown.
But the two biggest highlights for Marvel UK followers surely had to be the humungous Captain Britain paperback and that premiere issue again. Captain Britain never appealed to me as a kid as I incorrectly saw him as a poor man’s Captain America. In recent years I’ve heard nothing but good things though. His entry also reminds me of those days when it felt like the entire population of the UK only had Nostalgia and Comics to go to for any comics-related events.
Finally for this week’s checklist, and finally in the eyes of fans who had long awaited it, there’s Death’s Head own monthly comic. I know what you’re thinking, didn’t he get this coveted ‘Don’t Miss’ spot last week? Indeed he did, but if anyone deserved it, he did. Or perhaps he ‘advised’ Marvel UK he wanted another week at the top of the league. This made me go and buy it with my pocket money that week (this was my first checklist) but for whatever reason it was months before I read it! The entire run has already been covered on the blog and this first issue was one of the very best of his ten issues.
No adverts this week (none I haven’t already covered anyway) so all that’s left for me to say is if anyone had been lucky enough as a kid to check off all five titles this week they must’ve been very happy indeed!
It’s been a very funny ride to say the least but here we are already at the final monthly issue of Marvel UK’s (under their Epic imprint) The Sleeze Brothers. Well, I say monthly but back in 1989 it had been two since the previous issue. I’m still not sure why there was such a delay but the Mighty Marvel Checklists in their other titles don’t lie and I’ve used them to determine the release dates. But enough of that, let’s see what they have in store for us.
D.O.R.I.S., the brothers’ very 80s computer receptionist introduces the story by giving us a little detail into The Rim Wars. Quite. Basically, it’s that old chestnut of war being very profitable, even when they’re on the edge of the known galaxy. Anybody can buy shares in any side of any part of the conflict, so the rich get twitchy when there’s talk of a ceasefire. The background story of the comic just got a helluva lot bigger in scope, didn’t it?
El’ Ape really doesn’t like dying aliens turning up unannounced (see also #3). Quarkvark’s story is actually rather good and if you take away the silly names and the fact it’s in this particular comic, it wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Doctor Who. In fact, recent fantastic episode Boom had a similar background to its conflict. Anyway, this all reads brilliantly, despite El’ Ape’s protestations, and I could imagine the elderly, wise voice behind it all.
Then we turn the page to see what The Messiah had transferred his all-important message into. Where could this war-ending knowledge be found?
Well that brought us back down to Earth with a thud, didn’t it? This is The Sleeze Brothers after all, a comic created by John Carnell and Andy Lanning and written by John, so of course it was all a long set up for a daft gag! The fate of the universe rests on a boiled egg in a lunch box, but it still takes the alien to offer his solid gold medallion for El’ Ape to take any interest, and as he dies the detectives fail to notice they’re being watched from afar.
Cue some brilliant slapstick. Outside, with the egg secured underneath his hat, El’ Ape dodges a heat seeking bazooka shell when he notices his shoelace is undone and bends over to tie it. The resultant explosion sends a nearby lunch wagon skyrocketing into the air, which I’ve made sure to mention for a reason that’ll soon become clear. Taking off in their flying VW Beetle we get a scene which for me is the kind of humour we’d get from a Blues Brothers movie, which is rather apt.
I admit I laughed out loud at that reveal.
An action scene takes place over the next few pages with an ending that shocked even me, but in the best possible (not to mention funniest) way imaginable. The cars behind them start opening fire, all of them aiming for El’ Ape’s head. The fact they’re able to get away is more luck then anything, like when Deadbeat swerves around a building at the exact moment his brother opens fire, the wayward shot hitting a piece of rope holding a giant slab of steel over a building site, which then sways wildly and smashes right into one of their pursuers.
But the others have bigger weapons and soon a missile takes out the brothers’ rear engine and they find themselves careening towards a building called the Mondo Mart. With a huge ‘X’ on the large window and words like ‘Spank’ and ‘Bizarre’ lit up over the building you could guess what kind of place this is. But whatever your guess is it’ll fall short of what awaits the brothers as they crash through said window!
Indeed! See what I mean? And did you spot the guy from #1 amongst the chaos? On the top-left level regular readers should recognise him and his unique kink as the first person we ever saw the Sleeze Brothers investigate. The closer you look at this page the less is left to the imagination. And to think this was advertised in the pages of Marvel’s toy comics! The first issue was an eye-opener for me back then, I wonder what my 12-year-old eyes would’ve thought of this?
As their car descends they soon find themselves having to dodge the mass of partying people (and other beings), until El’ Ape screams, ‘Look out! Inflatey-Friends dead ahead!” Now… I know what you’re thinking. Inflatey-Friends? Yep. And as one of the brothers’ pursuers gains on them, they get to find out first hand what exactly an ‘Inflatey-Friend’ is…
Anyone else remembering Total Recall right about now? I thought this had to be a spoof reference to that scene in the Arnold Schwarzenegger flick, after all this comic has been so good at pastiching classic and contemporary pop culture. But nope, Total Recall wasn’t released until the following year, so this was actually an original creation from the minds of John and Andy.
I can’t help but wonder about the reactions of inker Stephen Baskerville, letterer Helen Stone and colourist Steve White when these pages landed at their desks. Or indeed editor Dan Abnett and what the script he read would’ve described. Then again, one look at this team and I think it’s safe to say they were a like-minded bunch, each as crazy as the next.
El’ Ape and Deadbeat will return, you can count on that
Eventually crashing into the ground outside, El’ Ape is flipped out of the car and lands in a heap, his body contorted into all sorts of weird angles. Deadbeat runs to his brother in panic! When we begin the page below we think we’re witnessing a rare tender moment between siblings, but one panel later we realise we should’ve known better. Oh, and that lunch wagon I made sure to mention earlier, remember that?
I roared as I read that already-classic Sleeze Brothers line, “Oldest trick in the book”. I was so happy they managed to squeeze that in one more time. Another gag paying off here is El’ Ape’s shoelaces coming undone, as he trips and drops the egg, smashing it all over the ground. But one rummage around the debris of the lunch wagon later and they’ve got a carton of them.
They pass one off as the egg containing the ability to end galaxy-spanning wars and make their escape, golden medallion safely pocketed. The egg is then presented to a mass crowd in an image that received an additional credit on the editorial page which read, “Emergency relief Cast of Thousands supplied by Anthony Williams”. Anthony (Super Naturals, The Real Ghostbusters, Sinister Dexter) doesn’t just provide a crowd, he truly has created a cast! Who can you spot?
Personally, I see an Alien (from the Alien film franchise), a Dalek, Judge Dredd, Slimer, Spock, possibly Batman and on the left John and Andy themselves! Although, my personal favourite moments after perusing this for long moments were discovering the back of Wile E. Coyote’s head and Zippy, George and Bungle from Rainbow! Go on, look closer – they’re there! Then, on the next page individual panels of the crowd contain no less than Looney Tunes’ Marvin the Martian and Gilbert the Alien, the snot-covered puppet from ITV’s Saturday morning show Get Fresh.
Talk about blasts from the past! Out of all the comics on the blog that I thought would whisk me back to childhood I didn’t think it would be the one containing Inflatey-Friends! Anyway, the story ends here as the one chosen to relay the message starts to cluck like a chicken and the crowd turns to violence. It is a dystopian future after all.
There’s no mention of this being the final issue, but from that first appearance in the Mighty Marvel Checklist we knew it was always planned to end here and I for one am gutted. Not that this is the very end, but there are no more monthly appointments with the detectives to look forward to. There’s a one-off special called Some Like It Fresh which, in keeping with the real time nature of the blog, will be joining us here on Tuesday 30th June… 2026. After that there’ll be three more reviews containing new misadventure for the duo, which you can spot in the photo below.
I’ve loved every moment of this read through. As I said at the start I’d only read the first issue before and now I see what I missed out on. Damn my attention span as a kid and my wish to buy as many different comics as possible! I should’ve placed an order for this the moment I saw that “oldest trick in the book” gag repeated for the first time in #1. El’ Ape and Deadbeat will return to the blog, you can count on that!
Originally due on the blog at the beginning of February, like the Ring Raiders Special this had been loaned to a friend who I don’t get to see too often and I’ve just gotten it back. So here we are, rounding off the Super Naturals read through at last. The Adventure Book went on sale alongside #8 (the penultimate issue) and while it was a strange time of year for a special, it was probably originally aimed at all those potential new festive toy owners.
While reference is made to the comic it’s usually in a past tense, looking back at previous issues and stories. There’s no mention of it being on sale or placing an order in newsagents, even the page of readers’ drawings doesn’t include the address to send more in. Sadly, while the original idea may have been to lure new readers in it appears the writing was already on the wall by the time this went to the printers. But let’s concentrate on the fact we have an extra edition to enjoy.
It certainly feels special as soon as you pick it up. It’s a chunky 68-page book with high quality internal pages and a very glossy card cover with new, gorgeous painted Ian Kennedy art. Excuse the marks on mine, tracking this down was difficult (I didn’t know it existed until a few years ago) and I even had to hang it outside to get rid of the wet grass smell it had for whatever reason. It must’ve been stored in a garden shed by the eBay seller. It’s all good now though so I can read it without gagging.
There’s nothing from The Doll unfortunately but there is one particularly superb feature
That’s a very full contents list but when you go through the actual book it’s not as packed as it initially seems. There’s only one original Super Naturals strip with the main characters, although there are two new Ghostlings tales and a text story. There’s a lot of reprint though, like the preview issue’s cover, strip and free card, the masks given away previously (printed as basic images now, not masks), a Scream strip and some of the toy photographs are reused too.
There are some new photos though, as well as a disappointing quiz which amounts to nothing more than drawings of the characters and asking readers to identify them, some new illustrations from readers as mentioned and one particularly superb feature which I’ll get to in a bit. No, there’s nothing from The Doll unfortunately, the terrifying dummy being contained within the fortnightly only, but let’s take a look at the new stories beginning with Destruction Run.
Skull, Burnheart, Snakebite and Weird Wolf break through into our world in the middle of a shopping mall. An earthquake has struck the west coast of America and an aid train is speeding its way there filled with vital medicines and personnel. The comic established the characters never knew where they’d end up but this contradicts that; Skull has a pre-formed plan to destroy the track ahead of the train with the Bat Bopper, causing a devastating crash to kill everyone on board and stop the supplies reaching those in need, leading to more deaths.
The artwork is more simplistic than we were used to in the fortnightly, in fact Geoff Campion (Lion, Valiant, Battle Picture Weekly) definitely doesn’t bring the level of detail fans of his would be used to. I loved his work in Ring Raiders but here it feels rushed. I do like his background colouring when our characters are in Ghostworld though. His version is a psychedelic nether region that would’ve been impossible in the comic’s black and white strips.
The story is a basic one, which is understandable as it’s really for new readers and doesn’t have the luxury of being multipart, with only a limited amount of pages to get a satisfying conclusion. The evil doers destroy the bridge as the train rumbles across it then somehow Eagle Eye’s ‘Powers of Truth’ create lightning bolts, his electrical charges holding the collapsing iron girders together just long enough. It makes no sense and contradicts Eagle Eye’s powers from the fortnightly so not a great start.
After several pages of toy photographs lifted directly from the comic and the aforementioned reprint of the preview issue (which ended on a cliffhanger, surely frustrating for new readers) we come to the first thing in this special edition that truly excited me as a fan. It’s a look at artist Sandy James’ original concept drawings which he created when the comic was being developed.
A brief introduction explains to the readers how Tonka would’ve supplied basic details about the characters and it was up to Sandy to take the toys and turn them into proper comics characters that other artists could work with. While Sandy never illustrated any of the strips in the comic he did produce some of the fun covers and his artwork made up the preview’s character introduction card, reprinted here.
Sandy’s ability to bring those plastic action figures (whose faces were only ever shown in holographic form) to life on the page is pretty incredible. Editor Barrie Tomlinson’s Wildcat comic would do something similar in its Holiday Special, although there artist Ian Kennedy was creating all original characters, not working from tiny toys. I loved Sandy’s bold, colourful work in Ring Raiders where he also brought toys to life in incredible fashion. It’s such a shame he never got to draw a strip for the Super Naturals.
Given his fascination with football and the fact he also edited Roy of the Rovers, Tiger, Hot-Shot etc, it’s pretty clear our text story set inside Wembley Stadium was written by editor Barrie Tomlinson. Teenager Davey Johnson and his school team are on their way to a match when the windows of their bus suddenly cave in! This is a particular aspect of Super Naturals I liked, the fact any piece of glass could end up suddenly becoming a gateway from Ghostworld with terrifying skeletal monsters, witches and snakes piling out.
The story conjures up a pretty terrifying image of the windows of a school bus caving in around a load of children, then trapping them inside amongst the shards of glass with the evil Super Naturals. Skull’s plan this time is to destroy the stadium while it’s filled with 75,000 spectators, killing as many as possible and spreading fear through those that survive. What stands out in the story is how we humans know of the existence of the Super Naturals, even who’s who!
While it was only a matter of time until this happened it does seem very quick. The fortnightly was still building their mythology and they were scarier when humans didn’t know what they were. It also contradicts the strips in this very book where police opened fire on the good guys because they didn’t know there were two sides. But that’s just me quibbling. The story is well written and reminds me of the ‘Story So Far’ tales at the beginning of some Transformers Annuals which placed a young person into the fantastical world of the characters, painting a picture from the viewpoint of the readers themselves.
Particularly good here are the moments when Barrie takes his time to describe the abilities of the Super Naturals as they attack. Here’s a good example, as evil Ghostling Rags is hit by lightning from Viking Thunder Bolt‘s hammer: “Changing from Egyptian Pharaoh to wrapped Mummy, Rags gave a scream of pain and lurched forward, his dirty bandages flicking this way and that, every length of cloth eager to bind, hold and smother.”Wembley War is the best Super Naturals story here.
There are two Ghostlings stories included, the light-hearted strips in the regular comic that would cut through the children’s horror. It’s nice to see Mr Lucky and See-Thru get starring roles for the first time. Mr Lucky is pitted against Scary Cat, fulfilling the prophecies of a madman who thinks aliens are due to land on Earth, before it becomes a chase across the city, turning each other into ever more ludicrous creatures or objects via their magical spells. Drawn by Keith Page (M.A.S.K., Commando, Thunderbirds The Comic) it’s actually quite funny.
The other strip is drawn by regular Ghostlings artist Anthony Williams and sees the good and evil servants of the Super Naturals arrive during the Great Fire of London. The evil Ghostlings wish to use it to their advantage and it’s up to Spooks and See-Thru to head them off, all the while being careful not to help the humans too much or else they could affect history. Samuel Pepys even pops ups. It’s fun and interesting in equal measure and as the last strip with the licenced characters it rounds things off nicely.
He hides the body in the box alongside the puppets and simply goes to bed
The regular comic’s anthology series The Scary Cat Challenge, in which readers’ ideas were turned into full comic strips didn’t exactly hold back on the horror. For a kid’s comic it wasn’t afraid to kill off characters in some rather shocking ways, children included, for example in #6 which had the best entry of the series. Unfortunately we don’t get a reader idea here, instead it’s a Scream reprint from #7 of that legendary but equally short-lived comic of Barrie’s.
Freddie Fresco hates his job as a Punch and Judy performer, often cursing the puppets, kicking them into their box at the end of each day. But one night his manager tells him the show is over, the crowds have dwindled and he’ll no longer pay Freddie to perform. Already on edge with frustration and anger at his everyday existence this news pushes Freddie over the edge and he wallops Sam with a plank of wood, meaning to wound and scare him into changing his mind. Instead, he kills him.
He hides the body in the box alongside the puppets and simply goes to bed. He’s taken care of his problem and will dispose of the body the next day. It’s not like he has anybody in his life that could question it. But in the middle of the night he suddenly awakes to find his puppets have attached themselves to his hands and they threaten him, telling him they’ll turn him in for murder unless he takes them back to the booth on the beach so they can continue entertaining the children.
He tries to remove them but they beat him again and again with the hard wooden clubs he used on them for so long. Eventually he gives in and on the final page we see how the show goes on, day after day, week after week. At the end of the season Freddie doesn’t pack up and leave and when the council arrive to forcibly remove his sideshow they make a startling discovery.
The story is a great fit for the book, what with it being based around small toys. It’s written by James Tomlinson (credited as James Nicholas), Barrie’s son whose work I enjoyed so much in Ring Raiders the year after Super Naturals. The artist was Brendan McCarthy whose comics work includes 2000AD, DC’s Solo and Crisis. But it’s Brendan’s TV and film work which really astounds, as he went on to work as a designer on ReBoot and the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live-action movie (both childhood faves) and was co-writer on Mad Max: Fury Road.
To finish off I’d just like to show you a couple of the toy pages which I think show the quality of the range. One hologram I’ve wanted to see since I started this read through is the inside of the Tomb of Doom but unfortunately every photo so far has had its doors closed. In the first part of The Legend of the Super Naturals back in the preview issue (and reprinted here) we saw a spooky staircase leading into Ghostworld drawn in the strip. It was all very atmospheric but what did the toy it was based on look like?
While photographs will never convey the full 3D nature of holograms it’s clear from this just how intricate the original models used to create them must’ve been. I’d love to see photos of the creation process. The holograms in each character model were just as good and the second spread above shows the tomb alongside more from the series. It’s just a shame the Bat Bopper is missing its superb vampiric hologram sticker on its front for some reason.
The Punch and Judy Horror Show ended up being a real highlight here, which when you consider it was made for another comic doesn’t seem to bode well for the review, but I think overall the Adventure Book would’ve done a good job introducing new toy owners to the Super Naturals comic. But then again, if the toys and thus the comic had been a success this would’ve been all new content. It doesn’t feel like the surprising children’s horror comic we’ve come to know on the blog, but then again the clue is in the name ‘AdventureBook’ I guess. It’s still an interesting addition to the series even if it doesn’t live up to what came before.
Welcome back to Ghostworld for the very last time. Just a month after the final issue comes Fleetway‘s Super Naturals Holiday Special for 1988, as ever edited by Barrie Tomlinson. Kicking off with a Sandy James cover which would’ve been fun for any kids who received the oversized Tonka trucks for Christmas, here we have 48 glossy pages which, much like the Adventure Book, focus more on the action aspects of the comic rather than the horror.
There are two exceptions (including a reprint from Scream!) which check the horror box for the young readers, but other than that it’s all licenced strips and extras. That means there’s no ventriloquist’s Doll or readers’ suggestions for Scary Cat, both of which were highlights of the regular comic so that’s a shame, especially knowing this would be the last publication in the series. But let’s not get too down, the idea of a Holiday Special was to have lots of fun one-off stories to read while off school. Let’s see how the Super Naturals fare with theirs, shall we?
It starts high in the air in SkyJack! The evil Super Naturals flub an attempt to transport themselves into our world, with onlySnake Bite able to make it and imaginatively the strip has him crashing through a tiny airplane window, terrifying all the passengers on a transatlantic flight to America. Hypnotising the pilots, he shares his strength with them to save the crashing plane, but only because he wants to use it to dive into Washington which would cause much more destruction in our world.
Snake Bite was always the most interesting of the evil characters and the set up for this story is great. We even have Hooter and Lionheart using the Ghost Finder to nudge the plane up just enough so that it’s trajectory is right for the pilots to take over before Lionheart slashes a hole in the fuselage and throws Snake Bite out, who loses his telepathic control as a result. I like how it’s not an easy, miraculous rescue plan, as Hooter bluntly states. It’s just a shame the artwork doesn’t match the exciting potential of the script.
It’s even more of a shock when you find you who the artist is. It’s Geoff Campion‘s work (Eagle, Lion, Valiant) whose work I’d loved in Ring Raiders, another of Barrie’s titles. However, here things feel somewhat rushed, even unfinished in places, such as when the Ghost Findercrew make their entrance the buildings in the background look like rough layouts. As the story goes on more details are lost and backgrounds become even more sparse, almost like it was hastily finished for a deadline. It’s not the usual exemplary work we’ve come to expect from Geoff and I’m intrigued as to why, but unfortunately that’s a question lost to the mists of time. It’s still a fun story to open with, a really enjoyable complete tale perfect for a Holiday Special.
To make a special even more so, there are always a few extras. We have new pin ups of the toys, some of the marvellousposters from the fortnightly have been shrunk down to A4 size, a one-page GhostlingTale features a thief making his getaway only to board the Titanic and there’s a pretty poor quiz. Much like the one in the Adventure Book it’s just a series of strip panels and the questions are all a variation of “Who is in this picture?”. We do get some lovely reader art in Ghostworld Gallery including a superb rendering of Skull by David Round who was clearly a fan of Alan Langford‘s depiction of the character.
There’s also a page called Incident at Rock Canyon which looks suspiciously like an unused cover. Drawn by Sandy James it clearly hadn’t reached the colouring stage when the comic was cancelled. To accompany it is a short story by way of explanation, reminding me of the inner front page to the Ring Raiders Special printed after that favourite comic of mine also abruptly ceased. It’s a nice addition and it’s always interesting to see work that was still in progress for future issues.
Next up is a Scary Cat Challenge story. This isn’t based on a reader’s idea like some of the very best in the regular series, instead it’s a reprint from Scream! #9. Part of the Library of Death series in the comic, Ghost Town was written by Fred Baker (Roy of the Rovers, Lion, New Eagle) and illustrated by Mike Dorey (Action, Warlord, 2000AD). An old Western town in America witnesses the arrival of its first automobile, which promptly has a brake failure and ploughs straight into a dynamite storage (of course it does), blowing it and the whole town up in a huge chain reaction of explosions. That’s just the beginning.
In the then-present day of the 80s two young lads pull up to a gas station in the desert and ask for directions, but there’s more to the little old man who helps them than they realise. They soon find themselves in an old fashioned town instead of back on the highway and are greeted by the sheriff. The only problem is he’s a waking, talking skeleton! Telling the boys they’re going to stand in a fair trial for murder, soon a whole town full of dead bodies with other ideas are chasing them down.
Cornered in the sheriff’s office with his guns, the young men have no choice but to try to shoot their way out and get back to their car, but they’re no match for one of the local gunslingers. Seeing the two innocent lads gunned down was quite the shock when I turned the page! I know it was created for a different comic but to see it in the pages of Super Naturals it makes quite the impact. I never owned this edition as a kid but if I had (and not knowing this was a reprint) I know I would’ve loved this story because of this horrific final page.
The next strip is the definite highlight of the whole comic, even though it only comes in at four pages. I believe the artist for The Making of Evil could be Keith Page although this is unconfirmed. The middle couple of pages are your typical tale of Skull and Burnheart causing terror and destruction as they set fire to a small Austrian town at the end of the nineteenth century. They’re defeated by Lionheart and Thunderbolt but our main focus is the young boy the evil Super Naturals crash in on at the beginning of the their story.
The strip doesn’t explicitly tell us his name but instead treats the young readers with the intelligence to either know straight away who this is, or to piece it together by the end. I was still in primary school when this was released so I wouldn’t have been taught anything about World War II at this point, but some slightly older readers may have, and even if they hadn’t a rereading in a year or two would’ve brought a fresh, terrifying perspective.
The boy’s reaction to Skull inspires the evil leader to bestow upon him unlimited power to score against those he hates, but even Skull can only hope the boy will spread some form of fear; he has no idea of what he’s actually created. For now we see the boy carry on with their work, helping spread the fire and blocking the streets from help. In the final issue’s review I said how it would’ve been great to see the Super Naturals interact with more myths from our past like they did with the Lady of the Lake, but to see a real-world evil inspired by Skull is something I didn’t expect! It’s a brave move by the comic and an inspired story that once again shows the potential of the franchise.
I also adore that awesome Tomb of Doom looming over the characters as they disappear back into Ghostworld, and I wish it had been depicted as such throughout the whole series. Then, after that somewhat creepy tale comes a bit of comic relief in the shape of Ghostlings, this time focussing on Hooter and Scary Cat and as ever it’s drawn by Anthony Williams. The slight plot sees the witch trying to wreck a bit of havoc by having lions escape a zoo close to a town.
Hooter tries to stop her by using his magical sleeping potion but he’s quite a clumsy wizard is our Hooter and he drops it in a mid-air kerfuffle between the pair. But luck is on his side and instead of Scary Cat being put to sleep the animals end up having a doze instead. However, when Scary Cat transforms back to her witch form the hard landing sees her join them in the land of nod. Our hero is then easily able to carry her back to the Tomb. Silly stuff, but then again the best Ghostlings strips always were, that was the whole point of them.
Racetrack Riot is the special’s prose story and follows F1 driver Alan Dixon as he test drives a new super powered engine, which of course Skull wants for his Bat Bopper truck. Alan and his team are kidnapped and forced to remove the engine from their car. Outside Lionheart, Thunderbolt and Hooter (who is making up for being underused in the regular comic by the looks of it) are watching closely. It’s our clumsy wizard who comes up with the plan and after transforming into his owl form he swoops in from the skylight on which they’re perched and seemingly attacks the F1 team.
There’s method in his madness of course. It looks like a regular owl, possibly nesting somewhere nearby, has flown in. So the evil characters simply ignore him while at the same time in this form he doesn’t inadvertently scare the humans into freezing in fright for once. Instead, they dive into the maintenance pit under the car for cover. This allows the main Super Naturals to launch an attack and duke it out without fear of harming anyone. It’s inconsequential stuff but entertainingly written by Barrie Tomlinson. Unfortunately though, we’re not sure who the artist was.
The final story in the comic and for any of these characters is Tooth and Claw and I believe it could also be drawn by Keith Page. I’ve checked with some sources and parts of this (in particular the Super Naturals themselves) seem to be in his style but the jury is out for how the wild animals are drawn. So it could be Keith. Anyway, the story is set in an unnamed country suffering from a drought, its inhabitants hungry and the animals dying. Through a sacred temple emerge Skull, Snakebite and the underused Rags (as someone interested in Ancient Egypt I wish they’d used him more, he’s a Pharaoh who can turn into a cursed mummy) in the Bat Bopper and Lionheart, Eagle Eye and Mr. Lucky in the Ghost Finder.
As they give chase the good guys are surprised to see the villages have been left untouched by their evil counterparts, until they come face to face with a wild stampede. Hypnotised by Snake Eyes, the animals have either been forced into a frenzy to chase down and eat the human flesh of the nearby villagers, or into a mad rage to stomp all over their homes and kill them underfoot in the case of the elephants. But the plan hasn’t reckoned on one simple thing, namely Lionheart’s third and final form.
It’s surprising to think the character hasn’t been placed into this kind of environment before now. It’s the kind of story which could’ve been developed into a serial to delve deeper into his mind, especially if he befriended other lions. After all, he was given this lion form by Specter for a reason, could he have found a kindred spirit in them? But then again, the comic was still in its infancy when it was cancelled, so who knows what could’ve happened. I have to say though, it’s fun to see him take to this form with relish, acting like an actual wild lion and fighting off the hypnotised, innocent animals (without killing them). Only a few characters got the chance for any kind of development by the end and unfortunately Lionheart wasn’t one of them. This is like a teaser for what could’ve been.
Before we sign off from the last ever edition of this comic there’s just time for a quick plug for some of Fleetway‘s range which may have appealed to the target audience. Battle had merged with the new Eagle after a phenomenal run, Roy of the Rovers was still going strong and another of their licenced comics, Mask had proved a lot more popular, lasting 80 issues and it was certainly a hit with some of my friends. These could be described as the Barrie Tomlinson range, as he edited all of these.
A reprint of a Skull poster with the top and bottom chopped off to fit the inside back cover, followed by the title logo on the rear round things off and that’s it. In an edition which contained a lot more fun and action-orientated strips, the horror stories of the Scream reprint and the Hitler tale really stand out. So does the action-packed Lionheart ending, if only to show what could’ve been as a great example of the licence.
Never again would the young readers see these fun characters and the horror strips that came along with them for the ride. While there seems to be very little to tell from the creative team because memories seem vague when it comes to Super Naturals, keep an eye on the blog for some possible extra content in the future nonetheless. It’s sad to see the comic end and it’ll remain a treasured part of my collection, taking pride of place on the Barrie Tomlinson Trilogy Shelf. I hope I’ve been able to do my bit in keeping the memory of this classic alive.
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