UFO strip guide - part three


Issue 101 & Issue 102: No UFO strip


The Million Year-Old Trap
Writer - Alan Hebden (?). Drawn by John M. Burns. 2 pages, colour.
Part 1, Issue 103, week ending 03 February 1973
A SHADO Moon Mobile, piloted by Paul Foster and Captain Swann, closes in on crater Plotinus. SHADO scientists have detected a 'nothing' - a large space under the lunar surface there. At the same time, a UFO is hit by an Interceptor missile, and the crippled Alien craft crashes into the crater. Foster and Swann are amazed to see smoke rise - an impossibility as nothing can burn without oxygen. Swann tries to pull clear of the dust but it chokes the Moon Mobile's motors, and the craft crashes to the crater floor. The dust is now being thinned by wind, eminating from a light. Outside, they find a huge gateway has opening - some kind of airlock. And before them suddenly appears a huge humanoid reptile, calling himself Dagon, and warning that their trespass has triggered a countdown to the destruction of the Moon...

Part 2, Issue 104, week ending 10 February 1973
This will occur after one circuit of the third planet - an Earth day. Swann ponders if it is an Alien trick, and unknown to the two men, the real Alien has survived and is watching. The image of Dagon relates the history of his race, the Ckassk, who came to the Moon one million years ago. Peaceful explorers, the Ckassk abandoned their base when their own world was attacked, but they made sure no-one settled on the Moon again by setting this trap. However, there are tests which, if Foster and Swann pass them, will stop the countdown. The Alien realises that if the Moon is destroyed, Earth will lie defenceless. The two men have little choice but to continue, unaware of the Alien stalking them. A wall blocks their way, and a huge spider-like creature appears. Swann rises his weapon but Foster stops him - the peaceful Ckassk would not destroy it out of fear. This proves correct, and the image of the creature fades away, and the wall opens for them. The Alien continues to follow them...

Part 3, Issue 105, week ending 17 February 1973
Foster and Swann move on, to find themselves weightless and drifting towards spikes in the ceiling. Foster determines this test is co-operation, and they push against each other to safe clear spaces around the spikes. Suddenly, the Alien is also caught in the trap, and Foster risks his life to safe him. The weightless field shuts off, and they are returned to the floor. As a seeming gesture of gratitude, the Alien drops his weapon, but Foster remains suspicious nevertheless. The next test is a complex mathematical equation like nothing the two Earthmen have seen, but the Alien is able to solve it. In a large chamber, Foster, Swann and the Alien face the final test - a hugh crystalline device held in a column of energy. The device will destroy the Moon, unless a living body enters the column - killing him but stopping the countdown...

Part 4, Issue 106, week ending 24 February 1973

As senior officer, Foster determines it is his responsibility but Swann thinks him too valuable for SHADO to lose, and offers himself. Swann does consider using the Alien but Foster knows the peaceful Ckassk would consider that murder. As Foster moves forward, the Alien jumps Swann and takes his weapon, determined to stop them and let the Moon be destroyed. In a brief fight, Foster is forced to throw the Alien into the column of energy in self-defence. The Moon is saved, and the Ckassk stronghold begins to self-detruct. Carrying Swann, Foster climbs clear and returns to the surface, to find SHADO Moon Mobiles waiting for him.

Notes:
• This story has all the hallmarks of an Alan Hebden story - he used a similar idea of self-sacrifice in a few stories for 2000AD comic later in the 1970s: The conclusion of Death Planet in Progs 62-70, and Sacrifice in Prog 109. It is also reworked in The Angry Planet in Tornado. So the question is - did he write this too, or did it inspire him?
• Captain Swann is not actually named until part 2.
• Plotinus was actually a Roman philosopher, considered the founder of Neo-Platoism. But no such crater named after him actually exists.


The River Of Death
Writer - Unknown. Drawn by John M. Burns. 7 pages, b/w.
Cover by John M. Burns.
Issue 107, week ending 03 March 1973
Straker flies to San Paulo in Brazil to check on seemingly inefficient South American operations there. Met by Lieutenant Gomez at the airport, Straker is suddenly hit with a blowpipe dart from a disguised native indian, and collapses - dead! Foster flies out to the SHADO base there to investigate, and notices that the glass panel in the coffin lid is misting over - Straker is alive but in a deep suspended animation. The dart had a nerve-paralysing poison unknown to mankind, but the indian had been killed trying to escape. He is recognised by Major Enchada as a Curura indian - a primitive tribe no white man has ever visited. SHADO scientists may be able to find an antidote but another twenty-four hours and Straker may suffer permanent brain-damage. Foster has little choice but to take Enchada and Straker's body by Mobile up the Rio del Muerte river, to find the indians and a possible cure. Hours later, they spot two indians spear-fishing in a canoe, but Enchada's clumsy handling of the Mobile capsizes it. The man is saved but Foster has to fight an alligator to save the boy. This puts the two indians in their debt, and using sign language Foster is able to explain their need.

Foster follows the directions gestured to him but en route the boy finds a photo of an Alien, crying out in recognition. It seems there are Aliens among the indians, and Foster carries Straker to the village medicine man. As a cure is given, Enchada appears with the Aliens, but he is not a prisoner - they have promised him rule over Earth if he helps them. Foster is taken by the Aliens to their UFOs, but the indian boy revives Straker and helps him escape. Enchada is killed by the Aliens, thinking he has turned against them. Straker attacks with the Mobile, and all but one Alien is killed. Foster uses a poisoned dart to try and take him alive, but the Alien crumbles into dust instead.
Notes:
• The story gets its title from the translation of the Rio del Muerte.
• How nice for the Alien to pose by its UFO for the photo that the indian boy sees!


Issue 108 & Issue 109: No UFO strip


Spirit Of Fear
Writer - Unknown. Drawn by John M. Burns. 2 pages, b/w.
Part 1, Issue 110, week ending 24 March 1973
At Lofthaussen Metaphysical Research Centre in Leignitz, Germany, Doctor Kurt Frestein and his team are developing a new x-ray technique. But assistant Walter is caught in an active beam, and he finds his 'spirit' separated from his body. Being invisible and intangible, Frestein can only hear Walter's cries to turn the machine off, after which his spirit returns. Frestein is intrigued by the fantastic discovery, as is junior technician Horscht who believes the Aliens will reward him for the information. Hours later, four UFOs are detected, and all but one is destroyed, which lands in Germany. Horscht smuggles the two Aliens into the centre and is showing them the device when Walter walks in, and is shot down by one of them...

Part 2, Issue 111, week ending 31 March 1973
Foster and a SHADO team have now found the abandoned UFO. Horscht uses the device to separate the Aliens' spirits from their bodies, and find that while intangible enough to float through walls, they can still move objects. Horscht arranges to hide the Aliens' bodies while they set out on their mission, but while doing so, Walter recovers and warns chief of security Schnell. Both are brought before Straker and Freeman, and Walter recognises Aliens from photos. Foster is sent to bring in Horscht, but the scientist has been forewarned by the Aliens and tries to escape in his car. Foster blows out a tire, and Horscht and the Alien bodies are captured. But the spirit Aliens have now reached Harlington Straker film studios...

Part 3, Issue 112, week ending 07 April 1973

As Foster brings Horscht to SHADO headquarters for interrogation, the Aliens start their mission of destruction, and the main computer room is destroyed. As Karlin is sent in Sky One to pick up Frestein and his machine for advice, Straker and Freeman investigate the ruined wrecked computer - and feel a strange coldness as the Aliens pass through them. Using this, a weapon is adapted to detect temperature variation but while it locates the Aliens, the ray proves ineffective. More machinery is destroyed, and Straker himself is hit by a spanner weilded by an invisible Alien. Frestein arrives, and tells Straker the only way to fight these 'spirits', is to become spirits themselves...

Part 4, Issue 113, week ending 14 April 1973
Using the device, the spirits of Straker and Foster are separated from their bodies. They head for the reactors, where the Aliens are attempting their final act of sabotage. But as they vie to fight each other, a strange force-field divides them. Caught in a stalemate, Straker and Foster return to their bodies and consult Frestein. Together, they speculate whether the spirit world has some form of 'Controller', who would be justified in ordring these trespassing 'living spirits' back to their bodies. Frestein rigs up a device to bluff this, then notices there is a loose connection. The 'Controller' then speaks, accusing the Aliens of transgressing the Laws of Time, and threatening them with banishment to 'the outer darkness'. The frightened Aliens plead for forgiveness, and return to their bodies. Straker congratualtes Frestein but... it was not his doing! The device did not work, but whatever 'Controller' does really exist must be on their side. The device is destroyed, and Frestein asks for the memory-blanking drug to forget about Aliens and spirits.

Notes:
• 'Ha! Nothing can prevent the destruction of SHADO now!' A strange story, and while intriguing in concept, not wholly satisfying in execution.
• According to this story, the Alien planet is in 'a far-off galaxy'.
• It is strongly implied Walter has been shot dead at the end of part 1 - why else would the Alien think 'Die, Earthman!' - but in part 2 we find he has only been stunned.
• Strangely, Horscht refers to the lead Alien by the rank of 'Major' in part 2.
• Oops - in part 2, the speech bubbles of Walter Hefft and Herr Schell are transposed when they first meet.
• Curiously, when so many strips - as with the episodes - end with neither Aliens nor UFO being captured, here it seems SHADO actually have the live Aliens, and their UFO! But nothing is made of it!
• Oops? - assuming it is the same place, Leignitz is actually not in Germany at the time the strip is set, as it became part of Poland at the end of the Second World War.



A Project Of Doom
Writer - Unknown. Drawn by John M. Burns. 7 pages, b/w.
Cover by John M. Burns.
Issue 114, week ending 21 April 1973
Earthport One is the brainchild of Greg Masterson, genius engineer and self-made milionaire, with the space station the first call for commercial space tourism. Using the cover of the film studio, Straker and Foster are given a tour by Masterson but the fact some areas are prohibited and off-limits raises suspicions. Straker contacts the military, whose evasiveness confirms they may have involvement in the project. Three UFOs are detected, and two are destroyed by Interceptors. The third makes for Earthport One, and is shot at by concealed missiles from the station before the Interceptors finish the job. This tells Straker - and the Aliens - exactly what the true motive behind Earthport One is. Straker takes his concern that the Aliens could use Earthport One to strike at any target if they got control to General Henderson - and is surprised when the military concedes and disarms the missile batteries. Straker believes the backdown was too easy, and enlists Foster to infiltrate Earthport One as part of the operational team. Foster is quick to note there are two teams - those who work in the restricted areas keep to themselves. While working on the station, Foster determines that the missile batteries are still operational. A UFO has landed on Earth, and while SHADO search for it, two Aliens hi-jack an Earthport supplies truck. At the spaceport, SHADO operative Matthews suspicions are raised but while one Alien is captured, one is almost certainly on its way to the space station. Foster keeps his spacesuit on, and is the only one left conscious when the Alien sabotages the oxygen. As the Alien launches a missile strike against every important Earth capital, Foster kills the Alien, and triggers the missiles' self-destruct before they reach their targets.
Notes:
• The title given on the cover is just Project Of Doom.
• The military leader Straker contacts and argues with appears to be called General Henderson but he does not resemble the character of the same name from the series. If anything, he looks more like General Calper, who replaced Henderson in the 1971 strip The New Boss. However, at the end it is General Craddock who is face an enquiry. Now is this supposed be the same General Craddock who appears in the 1971 strip Arctic Affair... ? Confusing, to say the least.
• The craft the Alien uses to get to Earthport One appears to be a larger version of the SHADO Lunar Module, and lifts off like a conventional rocket.


Issue 115 to Issue 117: No UFO strip


The Assassin
Writer - Unknown. Drawn by John M. Burns. 2 pages, b/w.
Part 1, Issue 118, week ending 19 May 1973
A manned Venus space probe splashes down in the ocean, having aborted due to a meteroite shower. Colonel Butler is a hero, having made makeshift repairs in space in order for the astronauts to return safely. Straker was opposed to the mission from the start, as the probe was due to pass through space where the Aliens were active. The loss of contact for a few hours, supposedly caused by the meteors, has him concerned, and Alec Freeman is surprised when Straker actually agrees to taking a few days off. A day later, on the lawns of the White House in Washington D.C., Butler is receiving the congessional medal of honour from the President. However, Butler suddenly staggers, and and is taken inside after giving his cap to the President. Guards cry out as a man rushes across the lawn - Ed Straker - who hurls an object and yelling 'You'll all die!'. And then there is a powerful explosion...



Part 2, Issue 119, week ending 26 May 1973
Guards hold Straker at gunpoint, believing he threw a bomb. But the President recognises the commander, who explains he threw a radio - the only way to make them scatter from the real bomb in Butler's cap! The President believes Straker, especially as the colonel has now disappeared. Straker believes all the crew may be under Alien control, and reports come in of similar assassination attempts on the Soviet President and British Prime Minister - the work of astronauts Ryshkov and Swann. All of SHADO's efforts are now concentrated on finding the three astronauts, with no success. But Straker has a feeling that having failed, they will try again at another target. The commander is right, for the three men turn up at the film studios requesting to see him. The scanner in the lift shows them to be clean - no bombs or weapons - but Foster still thinks Straker is taking a risk...

Part 3, Issue 120, week ending 2 June 1973
Straker believes they may not know the film studio is SHADO Headquarters, and tells Foster and Freeman to get out of sight while he meets the three men. He bluffs his way by trying to make it seem he is also on the side of the Aliens, and is expecting them to bring a message from 'their masters'. Taking them to an office alone, Straker is surrounded by a strange force eminating from the astronauts. Listening in from another room, Foster and Freeman hear Straker seemingly taken over and reveal to Butler that they are in SHADO Headquarters. Straker is taking them to central control when Foster and Freeman confront them. The commander opens fire, and the two men lie at his feet. The alarm raised, Straker leads the astronauts in an escape bid...

Part 4, Issue 121, week ending 9 June 1973
Straker takes Butler and his crew out of the building, and escape in his car. As they drive to a hiding place the astronauts have, Straker asks how they came to be under their masters' control. The Venus probe was intercepted by an Alien deep-space craft, and the astronauts subjected to the 'mind-mist' which controls them, and enables them to control others. But this power must be renewed periodically. At the hideout, Butler wants to renew themselves with the mist but Straker feels it is more important to contact the Alien deep-space craft to inform them of SHADO Headquarters location. But when contact is established, Straker turns and smashes the mind-mist machine, calling in Foster and Freeman on his radio. The mind-mist may have worked in space but it had no effect on Straker on Earth, and in time the astronauts will return to normal. Foster and Freeman bluffed their deaths, and now Straker has the co-ordinates to destroy the Alien ship with missiles.

Notes:
• Straker's secretary in part 2 is named as Miss Ealham, instead of Miss Ealand.
• This story seemingly contradicts Spirit Of Fear, and earlier strips such as Shockwave, where it is established the Aliens are well aware that SHADO Headquarters is located under the film studios.


Recordbreakers
Writer - Unknown. Drawn by John M. Burns. 7 pages, b/w.
Cover by John M. Burns.
Issue 122, week ending 16 June 1973
Nestling in the picturesque Netherdale Valley in England's Lake District, is the newly established 'Supasports Centre', birthplace of the 'super' athlete... Using a secret combination of special diets, electro-muscular therapy and tough, rigorous training schedules, the centre guarantees to produce the fastest, most powerful athletes in the world...
Veteran sprinter and Olympic gold medallist Alf Kidd is creator of the 'Super Athlete, and sends long distance runner Peter Sharpe over Haw Gable to see if he can cut five minutes off his previous time. On his run, Sharpe spots a helicopter - and a gun fires a dart at him. Trying to find cover, the athlete plummets to his death over a drop. Straker reads the report in the newspaper and ties it to the disappearance of a UFO in the same area a month ago. Kidd is sceptical about 'flying saucers' when Straker and Foster arrive to investigate, but while he agrees to suspend runs over the moors, he is actually in league with the Aliens. Straker takes a Mobile out while Foster retraces Sharpe's last run, and finds a dart. The helicopter appears, and Foster takes a plunge over a cliff into lake to evade them before Straker returns fire from the Mobile. The Aliens retreat, and Foster is retrieved by Straker to show him the dart. Sharpe's death was an accident, and as Kidd was denied sponsorship by governments and athletic association, it appears he is tuning his pupils to physical perfection for the Aliens to use. Straker decides to flush the Aliens out, and gets Foster to evacuate the centre without Kidd's knowledge. Panicking, Kidd tires to contact the Aliens, only to be jammed by SHADO, and he unwittingly leads Straker and Foster in a SHADO Mobile to their mountain hideout. The UFO is destroyed by a SHADAir jet and, trapped, the Aliens destroy themselves. Trying to evade capture, Kidd plunges to his death as well.
Notes:
• One can assume the story and title being inspired by the popular television series Record Breakers, which began in 1972.
• It looks as if the Aliens may have been using Kidd's own 'Super Athlete' programme, as at the end they are seen pulling their UFO out of their hideout in order to take off!
• The preview in issue 121 for this story refers to it as The Recordbreakers.


Issue 123 & Issue 124: No UFO strip


They Walk In Darkness
Writer - Unknown. Drawn by John M. Burns. 2 pages, colour.
Part 1, Issue 125, week ending 07 July 1973
Ivor Jones is on trial at the Old Bailey law courts in London, accused of the murder of his uncle during a pot-holing expedition, and then inventing a tale of a 'ghost with a green face' to account for the 'accident'. This has become big news, and Jones is taken from the courts by police car to await a verdict. But another car suddenly swerves towards it, forcing the police of the road. A masked man pulls Jones from the car, and they make off in the other vehicle at top speed. The rescuer is Paul Foster, and he tells Jones that Straker is giving him a chance to prove his innocence...

Part 2, Issue 126, week ending 14 July 1973
Foster takes Jones back to the Tafflyn Caves with pot-holing equipment, and they enter. Retracing the exact route he and his uncle took, Jones leads Foster to a sheer drop. Jones had tied a rope around a spur of rock for his uncle when the 'ghost' appeared, and this had slipped off, causing the fall to his death. Foster lowers Jones down the rope, then finds the spur is a lever, and it opens a door in the rock face. The rope slipped off when the 'spur' was pointing down! Foster is now certain Aliens are involved, and pulls Jones back up so they can leave. But as Foster helps him back from the drop, Jones' eyes widen in terror at something behind Foster. A red-gloved hand chops at the colonels' neck, and both men plunge into the darkness...

Part 3, Issue 127, week ending 21 July 1973
The fall ends in an underground river, and Jones has to kept the unconscious Foster afloat in the cold water. He struggles to a shore when a large rock plunges into the water nearby. It is Jones' uncle Dai, who is not dead but has living off fish, and avoiding the 'green-eyed freaks'. Foster is curious why the Aliens have not captured Dai, and ponders that with the fire and helmet lamp to protect him, they have adapted to the darkness. Telling the two Jones' to make flaming torches from the fire, Foster leads an attempt to escape as the Aliens appear and close in...

Part 4, Issue 128, week ending 28 July 1973

The Aliens recoil at the bright flaming torches, and following Jones Senior's knowledge of the caves, they make for the entrance. Foster's theory is right - the Aliens have adapted so much to the darkness that bright light is painful to them. But in the stalactite cave, the Aliens head them off, and the failing torches are not enough. But Foster uses his gun to bring the cave roof down on the Aliens as they barely escape the collapse. A SHADO helicopter is patrolling the area and lands to pick them, and Ivor Jones can now clear his name.

Notes:
• It is not made clear what the Aliens were doing in the caves, nor how long they would have had to be there in order to adapt to the darkness.
• The story title appears to derive from Biblical and religious analogies for sin and evil. To 'walk in darkness' is to not know the light and love of God.


Return Of The Pharoah
Writer - Unknown. Drawn by John M. Burns. 7 pages, b/w.
Cover by John M. Burns.
Issue 129, week ending 04 August 1973
Alexandria, Egypt's main seaport. On the quayside, Colonel Paul Foster and Captain Asif of SHADO await a consignment of Mobiles, destined for the new SHADO base at Cairo...
A red alert warns an unidentified track is closing in, and within seconds a UFO appears and blasts the Mobiles apart as they are unloaded from the cargo ship. Foster calls on Skydiver, off the Mediterranean coast, and Sky One is launched to intercept. But over the desert, a sand storm blows up, and Sky One flies blind as it interferes with instruments. A collision with a pyramid is narrowly averted, as unseen the UFO enters a concealed entrance in it. But the pilot of the UFO is Omar Ben Saeed, in league with the Aliens in return for a return to glory for Egypt, with himself a modern self-styled pharoah. The Aliens have led Saeed to believe they are messengers from the gods, and they allow him to use the UFO again to plunder historical gold treasure being shipped if he can deliver Straker to them. The gunboats escorting the cargo ship are destroyed, and from the UFO Saeed gives orders for the treasure to be set adrift, and picks it up later to transfer to the UFO. But as he sets off back to the pyramid, Straker and Freeman are approaching in a SHADAir fighter and give chase. A sand storm blows up again, and Straker and Freeman are forced to eject when their plane goes out of control. In the desert, they find the cause of the trouble - magnetic dust in the sand, blown up by massive hidden fans powered by a cable coming from the pyramids. The Cairo base is alerted, and Mobies despatched. But the Aliens see their approach and believe Saeed has betrayed them. The madman kills the Aliens and tries to escape in the UFO but is shot down by the Mobiles. Saeed survives the crash, and adorned in his stolen treasures orders them to bow down before their 'pharoah'. But he is shot by a surviving Alien, who is in turn killed by SHADO forces. The return of the stolen treasures means a handsome reward for SHADO, which Straker believes should go to Asif - in order to pay for some new SHADO mobiles!
Notes:
• Curiously, Skydiver is referred to as SHADO's 'escort vessel'. Though in the context of the strip, it could be seen that it was escorting the unarmed cargo ship ferrying the Mobiles.
• It also appears that Saeed is able to land the UFO on the sea.
• The SHADAir fighter is a new development, and resembles a futuristic version of the Phantom jet.


Issue 130 to Issue 132: No UFO strip

TV Action Holiday Special

Dig For Danger
Writer: Unknown. Artist: Martin Asbury. 7 pages, b/w.
A UFO descends over the Rocky Mountains in North America, and Sky One closes in for the kill. But Foster and a squad of Mobiles are closing on the area too, and with the opportunity to capture an Alien alive, the order is given to let it land. Settling beside a cliff, the UFO is hemmed in but when an operative sees a hatch open and moves forward to investigate, it self-destructs. Foster does not believe the Alien would allow himself to be destroyed so easily, and sure enough they find a old mine-working entrance behind the wreckage. Foster goes in alone, and finds an Alien device. Before he can smash it, four Aliens surround him and try to capture him. Foster is bemused why do not use a weapon, and fires his gun, bringing the weak roof down. Outside, the SHADO operatives see the collapse but have no machinery to rescue Foster. The yellow glitter of gold gives one man an idea, and contacts local radio stations to announce a gold strike. In a nearby town, gold miners pick up their equipment and head for the area. SHADO have already 'staked' the claim, but the lead operative explains one of their men is trapped - if the miners free him, the claim is theirs. Hours pass, and the experienced men work their way down to where Foster is. But an Alien has also survived, and wings Foster as he climbs out. The SHADO operatives pull him clear as the shot starts another rock fall, crushing the last Alien. Knowing the gold is higher up the mountain, away from the Aliens, Foster leaves the miners to their claim.
Notes:
• Probably the best of the Holiday Special strips - a good straight-forward story, told well, with good artwork.
• The Holiday Special has no other UFO content.

So overall, was the strip a successful reflection of the series through its two and a half year run? Where it stuck to the format, on the whole yes, and it tried - though not always successfully - to expand on what the budget of the television series could not afford to show. Later strips made great use of SHADO bases being established in separate countries, which gave a refreshing change of locale and re-emphasised the international effort of the organisation's creation. But like the Mysterons from Captain Scarlet, the obscure nature of the Aliens bemused the writers, who did not know how to portray them or their objectives in the limited space they had. The complex and more adult nature of the series had to be simplified, if only to get the concepts over in as concise a way as comic writing demands. After all, the name of the game, as the comic's title reminded us, was TV Action.



By the end of 1972, and more so during this year, it had been obvious that increasing costs (see The Protectors feature) were eating into the quality of the comic, and it seemed some artists and writers sensed this too and moved on. John Burns stayed on TV Action to the very end for Mission: Impossible, but with no more UFO from issue 129, he began work on the new Tomorrow People strip for rival publication Look-In. This slow decline was evident by first Harry Lindfield, then Frank Langford - the other top artists - being the first to go, replaced by Jose Ortiz on The Persuaders, and others such as Colin Andrew, Charles Morgan and Mike White briefly contributed to the title. At the end of July, it was announced in the trade press that TV Action would merge into TV Comic with the issue dated August 25th, scant weeks before the already prepared 1974 TV Action annual hit the shops. This edition would end a run of fourteen consecutive years of Anderson-based annuals, and offered a final UFO strip (above) called Operation Babylon, ending - as it had begun - with art by Jon Davis.

An interesting overview, and coda to the fourteen year long run of Anderson-based strips, can be found in Countdown & TV Action editor Dennis Hooper's response to Richard Burton, co-editor of Comic Media, a relatively new fanzine which launched in the early 1970s. Published the month after TV Action disappeared from shop shelves, issue 10 (volume 2, no.3) sees Hooper distance himself from from what he sees as fans, stating that 'you, your colleagues and myself are poles apart'.

As an editor working with a degree of - perhaps correctly - professional detachment from the subject matter, Hooper saw comics as 'harmless and entertaining journalism, that a child might enjoy.' He was not making the mistake of saying this was an excuse for shoddy workmanship, as he subscribed 'like any other perfectionist, to the highest standards I can obtain.' Hooper admitted, apart from some superbly drawn artwork from the States, he did not '...have any great enthusiasm for fantasy. In my opinion anyone who rates this as literary talent, is devoid of taste.'

No doubt as fans of the superior artwork and scripts in earlier editions of Countdown and/or TV Action, Richard Burton had waxed lyrical on the content of Hooper's publication. Hooper thanks him for the compliment, but adds the cavaet '...that compared with TV21 which I began with Alan Fennell, and EAGLE, I find the editorial contents second-rate. This is mainly due to the mediocrity pumped out by British and American TV stations, which I am compelled to echo.' Fans will probably be divided, now as then, with this comment but as this website has tried to show, those behind the comics did not always share an all-consuming passion for the subject. One might ponder, given the slow (and to some readers, painful) demise of TV21, why did Hooper start up Countdown in the first place? It can be mooted there was still a market for the product, and TV21 narrowly missed the new enthusiasm for the Space Age - with the first Moon landing - by a publishing whisker. Century 21 Publishing was wound up during May 1969, and those who worked on the latter days of the original TV21 were moved on when it happened, with the new series of the title (TV21 & Joe 90) failing to grasp that. Maybe it was the continual reprinting of the 'American fantasy comic scene' in the new TV21 that Hooper was commenting on...

But as Howard Elson, editor of TV21 in its latter times, has commented, the title had to keep apace of popular trends, leading - like TV Action - to the inclusion of non-Anderson strips. Likewise, much as he may have despised the source material, Hooper was a man doing a job in producing a merchandising tie-in. In conclusion, he states - and quite rightly, 'I am not a kindred soul, although I do not deny you the right to harmlessly pursue your interests as fervently as you please.'

The Gerry Anderson Complete Comic History would like to thank:
John Ainsworth
Richard Burton
Angelo Finamore
Colin Lane
Randall W. Scott - Michigan State University Libraries
and Kim Stevens
- for their help with this feature.

Version 1.1 - 01.12.05


Any comments or notes about any of the strips, please contact technodelic@blueyonder.co.uk.

All text © The Gerry Anderson Complete Comic History, and its respective writers, and may not be reproduced without permission.
All images © their respective copyright holders