Action Force #2

14 Mar 1987. Cover price NA.
24 pages. Full colour contents.
Marvel Comics

Edited by Richard Starkings.

Cover by Geoff Senior (uncredited).

Presented free with Action Force #01

Contents:

 2 Contents / Mission Control editorial; a: Geoff Senior (uncredited). Indicia

 3 Cut and Run, part two, w: Simon Furman; p: Kev Hopgood, i: Dave Harwood, lettering by Richard Starkings, colouring by Steve White.

 8 You Must Not Miss Next Issue in-house advertisement; a: Geoff Senior (uncredited).

 9 Best Defence, part two, w: Larry Hama, a: Herb Trimpe, lettering by Phil Felix, colouring by Bob Sharen.

r: G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero (Marvel) #50 (Aug 1986).

20 My Brother's Keeper w:/a: Ken Steacy.

r: Amazing High Adventure (Marvel) #05 (Dec 1986).

Mr. R. Trent.
Ministry of Defence.
Whitehall.                           6/3/87

Sir,
   In response to your request for a written account of the events of the 5th of this month, I submit the following:

An epistolary, with appropriate visual accompaniment, is a very brave move for Furman to employ in what is only the second issue of the series, though there are several breaks where the action is presented in a traditional manner.

At approximately 1100 hours, our station cameras recorded the entry into access port one of the Action Force operatives code named Snae Eyes and Scarlett.

Their palm print configurations checked out with our computer records and admitted them to our London headquarters...

Entry port one, as it happens, is accessed via the London Underground track at Westminster, which is why the story carries the following:

WARNING: Scarlett and Snae Eyes are highly trained Action Force personnel - on NO account should you play on London Underground tracks.

All other Action Force antics are, apparently, fine to mimic.

The Eel captured by Footloose manages to overpower an Action Force agent, and makes his way to the SIMCOM room, where operatives can train against simulated enemy forces. Scarlett and Snake Eyes make use of the facility in order to maintain their combat skills, where the Eel hits Snake Eyes with a speargun, then shoots Scarlett before escaping through the inlet to the Thames.

While it is difficult to imagine, given the superior facilities often depicted, that a lowly Eel could manage to escape, the story is told in a manner which downplays the more worrying aspects of this. A few simple changes in dialogue, to indicate that the escape had been set up by a mole, for instance, would have made this extraordinary feat more acceptable.

Best Defence continues, with Beach-Head, Lady Jaye, and Flint sneaking onto the hijacked plane as it is refueled. Lady Jaye disguises herself as a stewardess, and learns from Hawk (via a relayed message) that the flight is a suicide run, with the hijackers intending to crash into a top secret Soviet chemical warfare depot in Beringovskiy - the resultant gas cloud could kill millions.

I wonder if Flint's comment, upon cutting open a suitable access point, that it is "a size 42 regular hole" is a sneaky Hitchhiker's reference. The final panel joke about Lady Jaye getting stuck in the toilet is a bit too silly for what has preceded the panel, and the rescue attempt itself seems rather too easy, though I'll give the story some leeway as there's advanced tech in play.

There's some voyeuristic tendencies in the depiction of Lady Jaye - the only character to be depicted changing clothes - and the sensibilities are very much in line with action-adventure cinema of the era. The story itself contains echoes of numerous hijackings, which plagued airlines in the seventies and eighties, but is remarkably restrained in showing the human cost of such actions.

Edwards Airforce Base: Spring, 1955

Investigations into the possibility of carrying parasite fighter planes within the awesome Atom bombers led to the fighter-conveyor or FICON programme. Numerous combinations were tested and one showed great promise: the fighter was the F-85 Goblin, the bomber, the fabulous B-49 Flying Wing!

A historical military tale (the first part of a longer story) rounds out the issue. It is written in a style which doesn't really grasp me, though the fact that it was intended to be read as a complete story explains why there isn't more of a hook to maintain interest.

#01

Action Force

#03