Tornado #1

[24 Mar 1979]. Cover price 10p.
32 pages. Colour & B&W contents.
IPC Magazines Ltd.

Edited by Roy Preston.

Cover by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

Contents:

 2 Welcome to the World of Heroes! 2000 A.D. Productions Present - Tornado introduction by Tharg; photographs (uncredited). / Introduction by Big E. / Enjoy Your Turbo-Flyer Safely! Free gift instructions; illustration (uncredited).

 3 Victor Drago The Terror of Troll Island!, part one, w: Bill Henry [Chris Lowder]; a: Mike Dorey.

 9 The Mind of Wolfie Smith UNTITLED [Departure from Mason Street], part one, w: Tom Tully; a: Vanyo.

15 The Angry Planet UNTITLED [No Water for Markham], part one, w: Alan Hebden; a: Massimo Belardinelli.

21 Tornado's True Tales The Tale of Benkei, part one, w: Steve Moore; a: Xavier Musquera.

26 Wagner's Walk UNTITLED [A Child's Atlas], part one, w: R.E. Wright [Pat Mills]; a: Lozano.

31 Next Week - Your Chance to Join Team Tornado preview. / Indicia

32 Captain Klep UNTITLED [Strangest Visitor from Another World] w: Dave Angus & Nick Landau; a: Kevin O'Neill.

The launch of a title is an opportunity to show the readers something they haven't seen before. An opportunity to break free of tradition and stretch out into concepts and designs which haven't been attempted. Launch issues are, in short, the perfect place to show off. No matter the budgetary restraints, editorial constraints, or possible audience complaints, there is no reason to hold back on great ideas or artwork.

By 1979 IPC already had a solid run of successful launches (along with a few troublesome titles), so it would make sense that creative personnel had studied those achievements, taking away all the lessons available. It would have been natural to emulate massively popular characters, to grow under-appreciated ideas into thrilling strips, and show up the rest of IPC's output with top-notch strips. A newly-launched title ought to take every advantage available in order to succeed.

Which is why this issue is such an infuriating read.

The cover is, admittedly, not as bad as some contemporary launches, yet it doesn't scream quality. The mass of conflicting lettering is an eye strain, and dainty stars sprinkled over the left side of the cover bring to mind a style more commonly associated with girls comics - at least the space beneath the free gift hasn't been wasted, though it is still important space casually wasted. The most intriguing aspect of the launch straddles the bottom of the cover, where we are promised "the U.K.'s First Real Live Superhero!"

Many attempts at bringing superheroes to British comics had already been attempted, though this was something different. Unlike Marvelman or Captain Britain, Big E (who should have been dusted off in the nineties for the acid house crowd) was a real superhero, as seen in photographs throughout the title's run - though his credibility is diminished firstly by looking like a young Jim Belushi, and secondly by having an a ridiculously poor costume. It is, of course, Dave Gibbons in the ill-fitting superhero garb rather than a professional model, which shows how little thought had gone into the depiction.

It is surprising, looking back, that no touching up had been attempted on the photographs. Numerous talented airbrush artists were working in London during the late seventies, any one of whom could have taken rough photographs and transformed them into spectacular - and extremely life-like - depictions of a fantastic nature. Of course, that would have shown up the ugly Tharg mask for the piece of tat it was, and undermined the authority of the esteemed editor of 2000 A.D..

London - February, 1929!

A bitter wind sweeps over the chill waters of the river Thames, hurling a white fury of snowflakes before it in savage gusts!

On such a night as this, there's no honest profit to be made out of doors!

On the other hand - for those who seek a dishonest profit...

...Such a night has many advantages!

From out of the darkness steps a formidable figure, a pipe set firmly in his mouth - Vincent Drago.

A name that struck terror into the most hardened of evil-doers - from the slums of London's East End to the teeming waterfront of Shanghai, Drago was the private detective who never gave up a case - often succeeding where the toughest policemen failed!

His associate Spencer, and his dog Brutus, soon have the majority of the ne'er-do-wells under control, and Drago himself deals with the remaining two, before the authorities arrive to cart away their prey. Leaving the police to wrap things up, Drago heads home, finding his 'phone ringing upon arrival - Philip Moffat, of Troll Island (off the North Cornwall coast) requests assistance, but the call is cut off before he can relate more. Drago and Spencer race through the night in his car, the Silver Lady, hoping to arrive in time...

Opening with a relaunched version of a vintage character might have worked for 2000 A.D., but Sexton Blake (under an assumed name here) isn't Dan Dare, and - worse - the time period is preserved for this outing. Unlike the BBC series Sherlock, there's no sense of untapped possibilities being exposed and expanded. There's little point in bringing a character back to print if things aren't altered, and this is, sadly, simply too old-fashioned to capture an audience led into the title by Tharg's recommendation.

I'm not sure I've ever got to the end of a Sexton Blake novel, and I can't imagine the character's appeal was significantly greater during the time of this issue's launch.

Colossal brain-power is not exclusive to adults. Even as a child, Leonardo da Vinci... the legendary Italian scientist and painter... had a profound knowledge of mathematics...

At the tender age of 7, the Austrian composer, Mozart, went on a musical tour, playing minuets that he had written himself...

And by the time he was nine years old, Ernest Patrick Smith, of No.11, Mason Street, Humberton, could make a pepper-pot move, ust by thinking about it!

Able to remember facts by reading them only once, able to move objects with his mind, and possessing the ability to know the contents of a bag without opening it, "Wolfie" Smith checks his local library to see what is happening to him, and reading about psychic abilities, he learns he has E.S.P. - Extra Sensory Perception. When he arrives home, ready to tell his parents what he has learned, he finds Mr. Venner has accused him of cheating on a test, and that his class photograph has been ruined by what others consider a trick - which Wolfie knows is caused by his psychic aura.

Fearing that he will be turned into a human guinea pig, Wolfie goes on the run.

With his each of his name containing a first letter reading ESP (though jumbled), this maintains IPC's tradition of handing its characters meaningful names, and the set-up, while containing more than a few well-worn scenes, is visually arresting and well-paced. Not quite SF enough to justify Tharg's presence in the title, but an interesting take on some themes which were strongly represented in fiction during the late seventies.

Mars... the fourth planet of the solar system, with an average surface temperature that was colder than an Antarctic winter... An atmosphere of deadly carbon dioxide... and no surface water!

An unprotected man would be dead in seconds!

When the first manned missions discovered vast mineral deposits, the great multi-national companies of energy-starved Earth formed Mars Incorporated to mine it and ship it back home.

Then, in the first years of the 21st century, as Mars Inc. was drilling for oil in the desert-like Arcadian region...

The drills struck something... and it wasn't oil!

It was oxygen... PURE OXYGEN!

For the next 25 years the planet's surface was "oxygenated" so that by the middle of the century, Mars could support life.

When their contracts expired many of the Mars Inc. employees elected to stay on their adopted planet and settle it... or die in the attempt.

Many died... But more lived. In 2062 the first human child was born on Mars.

Narrow-boned, because of the weak gravity and large-lunged, because of the thin air, he was the first of a new generation that could never live on Earth... The first Martian.

Matthew Markham, the first Martian-born human, now with a family of his own to care for, awaits a water delivery, though discovers the price has increased for the third time in six months, doubling its cost in under a year. As Mars Inc. has a monopoly on the planet there is no choice but to pay up, though with decreasing payments for his farm's produce the prospects of continuing to exist as they are look bleak. Matthew learns neighbouring farmers are abandoning their homes in search of work elsewhere, and when he returns home finds Mars Inc. prospecting for copper deposits on his land.

Getting into a fight with the Earthmen on his property, Matthew chases them away - but when he checks his computer finds his water supply has been cut off.

If The Angry Planet was an attempt to channel Heinlein's vision of man's future, then it lacks a certain believability. Yes, corporations are inherently against individuals (the bottom line always comes first), though the degree to which the persecution of an individual is handled in a cartoonish and patently unbelievable manner. Stopping a person's water supply on a planet where such a resource is unavailable elsewhere is pretty much a death sentence, and something which ought to be handled through a robust legal system - which is entirely absent in the narrative.

There's much potential in telling the story of Martian colonisation, yet all of the interesting possibilities are brushed over in favour of a simplistic revenge story.

And now, welcome to our 'Triple T' spot, that's Tornado's True Tales... a series of sagas about unusual Heroes in amazing feats of Heroism that ACTUALLY HAPPENED! The first saga occurred a long time ago, in a world very different from our own. It tells...

The Tale of Benkei

Japan, 1179 A.D.: Few travellers crossed the Gojo bridge at night... and none crossed it sword in hand...

There's a warm place in my heart for this strip, but once more the title looks to the past rather than exploiting Tharg's presence in promoting the comic. Telling the story of the warrior monk Saitō Musashibō Benkei, and it is a fairly standard version which is repeated here. While it would have been more attractive without the border, the art is superb, and it performs its role as an educational element well.

Wagner's Walk is a post-WWII tale of Major Kurt Wagner, and his discovery of an atlas which gives him the notion to walk to freedom, out of Siberia. It isn't a story which I'm particularly fond of. Captain Klep is, likewise, a very difficult strip to like, being a parody of Superman, in particular, and superhero conventions in general. It isn't as funny or as biting as it could have been, and pales when compared to Marvel's own satires.

This is a comic without a clear personality. Or, rather, it is in possession of more than one distinct personality, preventing a quick and simple identification of what a Tornado strip ought to be. With Misty, Battle Picture Weekly, or 2000 A.D., the strips fit the title's personality perfectly, and it is possible to identify recurring elements linking those strips. Here... anything goes.

A very poor launch issue.

Tornado

#02