With Stephen Ryan

 

If like me, you’re a child of the 1960s, the chances are that you were an avid comic reader. Comics were king, at least until the advent of television and in more recent times, the internet. That said, the internet has brought many comics back to life, but that’s a story for another day.

I still have a collection mainly spanning the late ‘60s to ‘70s including The Hotspur, Tiger, Victor, Lion, Roy of the Rovers and even a few of the US superheroes. I’m always on the lookout in charity shops and car boot sales to add to these.

For me though, one of the great comics was the VALIANT. It first appeared on the newsstands on 6th October, 1962 – for the princely sum of 10d!

Guess who was on the cover?

Yes, Captain Hurricane!

Hercules Hurricane of the British Royal Marine Commandos was fighting against the German and Japanese armies in the 2nd World War. With his batman, ‘Maggot’ Malone (previously a ship’s cook, but not very good at cooking!) he battled the Axis powers with his superhuman strength that appeared whenever he became enraged and went into a ‘RAGIN’ FURY’.

The Captain Hurricane stories usually were at the start of the comic and often lasted 4-6 pages, much longer than the usual 2-3 pages afforded to other stories.

His exploits didn’t end with the war though, Trebor brought out ‘Captain Hurricane Chew Bars’ in the 1970s. I never came across them, maybe you did?
The Valiant also featured a number of other notable cover series, including ‘IS IT TRUE?’; ‘THE RIVALS’ and ‘WHO IS IT?’.

My favourite was always ‘IS IT TRUE?’. Two in my collection include – from 3rd January, 1970, that during the winter of 1684 the River Thames was completely frozen over and that fairs were held on the ice to welcome in the new year? –

Yes, it was true!

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own