Slowly, Rebellion are coming around to the idea that not everyone wants endless collections of beautifully drawn strips with scripts that show their age. Rebellion own the rights to classic British comic characters and comics that could appeal to a modern audience of more than just men of a certain age, particularly if those characters and written and drawn by top comic talent. It always made more sense to revive Battle or Action rather than SMASH, the former as individual titles or as merged, were the precursors and had similar sensibilities to the mainstay of British comics over the last 4 years, 2000AD.
The Action Special and the Battle of Britain Special (both 2020) were good stabs at recreating the peak of those comics. But it was with the 2022’s Battle Action Special that the potential was really fulfilled. Completely written by Garth Ennis, whose love for these comics and interest in militaria shone through, coupled with inspired artistic collaborators made it a hit.
This 5 issue series, curated part written by Ennis, Rebellion / Treasury of British Comics again revisits the stars of the 2022 special, but backed up with reinforcements from the archive, written and drawn by modern creators. Aside from a returning Ennis, also present is is a veritable whoo’s hwo of talent : Rob Williams, Torunn Gronbekk, Dan Abnett , John Wagner, Henry Flint, Chris Burnham, Dan Cornwell, Keith Burns( who provides the covers), Phil Winslade, John Higgins, Patrick Goddard, Mike Dorey, Staz Johnson and PJ Holden.
Ennis & Keith Burns, reunite from the special to kick things off in issue 1 with “Johnny Red” the same team that was on the Titan “Johnny Red” series that is “coincidentally “ is currently being reprinted in the Judge Dredd Megazine. A birdstrike on landing leads to Falcon Squadron adopting their namesake to see off any other avian hazards, while Falcon Squadron itself deal with a more human predator. Ennis’ is a king of dialogue, its “saltier” here than in Tom Tully’s run but he has a feel for the characters and is master of “blokey camaraderie”.
Burns is just amazing. Occasionally his faces look a little strange, his work is scratchier than his predecessors Carlos Pino, John Cooper and Joe Colquhoun, but he lends a suitable ruggedness and earthiness to proceedings. No one beats him for illustrating aerial combat and those covers are to die for. Beautiful work.
The second strip is the less well known “HMS Nightshade” a strip about a Royal Navy corvette during the Second World War and collected by Titan a few years ago. A favourite with Ennis’, the original strip is exceptional work. Unsung hero of British comics Mike Western’s art is beautifully stark and atmospheric . Co creator John Wagner has been heard to say that he thinks that he finished “HMS Nightshade” too soon, so he, and regular artistic partner and rising star, Dan Cornwell return for this one off.
The thing is “Nightshade” ended perfectly, “untold tales” or retcons diminish the wider work. John Wagner uses the same narrative device of the original series of a grandfather relating his war experiences to his grandson. Telling the tale of the relationship and fate of two previously unmentioned crew members, it’s affecting and poignant. Dan Cornwell is a great artist, and conveys the fear and stress from crewing a corvette being stalked by U Boats well, but the strip suffers a little from being in colour where “Johnny Red” doesn’t. The lack of colour in the original strip helped to convey the feeling of tension and claustrophobia that you’d imagine would be present on a small warship in the North Atlantic. Having said all that, this is a high quality strip and great work from both creators.
A pleasant surprise was the format, 2000AD sized. These over size comicsmay be a bugger to store – but no worse than a Prog’ and you can spend more time poring over the detail in that lovely artwork. Another bonus are the behind the scenes pages print black and white versions of the strips, and script pages.
Welcome back Battle Action. It’s only issue 1, but it bodes well for the rest of the series. Now can we have an ongoing please?
ComicScene magazine 
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