Valiant

Valiant
The cover of the Valiant annual of 1975.
Publication information
Publisher	IPC Magazines
Schedule	Weekly
Publication date	April 6, 1962 - October 16, 1976
Number of issues	730
Creative team
Writer(s)	Scott Goodall Tom Tully
Artist(s)	Jesús Blasco Eric Bradbury

For the U.S. comic publisher, see Valiant Comics.

Valiant was the title of a British boys adventure comic which ran from 1962 to 1976. It was published by IPC Magazines and was one of their major adventure titles throughout the 1960s and early 1970s.

It contained a mix of conventional action stories such as Captain Hurricane, a humorous strip set in World War II about a massive ex-sea skipper who became a Captain in the army and had berserker rages which gave him great strength, as well as classic humour strips such as Billy Bunter and classic detective strips such as Sexton Blake, but it had a number of innovative new heroes such as Kelly's Eye which featured Tim Kelly who wore the Eye of Zoltec (from a Mayan idol) around his neck which protected him from all harm. Adam Eterno who was thousands of years old and needed fire to become young again when his immortality deserted him, leaving him very old. The House of Dolmann about an inventor who had invented remote controlled "dolls" with strange abilities, like stretching, drilling, vision powers, etc which helped him in his fight against crime. He was an agent of some sort and acted on orders given him.

There was also the celebrated anti-hero, The Steel Claw, who would have a long lasting influence on comic creators such as Alan Moore and David Lloyd with his fantastic powers of invisibility and the power to electrocute. Mytek the Mighty, a giant robot ape who started off as a villain in the hands of a criminal but became a hero to battle other giant robots and creatures. There was also a two page text story of Jason Hyde from whose eyes poured light blue rays (he normally wore dark sunglasses) which allowed him to see through things and read minds. He had many strange adventures including deep inside the Earth, in another dimension, fighting giant spiders, a man with incredible powers, etc.

The stories were well written, 2-3 pages in black and white apart from coloured covers, and many were continued week after week, with cliff hanger endings. After many years, Valiant began to be seen as old-fashioned when the first of a new type of comic was launched with the first issue of Battle Picture Weekly in 1975. The title suffered further when Pat Mills launched Action in February 1976. Attempts by John Wagner to update the title were initially successful but it struggled to find a place in the market against these tougher adventure titles. Valiant limped on for a few more months but merged with Battle Picture Weekly in October 1976.

Several of Valiant's characters have made appearances since the comic's cancellation. Alan Moore and Alan Davis used several (renamed) characters during their Captain Britain run. Quality Comics also released a four issue mini-series featuring The Steel Claw in 1986 featuring recoloured reprint material, as well as new material drawn by Garry Leach which acted as a framing device. The Steel Claw and several of IPC's 1960s heroes were also featured in Zenith in 2000 AD. This was followed by a one-off special featuring the old Valiant and IPC characters.

In 2005 many of IPC's characters have been featured in a mini-series called Albion published by the Wildstorm imprint of DC Comics and plotted by Alan Moore.

See also

• Albion
• Battle Picture Weekly

External links

• 26pigs.com-A fansite for British comics
• Albion fansite