Battle Picture Weekly

Battle Picture Weekly was launched by IPC on January 1st 1961, and ran 673 unnumbered issues until January 23rd 1988. principally the brainchild of Pat Mills (who would later go on to create such titles as Action and 2000AD), it was a harder edged contrast to rival publisher DC Thomson's more conservative war titles and featured an array of tough, no nonsense characters such as D-Day Dawson (a soldier who, unknown to his comrades, had a piece of shrapnel lodged near his heart which could kill him at any time), Carlos Ezquerra's Rat Pack (about a commando unit made up of convicted criminals), Major Eazy, Bootneck Boy, Sgt Rock (not the American character; this one was in the S.A.S), John Wagner and Mike Western's HMS Nightshade, and air ace Johnny Red. Probably the most significant strip in the title though, was Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun's classic World War I saga Charley's War, which began in issue #200 (6th January 1979). This groundbreaking anti-war saga gave a whole generation of comics readers an insight into the horrors of war.

On 23rd October 1976, Battle incorporated Valiant, and on 19th November 1977 it merged with Action to become 'Battle Action'. On 8th October 1983 a long running toy tie-in strip, Action Force began, running until 29th November 1986. From 24th January 1987, the title became 'Battle With Storm Force'. Battle was eventually cancelled in January 1988 and merged into Eagle.