Previewing ‘Battle Action’ Vol. 3 #3: More Classic War Tales, Now With Added Hookjaw!

Another issue of this 10-part volume 3 of Battle Action, and more of Johnny Red’s finale plus Hookjaw – the scourge of the seas…

The third volume of classic Brit comics characters from Battle and Action continues apace – you know the deal by now, it’s 10 issues, with each issue beginning with the final Johnny Red story by  Garth Ennis and Keith Burns, giving us that sense of import, a true end tale.

The other story in each issue is a one-off, each time highlighting one of the classics from Battle or Action. We’ve had Kids Rule Okay, we’ve had HMS Nightshade, now it’s time for Hookjaw, with Steve White, PJ Holden, and John McCrea getting us all bloody in the oceans… just like this:

.

Johnny Red: A Couple of Heroes has brought Johnny face to face with the man who saw him forced out of the RAF in disgrace and sent him east to spend his war fighting and flying for the Russians. He came with an offer of a mission that could see him reinstated and welcomed back to Blighty, plus Pryce-Fanshawe’s promising Johnny he’ll tell him where his missing partner in the skies, Nina Petrova is, she of the Angels of Death.

But right now, he’s off on a mission in the Flying Gun to a remote island up towards the Arctic Circle where the Germans are manufacturing cholera as a weapon that they’re planning on unleashing on Moscow. British Intelligence have a man on the inside but it seems the Russians have their own plans for the bio-weapon. Plus, with the info Pryce-Fanshawe gave him about Nina, Johnny’s planning a stop-off en route.

It’s great seeing this one play out slowly, Ennis and Burns making good use of the extended run for one final Johnny Red tale, building things up to this mission with plenty of details, plenty of character stories. But there’s a sense of grim finality hanging in the air for this last mission that gives it plenty of atmosphere at the same time

.

Now, the bonus feature, back-up strip, whatever you want to call it, you get comic editor and writer, and talented paleo artist Steve White headed out to see for an adventure with Hookjaw.

From White’s introduction to this one, it’s obvious there’s a great love for the strip, describing the shark from Action as ‘still one of the Greatest Comic Monsters Of All Time!’

The original Hookjaw series was such a simple thing, with Pat Mills and Ken Armstrong eking out every possible tale of shark versus nasty humans in its near two-year run. Sure, it was formulaic but it worked, a beloved strip that’s had various reworkings over the years.

This latest one sees the great white facing off against the true nightmares of the sea, Killer Whales, with a nature documentary team more interested in playing to the myth of the deadly great white and a group of shark conservationists in between them. This particular Orca that Hookjaw’s gotten involved with is psychotic, raised in captivity, killed two of his trainers and released into the wild, now a great white killer and prone to attacking small boats. It’s a worthy opponent for Hookjaw, as you’ll see in the 14 pages of this one, 10 of which are just all-out shark vs orca action with the humans caught in the middle.

It’s a damn good short tale, doing everything you’d want from a Hookjaw story, with blood in the water and the great white doing everything he’s known for, thrilling and scary and quite brilliantly done. White’s just got this perfectly paved and the art team of Holden and McCrea and Davies give us all the detail needed but with a satisfying looseness that really gets all the primal rage it need, all the incredible flow of things, all the heart in mouth stuff you really want from Hookjaw. Short yes, but a perfect little Hookjaw story.

.

So, three issues in and alls well. Johnny Red is turning into a really great tale of war and love and finality, and every one of the back-ups has given us the essence of the classic Battle Action strips, given new life for readers today. This really has turned into a monthly comic I look forward to.

Battle Action Vol. 3 #3 Published by the Treasury of British Comics on 30 October.

Johnny Red: A Couple of Heroes – by Garth Ennis, Keith Burns, with colours by Jason Wordie, letters by Rob Steen

Hookjaw: Hunter Killer – by Steve White, PJ Holden, and John McCrea, with colours by Jack Davies, letters by Rob Steen

Now, how about a couple of previews to show you just how good this one looks and reads…