Return Of The Claw: The Lektrons!

Been way too long since we last gaped in wonder at the incredible art of Jesus Blasco, so here he is with one of his all-time classics, and an all-time fave of my old pal David Holman's: The Lektrons!
Louis Crandell aka. The Steel Claw had been away from Valiant for a while, following his massively wrong-headed turn as a silver-spangled superhero ( alluded to here ).
Happily, on his return he was back to what passed for normal, though it's noticable that he was much more heroic looking, much less sallow, and now armed with a burgeoning third division footballer haircut & a never ending supply of groovy polo necks.
Regardless, the invisible secret agent was back to doing what he did best, saving the world from alien invasion!
In Blasco's hands, this really does feel a teatime serial they'd put on before Blue Peter, or the kind of b/w film BBC2 used to run on a Sunday afternoon.
Look out! Run! Hide! Only The Steel Claw can save us from... The Lektrons!

Raven On The Wing

Although football strips were usually the genre of least interest to me and my gang in the Bronze Age ( with a few honorable exceptions, such as Hot-Shot Hamish ), Raven On The Wing was a little bit different.
Firstly, any strip in Valiant was always going to be worth at least a look, and secondly, Raven was drawn by the same guy who did Adam Eterno & Kelly's Eye, Francisco Solano Lopez, even though none of us knew his name at the time, and probably thought the artist was British.
Raven was a mysterious gypsy lad, with preternatural soccer skills, who was discovered by Highbro' Rovers coach 'Baldy' Hagan to bring the struggling third division club out of the doldrums.
As such, he belongs to a long, long tradition in British comics of noble savages with magical sports skills, from Valiant's own Wild Wonders to Tornado's Storm, and the strip is chock full of marvelous, likeable characters, not least Raven & the eternally beleaguered Baldy.
But again, where the strip really scores ( arf! ) is with the art. A lot of the off-pitch action tends to take place on wind-blasted heaths and in spooky, moonlit woods, and Lopez is almost like a family friendly version of Alfredo Alcala. Especially when Morag, the eternally hooded and frankly terrifying wise woman of Raven's tribe looms into frame.
In this story, the team are off to Spain to play in some or other tournament ( like I said, don't like football ) and get involved in all sorts of supernatural skullduggery.

Captain Hurricane

Captain Hurricane was a strip that ran in Valiant, literally forever, and was exactly the same every single week. Which was entirely part of it's enduring charm.
Captain Hercules Hurricane was a marine commander with the people skills of Sgt. Fury, and the temperament ( and strength ) of The Hulk, who spent the entire war being driven insane by his pint-sized cockney batman ' Maggot ' Malone.
In every single episode, that ' blithering idiot ' Maggot got into his head some new career path or hobby he'd like to try out, that would then cause chaos for the Captain, who would struggle to keep his temper for as long as possible, before inevitably Hulking out into a patented ' Blazin' Fury ', and annihilating any ' sausage swilling sauerkraut's ' or ' slant-eyed sushi swallowers ' within punching range, all the while swearing alliteratively as above ( imagine if 1984's chief writer / king of cussword's Bill DuBay had got ahold of this strip! )
It was kids' comedy at it's purest, with endless variations on a single gag, and was always a good, wholesome, if slightly racist laugh.
I could've picked literally any Captain Hurricane strip to show off, so I did! Here you go, you 'orrible little bleeders!