Battle Action (284): 11 October 1980; Fighting Mann p2

"EEEIISH! The fire's caught me!"

Superb macho military action in Battle's ground-breaking Vietnam strip, as Walter Mann combs SE Asia for his missing son, and stumbles on a conspiracy to end the war in the worst way possible.

Was Fighting Mann one of the very first strips to be set in Vietnam? The action is in 1967, but the war had only ended 7 years or so before 1980. Radical stuff for a boy's comic, showing Battle's determination to be a more hard-edged and contemporary comic.

The action over these three pages and preceding and following episodes is based on the real-life fire on the USS Forrestal(CVA-59 Supercarrier) on 29th July 1967, which killed 134.

Cam Kennedy's work is looser (3 pages a week for umpteen episodes) than his later work for 2000AD, but his mastery of military men and equipment in action was unmatched.

Ink and whiteout on cartridge paper (cropped and mounted on thin white paper)
Mount: 18" x 15"
Image: 17.5" x 13.5"

Letters: J. Aldrich

Script: Alan Hebden