Tornado (comics)

The cancellation of Valiant in 1976 and Action the following year had left IPC Magazines without a standard multi-genre boys' weekly. 2000 AD firmly established as a science fiction title (something reinforced by its merger with Starlord); Battle was likewise established as a war comic; and the venerable Tiger had become the company's best-selling weekly due to editor Barrie Tomlinson's decision to focus heavily on sport. However, this meant several stories that had been commissioned that did not fit in with the extant titles were on file at IPC, who had a policy against wasting paid-for material. As such, after overseeing the merger of 2000 AD and Starlord, Kelvin Gosnell was recruited by editorial director John Sanders to launch a new title to use some of the stories up. The launch cost would be offset by the savings in material, and should the new weekly prove a success could be continued. Gosnell picked Richard Burton as assistant editor and Jan Shepheard as art director.[3]

The comic was initially conceived with the title Heroes. To fit into the theme, and influenced by the runaway success of the Salkinds' film version of Superman, Gosnell decided that the comic's fictional editor - a device used successfully with Tharg the Mighty in 2000 AD and the eponymous host of Starlord - would be 'the U.K.'s first real live super hero'. As a result, artist Dave Gibbons found himself talked into dressing up as The Big E (for 'editor') for photographs; the character would be introduced by Tharg in the first issue, with the Mighty One introducing his trainee. John Wagner had been the first choice to don the spandex costume, but in Gibbons' recollection asked for too much money.[4] Despite his embarrassment,[5] Gibbons volunteered on the grounds it would be "a day's work and it'll be a laugh". The photographs for the character were taken at the top of King's Reach Tower, and Gibbons would later recall the high winds and the Big E's cape were a bad combination. While acknowledging the unintentional amusement the modelling brought, Gibbons would see the lighter side - "Quite frankly, I don't mind at all, I'm quite at peace with my inner superhero".[4]

New material included a Sexton Blake strip, which Chris Lowder was eager to write. However, word came down that Blake was considered outdated and the character was subtly changed to become the new Victor Drago. Lowder was deeply unhappy, and would leave the strip after contributing only a few scripts.[6] Other sources have suggested IPC no longer had the rights to Blake, forcing the rename.[7] Mike Dorey, a fan of Blake, particularly Eric Parker's strips in Knockout, signed up to draw the strip.[8] "The Mind of Wolfie Smith" meanwhile was written by veteran Tom Tully, and followed a young boy with extrasensory perception, with Vanyo as artist. Alan Hebden had contributed "Death Planet" to 2000 AD and reworked an old Pat Mills idea as "Planet of the Damned" in Starlord, and worked with Massimo Belardinelli on the thematically similar "The Angry Planet" for Tornado.[9] "Wagner's Walk" meanwhile was about a German prisoner of war escaping from the Red Army, and was credited to the pseudonymous 'R.E. Wright'; it has been speculated that the story was originally written as a continuation of "Hellman of Hammer Force" (which ended with Major Kurt Hellman captured during the closing stages of the Battle of Berlin).[10] Meanwhile, various archival strips were featured under the banner "Triple T" - Tornado's True Tales - despite their questionable veracity, and Kevin O'Neill contributed humour cartoon "Captain Klep".[2]

The Heroes name was dropped when an Australian member of staff pointed out that Hero was brand of condoms in his home country, and with Australia making up around 8% of the company's business a renaming was needed.[11] Gosnell however would recall that the orders to change the name came from the board, and was not explained. Nevertheless, he came up with the name 'Tornado' based on the jet fighter, which had recently entered service with the RAF, and in keeping with Valiant, Victor and Vulcan sharing names with the V bombers.[5] Steve MacManus, at the time acting editor of 2000 AD, remembered the change threw the launch plans into chaos.[12] Nick Landau reportedly pointed out that Tornado was also the name of a cleaning product, but was ignored.[13]

Gosnell meanwhile found his already-fractious relationship with IPC managing editor Bob Bartholomew get more fraught; fed up with what he felt was interference from Bartholomew, he quit as editor of Tornado.[3] Gosnell would later describe Tornado as "a complete bag of worms" and the run-up to the launch as a "completely disastrous piece of head-fucking".[5] While Sanders was able to persuade Gosnell to remain at IPC as a script editor, Battle editor Dave Hunt - who would describe Gosnell's actions as a "fit of pique" - moved over to supervise the inexperienced Burton on Tornado.[3] Despite the internal reorganisation, Tornado was announced early in 1979.[14]

The first issue of Tornado was dated 24 March 1979, and included a free 'Turbo Flyer' - apparently "designed with the same aerodynamic manoeuvrability" as the Tornado strike-fighter - complete with instructions inside the cover to only use the thing outside. Further editorial characters were invented - mild-mannered Percy Pilbeam played the Clark Kent to the Big E's Superman, with Samantha 'Sam' Stevens as Lois Lane, while Billy Preston was apparently a gung-ho young roving reporter finding stories for Tornado. Readers were to write to Percy with their questions and Sam as - unusually for a boys' comic - an agony aunt, offering to help readers with "hassles with Big Sis' using her nail varnish on your plastic models". Big E and his cohorts also encouraged readers to be heroes themselves by performing good deeds, and write in about them.[15][16]

Due to the use of some archival material, features were introduced as and when needed for space reasons. The third issue introduced gypsy nomad "Storm" by Scott Goodall, initially by Xavier Musquera and soon taken over by Cam Kennedy. The following edition debuted "Black Hawk", about a former slave in Ancient Rome. Writer Gerry Finley-Day modelled the title character on Draba, the character played by Woody Strode in the Stanley Kubrick film Spartacus.[17] while Gosnell and MacManus would later contribute maverick cop story "The Lawless Touch".[2] From June, Tornado ran a string of covers unrelated to the strips, instead being part of the "It's Your Turn" competition - readers were to send in a 350-word story based on the image, with the best one winning £20.[18]

After Hunt moved on to edit new football magazine Top Soccer, Hunt was replaced by former 2000 AD subeditor Roy Preston. By this point, due to the 6-8 week cycle of preparing the comic, the first 8 or 9 issues were already complete. He would later recall "the comic launched like a stone and carried on sinking", and recalled he was pressed to include as much inventory material as possible.[5] Alan Grant reportedly turned down a role as sub-editor on the title as he believed the comic would last than six months, and recalled betting £5 against Sanders over the prediction.[13]

The plug was pulled on Tornado after 22 issues due to low sales, with Preston moving over to work with Hunt on Top Soccer and Tornado slated to merge with 2000 AD.[5] Tornado was one of several IPC titles to be cancelled after 22 issues, along with Thunder, Jet and Starlord.[19] Tomlinson would later explain that at the time this was typically because it took 22 weeks for meaningful sales trends to be analysed with the technology of the time.[20]

• Tornado Summer Special (1 edition, 1979)[2]
• Tornado Annual (2 editions, 1980 to 1981)[2]

In July 1979, BEM columnist Ruan Lanihorne counted four strips from Tornado in his top twenty British comic strips then in production - "Captain Klep" (#3), "Black Hawk" (#4) (behind 2000 AD stories "Judge Dredd" and "Ro-Busters", "The Angry Planet" (#12) and "Wagner's Walk" (#19).[29] Sanders' blunt evaluation of Tornado was that it failed "because it wasn't good enough and the staff bear the brunt of responsibility for that".[11]

• Tornado at the Grand Comics Database