Action Force (comic)
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| a.k.a. G.I. Joe: The Action Force | ||
| Format | Ongoing comic series | |
| Reprint of | G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero  issues 44-74 (mostly) | |
| Original run | 1985-1988 | |
| First TFUK appearance | Issue 98 (guest) Issue 153 (regular) | |
| Final TFUK appearance | Issue 305 | |
Action Force is the codename for a highly-trained rapid deployment force. Its purpose: to defend human freedom against Cobra, a ruthless terrorist organisation.
History
To cut a long story short, Action Force was what we called G.I. Joe in Europe. To cut that story slightly longer...
In 1964, Hasbro 
introduced G.I. Joe: America's Movable Fighting Man, a 12-inch articulated doll and the first "action figure" as we know it. British toy company Palitoy licensed the use of the molds for European distribution, but they ditched the name G.I. Joe as the term was unfamiliar over this side of the Atlantic, instead naming the range Action Man. Though initial waves of Action Man product were simply G.I Joe toys in new packaging, the line gradually grew its own identity with military uniforms and accessories based on those from other countries.
The two divergent toylines evolved in parallel at the start of the 80s after the advent of the 3.75 inch action figure scale, introduced in 1975 by Fisher Price's Adventure People and codified by Mego's Micronauts (itself partially an import of Takara's Microman ) and the runaway success of Kenner's Star Wars line. Palitoy imported the latter for the UK market, and the figure line's 5POA (five points of articulation) construction proved a direct influence on the company's new 3.75 inch Action Man spin-off, Action Force. Meanwhile, in the U.S.A., Hasbro took inspiration from Micronauts, and transformed G.I. Joe into A Real American Hero.
The initial Action Force line in 1982 was full of figures and vehicles that were wholly original to Palitoy, but its close working relationship with Hasbro allowed them to use "ARAH" molds from 1983 onwards, sometimes repainted into new characters, and sometimes not. The story of Action Force was told in the IPC Magazines boys' war comic Battle, first as a brief serial in 1983, and then, from 1985 onwards, as a permanent feature that changed the comic's name to Battle Action Force.
Behind the scenes, Palitoy received a blow when, in 1984, word came down from their American owners, General Mills, to shutter the Action Man line. Action Man's loss created a domino effect that led to a lack of designers for Action Force. As a result, the 1985 Action Force range consisted entirely of imported toys from A Real American Hero. These characters gradually filtered into Battle Action Force and, in a more drastic turning point, the storyline "World Enemy No.1" saw main villain Baron Ironblood take on a new codename as Cobra Commander and turn Red Jackal into Destro. The stories in Battle Action Force built to a climax in November 1986... when they suddenly disappeared, possibly as a result of Palitoy's acquisition by Tonka.
Hasbro got all its ducks in a row in 1987. The Action Force toyline continued to be distributed by Hasbro's UK arm. In comics, the Action Force license went to Marvel UK thanks to the house of ideas' success with The Transformers. The weekly Action Force comic launched in March; like its sister publication, it consisted of UK-originated material alongside reprints of strips from Marvel U.S.'s A Real American Hero – of which there was a healthy supply that had been building since 1982. Contemporary issues of The Transformers promoted Action Force, which unsurprisingly had a significant overlap of creative teams. Among them was Robo-Capers cartoonist Lew Stringer, who produced Codename: Combat Colin for Action Force from its fifth issue onwards.
This weekly edition of Action Force ran for fifty issues before coming to an end. As was the style of the time, the title "folded" into becoming a back-up strip for another series. The most natural fit was, of course, The Transformers, which became The Transformers and Action Force in 1988, from issue 153 onwards. By and large, the Action Force back-up strips were reprints of U.S. G.I. Joe material, though a newly produced series of Combat Colin strips replaced Robo-Capers to overwhelming critical acclaim. Later, in May, Marvel UK launched Action Force Monthly, an A5-sized U.S. format book featuring cover-to-cover UK-original material, typically a new lead story accompanied by a back-up reprint. This series even attempted to break into the U.S. market, where it was published as G.I. Joe: European Missions, but it evidently wasn't worth carrying on beyond its fifteen issues, and it ended in August 1989.
The Action Force-branded G.I. Joe reprints continued unabated in The Transformers until the very tail end of 1989, when the mini-comic "Divided We Fall!" depicted a merging of the Action Force team with its U.S. counterpart. From here on, the comic was presented under the title G.I. Joe: The Action Force, and it would continue to be published in The Transformers until early 1991. Together, Action Force and G.I. Joe hold the distinction of being The Transformers' longest running non-gag back-up strip (second only to gag strip Combat Colin).
Action Force stories in TFUK
As Action Force |
As G.I. Joe: The Action Force |
PromotionsIn order to promote the fledgling weekly Action Force comic, The Transformers reprinted a pair of relatively stand-alone stories, as well as a full-blown crossover storyline (of which we give partial coverage). As a back-upAfter folding into The Transformers, readers were given an introduction to the world of Action Force with a text piece called... uh, "An Introduction."
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The mini-comic "Divided We Fall!" depicted a merging of Action Force with its U.S. counterpart, G.I. Joe. All stories after this point – with the exception of "Law of the Jungle!" – were branded as "G.I. Joe: The Action Force". |
Notes
- In 1986, Marvel Comics in the U.S. published the crossover miniseries G.I. Joe and the Transformers.
It concluded a few months before Marvel UK acquired the Action Force license from IPC, which may have had a hand in the story being skipped over by The Transformers UK. The story was eventually published over here in 1990, beginning in issue 265, which outright presented it as a "somewhat novel" look at the "U.S. version" of events. For our purposes, that means it isn't canon. (For their purposes, it means there was a 17 week period in 1990 where the Joes were in the main strip and the reprint back-up strip.)
