477 years to go

By the late 1980s the once-mighty Fleetway publications had scaled back production. Their choice of boy’s comics had reduced to 2000AD, Buster, Eagle, Roy of the Rovers, Mask and Oink. But don’t take that as gospel. Oh, I think there were still a few “Best Of” monthly reprint comics and perhaps there might have been a couple more I’ve forgotten about !?!

But sometimes they did try new ideas. Not to be confused with DC’s Wildcat or Wildstorm’s W.I.L.D.C.A.T.S., Fleetway’s “Wildcat” was an extremely short-lived fortnightly comic which was published between October 1988 and March 1989. Although originally apparently aimed at a slighter younger readership than “2000AD”, I didn’t really see much difference between the two. They probably never thought to mention to the artists what the age of readers were expected to be.

A sampler comic (an early example of an issue zero or an issue minus one !?!) had been released before the actual first issue which was found within a number of other Fleetway titles. This explained how, in similar scenes to those with Superman’s father on Krypton, the Supreme Council of 2488 didn’t believe Earth was about to be destroyed by fast-approaching radioactive meteorites in a few years time. So an odd team consisting of Turbo Jones, Loner, Joe Alien (with his detachable brain) and the thousand-year-old Kitten Magee build a spaceship and leave doomed Earth for what turns out to be a very dangerous alien planet.

Kitten Vol 1

Kitten Vol 2

After twelve issues “Wildcat” amalgamated with “Eagle and Mask” (formerly known as “Eagle and Scream”, “Eagle and Tiger”, “Eagle and Battle”) which now became “Eagle and Wildcat”. For the next six months some of the “Wildcat” characters would continue their adventures. There was evidently quite an inventory of art all ready to go.

Another Wildcat

No relation to the boys’ comic was this adult magazine.