Valiant Comics

Valiant had a mixture of comic strips and stories and later joined up with Girl's Crystal.

Valiant was the title of a British boys adventure comic which ran from 1962 to 1976 . It was published by IPC Magazines and was one of their major adventure titles throughout the 1960s and early 1970s.

It contained a mix of conventional action stories such as Captain Hurricane , a humorous strip set in World War 2 as well as humour strips such as Billy Bunter , but it had new heroes such as Kelly's Eye , Adam Eterno and The Steel Claw in particular who would have a long lasting influence on comic creators such as Alan Moore and David Lloyd .

However it began to be seen as old-fashioned when the first of a new type of comic was launched with the first issue of Battle Picture Weekly in 1975 . The title suffered further when Pat Mills launched Action in February 1976. Attempts by John Wagner to update the title were initially successful but it struggled to find a place in the market against these tougher adventure titles. Valiant limped on for a few more months but merged with Battle Picture Weekly in October 1976.

Several of Valiant' s characters have made appearances since the comic's cancellation. Alan Moore and Alan Davis used several (renamed) characters during their Marvelman run. Quality Comics also released a four issue mini-series featuring The Steel Claw in 1986 featuring recoloured reprint material, as well as new material drawn by Garry Leach which acted as a framing device. The Steel Claw and several of IPC's 1960s heroes were also featured in Zenith in 2000 AD . This was followed by a one-off special featuring the old Valiant and IPC characters.