Bullet (DC Thomson)

Bullet
The 2nd issue of Bullet included a free gift - a survival guide.
Publication information
Publisher	D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd
Schedule	Weekly
Format	Ongoing series
Publication date	1976 – 1978 (merged with Warlord)
No. of issues	147
Main character(s)	Fireball

Bullet was a comic book published weekly in the UK during the 1970s.

First published on 14 February 1976 by D.C. Thomson for 7p, it focused upon adventure, action, revenge, science fiction, war and sport. It was a popular comic for boys throughout its publication.

The main character was a moustached, multi-talented, highly trained secret agent, aptly named Fireball. When his parents had died in a mysterious car crash when he was a young child, he became the ward of his father's friend Lord Peter Flint, a wartime hero (a.k.a. Warlord). Fireball had been trained by "Uncle Pete" (since childhood) in the arts of shooting, martial arts, sports and survival - this was as well as the usual reading and writing skills. The full Fireball story was secret but could be acquired by joining the "Fireball club" which gave you the story enclosed in a red, plastic wallet. This story was used as the key for a substitution cipher for encrypting/decrypting secret messages which often appeared in Bullet's central pages as a sequence of seemingly random numbers. You also received a Fireball pendant for joining. Fireball's original pendant (which he always wore) saved his life on one occasion - it shielded him from a long range sniper's bullet. Fireball's archenemy was Catriona Klansberg (a.k.a. "The Cat"). Fireball had a soft spot for her - he had a habit of letting her slip away after he had just thwarted her evil plan.

Fireball was said to have been modelled on Peter Wyngarde.

In December 1978 the comic merged into the longer running Warlord comic.

Fireball: Bullet always included weekly stories about Fireball getting into various scrapes, going on dangerous missions, saving the world and generally kicking the backsides of the baddies - he was always able to maintain a sense of humour throughout the most death-defying situations.

Some of the other stories included: