Hook Jaw

Action
The cover of Action#1.
Publication information
Publisher	IPC
Schedule	Weekly
Format	Ongoing series
Publication date	14 February – 23 October 1976
No. of issues	36 (37 including the pulped issue)
Creative team
Created by	Pat Mills
Collected editions
The Collected Hook Jaw	ISBN

Action was a controversial weekly British anthology comic that was published by IPC Magazines, starting on 14 February 1976.

Concerns over the comic's violent content saw it withdrawn from sale on 16 October 1976. It reappeared the following month, in toned-down form, and continued publication until 12 November 1977, at which point it was merged with Battle Picture Weekly. Despite its short lifespan, Action was highly influential on the British comics scene, and was a direct forerunner of the long-running 2000 AD.

The comic was devised in 1975 by freelance writer/editor Pat Mills, at the request of publishing house IPC. It was intended to reflect the changing social and political times of the late 1970s, and to compete with DC Thomson's war-themed Warlord title. Warlord was a new type of British boys adventure comic, focusing on military action, with tougher heroes and storylines than had been seen previously. The title was a huge success, and inspired IPC to launch Battle Picture Weekly in direct competition. Battle had been created by Pat Mills and fellow freelancer John Wagner, and was also very popular. Action was intended to be more contemporary and 'realistic'. IPC's John Sanders was chosen to edit the title, with Mills, Wagner, and Steve MacManus contributing stories. The team evaluated several names, including Boots and Dr Martens. The comic was briefly to have been called Action 76, with the title incrementing each year, until it was named simply Action.

Many of the stories in Action were what Mills called "dead cribs", essentially rip-offs of popular films, books, and comic heroes. Rather than being a straight copy, the "cribs" in Action had their own slant on the idea. Hook Jaw, for example, combined environmental issues with the graphic gore and shark anti-hero of Steven Spielberg's film Jaws (1975), a box-office success, while Hellman of Hammer Force was a Warlord/Battle-style World War II adventure told from the point of view of a German Panzer commander.

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