The Eagle
Mike Nelson as the Special Operations Executive's top agent, code-named Eagle.
- Day, Return (23rd Aug, #25), Night (21st Feb 76, #51), Eagle Flies East (20th Mar, #55), Eagle Must Die! (14th Aug, #76), Rogue Eagle (May 7 77, #114) Strikes Back (Oct 11 80, #284)
Battle Picture Weekly
8th March 1975 - 14th March 1981
Writers: Eric Hebden, Robert Ede, John Wagner, Gerry Finley-Day, Pat Mills, Alan Hebden, Chris Lowder, Ron Carpenter and Kelvin Gosnell
Artists: Pat Wright, Barrie Mitchell, Geoff Campion, Mike Dorey, Eduard Vano, Masip, Bill Lacey and Jim Watson
Mike Nelson was a popular series character who made a number of appearances in Battle over the years, despite his apparent death at the end of his premiere series. Nelson, code-named 'Eagle', was the top agent for the Special Operations Executive, an undercover organisation attached to the British Army. He was driven by personal tragedy sustained during the Allied withdrawal from Europe, making him ruthless and efficient as an operative, but his actions made a bitter enemy in the form of Gestapo Generalmajor Helmut Kleiber. Kleiber eventually met his end at Nelson's hand, only to be replaced by a new nemesis in the shape of Oberstleutnant Karl Schlegel, who battled with Nelson even after the Third Reich had fallen. In the ruins of Berlin, the defeated Nazi shot Nelson in the back, killing him, but Nelson had already secured his revenge, and Kleiber joined him in death moments later. The character was revived for a prequel story in 1980, which ran for five months before Nelson was once again dispatched into history.
Mike Nelson's complete adventures are presented here. Follow the links below.
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Day of the Eagle - 8th March 1975 to 24th May 1975
Mike Nelson is the top agent for the British Army's Special Operations Executive. Nelson's father and brother were both killed at Dunkirk, leaving him a cold and detached man with a deep desire for revenge. His commander, Colonel Forster, charges Nelson with a new and top secret mission, codenamed Eagle. From now on, Nelson is to be known only by the name of his mission, the objective of which is the assassination of Adolf Hitler.
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The Death's Head Dossier - 7th June 1975 to 9th August 1975
Mike Nelson returns for a second adventure, with a new creative team in tow. Having survived his apparent death in a nuclear explosion and a period of imprisonment at the hands of Kleiber, Mike Nelson is freed in a seemingly botched exchange of prisoners. After months spent recuperating, he is finally given an assignment. Nelson must find and infiltrate a German Death's Head cell who are systematically wiping out British agents on their home soil. Things get off to a shaky start as Nelson's contact, Joe Manson, is killed before the two ever meet, but Manson leaves a vital clue, and the hunt is on…
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Return of the Eagle - 23rd August 1975 to 14th February 1976
Mike Nelson returns for another adventure, although this one is a series of short missions leading to a final face-off with an old enemy. Nelson is tasked with a series of assassinations. He must kill key members of the Axis command, beginning with General Maximillian Von Ritterman in Berlin. Nelson is blasé, and cannot resist leaving a calling card with the body once Von Ritterman is dead. The card is duly delivered to Generalmajor Kleiber, informing him the Eagle is back in business. As the assassinations continue, Kleiber is made to look more and more like a fool, leading to a final, deadly encounter.
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Night of the Eagle - 21st February 1976 to 6th March 1976
Mike Nelson returns for a swift adventure, in this three-part tale. Starting in the style of many a Bond movie, Nelson is seen tying up a previous mission before being assigned a new one. Zarkov, his Russian contact, is something of an amateur when it comes to the spy game, and is discovered by the Gestapo before Nelson has completed the exchange of intelligence. With Zarkov dead, Nelson salvages what he can from the plans and sets off for France in Zarkov's place. Unfortunately, he has been set up. Zarkov survived long enough to confess all to the Gestapo, who are lying in wait.
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The Eagle Flies East - 20th March 1976 to 7th August 1976
In The Eagle Flies East, Mike Nelson returns for a sustained adventure in a new theatre of operations. Nelson is heading into the Pacific, disguised as a Swiss expert in germ warfare who has Nazi sympathies and is helping the Japanese develop a plague delivery system. Despite being a Superman-like dead ringer for Adolph Zekker, Nelson knows nothing of his trade, which is just the beginning of his problems. Having successfully eliminated Zekker and assumed his identity, Nelson arouses the suspicion of the Japanese almost immediately, and is only accepted as Zekker when he is forced to kill his American ally Sam Goldman. Committed to his mission without adequate briefing or back-up, Nelson's cover is soon blown, and so begins a series of desperate measures to flee the Japanese army and rendezvous with Allied troops.
The Eagle Flies East was, for Mike Nelson, something akin to what The Cursed Earth meant to Judge Dredd. Taken from his European comfort zone, Nelson was facing an epic journey home in his longest adventure, which became a series of short story arcs linked by an overlying plot. Much like The Cursed Earth, the bulk of the story is handled by a single writer, in this case Chris Lowder, who later contributed the controversial 'Giants Aren't Gentlemen' to the aforementioned Dredd saga, with Ron Carpenter adding a couple of fill-in issues. Art chores were split between the ever-talented and realistic Pat Wright, and the solid and shadowy Bill Lacey, who both produced excellent work on their respective arcs. Jim Watson and Eduardo Vanyo provided a little fill-in work on two arcs. Watson's style was as brutal and ugly as ever, but still rather effective. However, Vanyo should have been left on the bench rather than being allowed to turn in his sub-par effort on a single issue. Despite the shortcomings, there was much to like in this change from The Eagle's normal formula. With The Eagle Must Die approaching, it was soon back to business as usual for Mike Nelson.
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The Eagle Must Die - 14th August 1976 to 16th October 1976
The Eagle Must Die sees Mike Nelson uncover a Nazi plot to assassinate King George VI and his family, making himself the most wanted man in Europe, yet simultaneously becoming regarded as a traitor to Britain. It all begins when Nelson's French contact is shot in front of him. Searching the body, he discovers an old newspaper. Nelson determines that there must be a code concealed within, and is soon heading for Chateau Gallerandes, 60km south of Paris. There, he is shocked to discover Winston Churchill surrounded by high-ranking Nazis, including Oberstleutnant Karl Schlegel. This 'Churchill' is obviously an imposter and a threat to Allied security. So begins a deadly chase across occupied Europe, as Nelson tries to disclose this information to his superiors, whilst being hunted down by friends and foes alike.
This chapter in the tales of Mike Nelson was the first to fully team writer Lowder and artist Wright. The pair had worked together on sections of The Eagle Flies East, but from this point on they would become the permanent creative team, concluding Nelson's adventures over the course of the next year. Lowder delivered a script with plenty of twists and turns, and a few unlikely cliffhangers which Nelson somehow managed to work his way out of. Wright turned in his usual realistic and high-quality art, producing several excellent splash images including a car crashing through a bridge, Nelson falling from a moving train and an excellent shock frame of Nelson machine-gunning the Prime Minister to death
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Operation Black Death - 29th January 1977 to 23rd April 1977
Following the D-Day landings, an English scientist named Paul Gifford is supposedly kidnapped by Nazi agents, but the expert in germ warfare is really supplying secret documents to the Germans. Mike Nelson is called in to recover the documents and kill Gifford. Nelson's investigations reveal Gifford has developed a deadly new weaponised strain of bubonic plague which the Nazis are beginning to produce. His hunt leads Nelson to the heart of Berlin and into the bunker of Adolf Hitler, but not without first crossing paths with Karl Schlegel of the Gestapo, and a KGB Colonel Nelson had believed to be dead. At least one of Nelson's enemies is finally dispatched as Nelson heads for a fatal showdown.
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Rogue Eagle - 7th May 1977 to 18th June 1977
Mike Nelson returns for his final adventure. Nelson has thwarted the Nazi scheme to release bubonic plague across Europe, but at great personal cost. Fifty civilian lives were lost at Nelson's hand as Schlegel and his henchmen made their escape. With the war over, the Eagle sits brooding on his failure, and resolves to take matters further. Showing newsreel footage of the escaped war criminals to his superiors, Nelson asks to be allowed to hunt down his enemies, but the SOE refuse his request. Nelson decides to take matters into his own hands, disobeys the orders of the SOE and goes rogue. As he hunts down the Nazis, he in turn is hunted by his own unit. Will Nelson bring justice to the war criminals before he is brought to book himself?
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The Eagle Strikes Back - 11th October 1980 to 14th March 1981 Battle Picture Weekly
23rd August 1975 - 14th February 1976
Writers: Robert Ede, John Wagner, Gerry Finley-Day, Pat Mills, Alan Hebden and Chris Lowder
Artists: Barrie Mitchell, Pat Wright, Mike Dorey, Geoff Campion, Eduard Vano and Masip
Mike Nelson returns for another adventure, although this one is a series of short missions leading to a final face-off with an old enemy. Nelson is tasked with a series of assassinations. He must kill key members of the Axis command, beginning with General Maximillian Von Ritterman in Berlin. Nelson is blasé, and cannot resist leaving a calling card with the body once Von Ritterman is dead. The card is duly delivered to Generalmajor Kleiber, informing him the Eagle is back in business. As the assassinations continue, Kleiber is made to look more and more like a fool, leading to a final, deadly encounter.
The episodic nature of this story lent itself a little better to the disjointed effect that so many different writers and artists would otherwise have had. For the most part the story worked, and the art, although rough in places, was exceptional in others. Nelson was handled particularly well by the dominant duo of Mike Dorey and Pat Wright, who would complement each other in similar fashion during their run on Hellman on the Russian Front. Barrie Mitchell's spell with the character concluded, and Geoff Campion provided a few solid episodes. Eduard Vano's work seemed almost unrecognisable when compared to his later offerings under the simplified moniker of Vanyo. Fortunately his style developed with experience.
Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.
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