Lion was a weekly comic published by Fleetway (a subsidiary of IPC, the International Publishing Corporation) from 23 February 1952 to 18 May 1974. It lasted for 1,156 issues.
Contents |
Lion was first published on the 23rd of February 1952, and was a weekly boys’ adventure comic designed to compete with Eagle, the popular weekly comic that had introduced Dan Dare. Lion's first issue contained a mix of text stories and comic strips; its flagship story was Captain Condor - Space Ship Pilot, a science fiction adventure in the Dan Dare mould. The premiere issue also contained the first adventure of Robot Archie (called The Jungle Robot in early adventures) who would go on to become one of the title's most popular characters.
By the 1960s Lion had settled into being one of the most popular British weekly titles of the time. It began to feature an increasing number of anti-hero characters such as The Spider and The Sludge (who would later battle Robot Archie in his own strip).
Lion merged with several other comics during its life, including Eagle in 1969 and Thunder in 1971. But by the early 1970s sales were slipping, and in 1974 it was merged with Valiant. Several strips continued in Valiant, but that title merged with Battle Picture Weekly in 1976.
In 2005 many of IPC's characters, including several from Lion, were featured in a mini-series called Albion published by the Wildstorm imprint of DC Comics.