The Tower King

The Tower King
Mick Tempest on the cover of the 15 May 1982 edition ofEagle,art byJohn Higgins.
Publication information
Publisher	IPC Magazines
Schedule	Weekly
Title(s)	Eagle 27 March to 4 September 1982
Formats	Original material for the series has been published as a strip in thecomics anthology(s)Eagle.
Genre	Horror
Publication date	27 March – 4 September1982
Main character(s)	Mick Tempest
Creative team
Writer(s)	Alan Hebden
Artist(s)	José Ortiz
Editor(s)	Dave Hunt

"The Tower King"is aBritish comicstrip, appearing in titles published byIPC Magazines.The story was published in theanthologyEaglefrom 27 March to 4 September 1982, written by Alan Hebden, with art byJosé Ortiz.The story was set in a dystopianLondon,where society has broken down.

Creation

While the relaunchedEagleincluded a mix ofphotoand conventional picture strips."The Tower King" was one of the latter.It was written by IPC stalwart Alan Hebden, who had experience writing forBattle Picture Weekly(including creatingMajor Eazy) and2000 AD.José Ortizprovided the art; while the strip was in black-and-white, theweb offset printingmethod used forEaglemeant he was able to give the art a greywash,enhancing the atmosphere and detail.The strip's creators made use of the opportunity by juxtapositioning jarring visual elements, such as historic London landmarks strewn with the rubble of modern buildings, or soldiers in patchwork armour complete with pocket watches and police helmets, armed with bothhalberdsandgrenades.

Publication history

The story debuted in the launch issue of the newEagle,dated 27 March 1982 and continued until the 4 September 1982 edition - when it was effectively replaced by another Ortiz-drawn strip, "The House of Daemon".

In 1998, the rights to the strips created forEagle– including "House of Daemon" – were purchased fromEgmont Publishingby the Dan Dare Corporation.In 2014, Hibernia Books licensed "The Tower King" and produced a collected edition with a foreword by2000 ADartist Leigh Gallagher, initially in a print run of 200 copies.A second limited run followed in 2017.In 2020, Hibernia produced another short run, along with another run of their collection of "The House of Daemon".

Plot

The story is set in a post-apocalyptic modern-dayLondon.Following from anuclear war,a malfunctioningsolar-poweredsatellite,somehow bathes theEarthin radiation that makes the production ofelectricityin any form impossible. Without heating, transport, food, or communication, and in the middle of a heavywinter,London swiftly falls intomass panic,resulting in pseudo-medievalanarchy;the state of the rest ofBritainor other countries is not explored eduring the strip.

Unlike many of the early Eagle strips,The Tower Kingis in drawn rather than photographic format; the strip's creators made use of the opportunity by juxtapositioning jarring visual elements, such as historic London landmarks strewn with the rubble of modern buildings, or soldiers in patchwork armor complete with pocket watches andpolicehelmets,armed with bothhalberdsandgrenades.

The main character is Mick Tempest, a natural-bornsoldierandleader,with a down-to-earth demeanour (and a more than passing resemblance to depictions ofJesus). He organises his neighbourhood into a group, sharing protection and food in the face of rioters and looters, and then negotiates entry into theTower of Londonfor protection, Britain'smonarchyapparently having been killed in the chaos. He is captured in an assault on the Tower by Lord Spencer, a self-styledfeudalwarlord,who tries to publiclybeheadTempest onTower Greenwhen he refuses to swear fealty. They are attacked by Tube Rats, a vicious group of cannabalistic survivors who had taken over the defunctLondon Undergroundsystem; in the battle, Tempest proves his worth to Spencer as an equal rather than a lieutenant.

Tempest, Spencer, and their army slowly regain control over parts of central London, encountering ahospitalcontaining medical staff who had becomeinsanedue to events and have started acultaround worship of human organs; a group called the Wreckers who drive hand-crankeddiesel-poweredtanksandtrains;and an 'electric temple' inside apower station,within which another group of deranged people worship electricity as if it still exists.

Unknown to everyone on Earth, the electricity-interfering satellite is destroyed bymeteor impact.It's Tempest who discovers the station's generators work when he turns them on to prove electricity is never coming back. The strip ends with Tempest vowing to re-create the world without the many social problems wrought by moderntechnology.

Reception

Reviewing the 2014 collected edition,Lew Stringerhighly praised both the art and story, describing it as "one of the best British adventure strips of its time", despite noting a hurried conclusion.