The Juggernaut ... from Hurricane Annual 1968

I spotted a cover to a Hurricane Annual that rang memory bells and picking it up flicked through the pages to discover a story that I rang those memory bells a second time. It featured a massive robot, indeed a Juggernaut, from Planet Z.
This issue is only two years before that one, and the artwork is painted, and therefore the robot is not quite so detailed, but the basic ingredients are all there.

The story is pretty straight forward, as they always tended to be, with the military dictator being very definitely the bad guy, and the heroes, Doctor Dan Morgan and his assistant Joe Dodge, having no concerns when calling down the mighty Juggernaut from Planet Z to deal with him.

There is no mention of where exactly Planet Z is or why they should care to help, but it can't be that far away as the robot arrives pretty soon.
The nice twist here is that the robot's controls are taken over by the bad guys and so the Juggernaut starts to attack the soldiers of the tiny state of Alkazia.

And the tide is quickly turned.

I must say that I was a little shocked when...

General Zeb, the bad guy, was very quickly disposed of.
Still, it all turned out pretty well, the tiny state of Alkazia was returned to the happy province it had been, the Juggernaut had saved the day, the two heroes had (through the Juggernaut) saved the day and their reputations and the rare material called Alkazium (vital to the world's space rocket programmes) remained available for exploitation by the powers of the world.

There are strong similarities between this and the Robot Archie stories, the major difference (apart from the size of the robot) seeming to be that he is from a different planet. I wonder if other tales tell us more about Planet Z and its intentions towards the Earth.
It would be an interesting angle to take on this but I doubt it happened.

Robot Archie uses, then loses, his head.

Robot Archie has two stories in the 1970 LION annual.

In the first we find the mechanical marvel in India and whilst wandering around a local bazaar, with Ted Ritchie and Kan Dale, the robot begins to experience problems with his balance.

It seems that a crystal that is his movement co-ordinator has worn out (maybe we all have these and they are effected by alcohol... just a thought). This crystal is a semi precious gem, which whilst not expensive is not going to be easy to find in India. So they all set off for the biggest jewellery firm in town.
And you just know something is going to go wrong.
Yep, just as they arrive robbers who have just hit the firm are making a quick exit.
Archie, being the hero that he is rushes off to catch them.

But his balance is off and he catches the tram instead of the crooks.

The crooks make their escape and the even worse news is that the jeweller doesn't have the gem required to repair Archie (and you were thinking that he'd say the robbers just took the only one he had didn't you). But fear not, The Mad Maharajah has one. He sounds like the kind of person who would be only too happy to help, from behind his 'high walls' (as he never leaves the palace).

A short trip, avoiding a booby trap, being shot at, minor elephant crushing and head butting a heavy wooden door sees Archie behind the walls and chasing down an escaping helicopter (yep, it appears that The Mad Maharajah didn't get rich by lots of hard work (maybe not so mad after all then)).

Except that The Mad Maharajah had in fact died years before and the criminals had just moved in and pretended that he was still around, spending without a care.

In the second story, this time illustrated text rather than full blown comic pages, we see Archie pit his abilities again 'Head Hunters'.

In this tale the three get attacked by a tribe of head hunters, who manage to steal the transmitter that controls Archie before beating a hasty retreat back into the jungle. The heroes then allow themselves to get separated and finally catch up with Archie to find him having his head unscrewed by the Head Hunters.

It all looks pretty bleak for them all until Professor Zing turns up and saves the day. Why the Head Hunters had never removed the Prof's head is a mystery that is neither questioned nor answered, leading me to suspect him of being some evil matermind or somesuch, but I guess I may never know.

 

When it came to a real battle of the Robots, Archie was king...

The 1976 LION annual has two Robot Archie Stories.

In the first we find an illustrated tale of Archie meeting a robot adversary in the shape of Robot Reg. Ted Ritchie finds himself in an angry confrontation with a man only ever referred to as Harrison. After an initial clash, in which Archie appears to be sent flying by Robot Reg's repulsor beam, Ted is taken captive leaving Archie and an injured Ken Dale to lick their wounds.

But all is not what it seems, and Robot Archie has been onto Harrison all along, playing the role of a weaker robot in order to draw him out. He soon sets off with Dale and tracks down Harrison, Robot Reg and their captive.

Turns out the repulsor was a dud. Archie threw the fight and always knew he was the superior robot. This he demonstrates in the final conflict where he knocks Reg's block off.

A fitting end to the tale, and Robot Reg. Although to be fair to him he was only doing what he was programmed to do and was merely a tool being used by Harrison.
In the second story, this time a comic book tale, we see Robot Archie and friends in the Caribbean.

This eight page story sees Archie combat The Living Dead. Yep. Zombies. 'Beware  - I am Archie Lord of the Scrapyards' is Archie's challenge to Baron Samedi, Lord of the Graveyards, who turns out to be a bloke on stilts...

and the Zombies ? Well, they turned out to be men who had been hypnotised. Nothing is as it seems in the world of Robot Archie. Except Robot Archie himself.

The Iron Teacher.

Whenever I visit a book shop that stocks old books, or an antique fair, I keep my eye open for any old copies of LION, looking out for a new Archie story.
I was quite surprised then to come across this issue of Hotspur...

...which sports what at face value looks a bit like a Robot Archie clone.
Were Hotspur trying to attract readership from LION with its own mechanical marvel ?
The 6 page story tells the tale of Jake Todd, a teacher, who finds himself teacher school children in what looks to be Alaska. I've no idea how he ended up there but he and his mechanical pal take on some pirates and during the action manage to sink a Destroyer.

This is achieved by The Iron Teacher punching a hole in, and then ripping plates of steel, out of its hull and so sinking it.
But is the mechanical marvel actually a robot ?

Not by my definition.
Jake Todd appears to control all of The Iron Teacher's motions through a control device in his glove, and the words that appear to come from the Iron Teacher are actually spoken by Jake Todd through a 'throat microphone'.
The Iron Teacher is not self aware then and seems to be more a remote controlled device than anything else.

It's a nice design though and he may actually have been self aware as this version is a re-design and Jake Todd is a new addition to the character's tale. He may even become self aware in a later issue.

Guess I'd better add Hotspur to my list of things to look out for.

'But Archie was never more dangerous than when he was in danger'.

The cover of the LION Annual for 1979 shows Robot Archie in combat with a giant octopus...

A little disappointingly the robot only appears in 4 pages of an illustrated story in the annual itself, but the book does have a great Adam Eterno story so it's not all bad news.

Robot Archie by Shane Oakley.

I remember reading a few stories about Robot Archie when I was very young. It must have been in the pages of an issue or two of Lion that I first read about Professor C.R. Ritchie's robot. Built to be the world's most powerful mechanical man, I can't remember him ever coming across any other robots to prove himself against but I remember him fighting tigers and men with guns. 
On reading about Archie's history, I was surprised to find out that he couldn't speak when he first appeared (in 1952) and had to wait until 1966 when he was finally fitted with a voice box, he must have had plenty to say in the first issue that followed.
Robot Archie reappeared as Acid Archie in the fabulous Zenith (2000AD) by Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell and again in Albion (by Alan Moore, Leah Moore, John Reppion and illustrated by the sublime Shane Oakley). It was great to see and read about Robot Archie again after so many years and nobody really messed with his design at all, which says alot about how memorable it is and how respected by British creators down the years. You don't mess with perfection as they say.
Shortly after reading Albion I bought a page with Archie centre stage (you'll notice a Cyberman in there as well, and I'll include cyborgs in my definition of robots for the purposes of this blog).

and also commissioned artist Shane Oakley to do me a commission, which has sat framed on my wall for a good number of years now and still makes me smile.