Prog 9 - Invasion

Silk tells Savage that he has a surprise waiting for him when they return to their base. The surprise is a Royal Navy Underwater team. They have scuba gear and limpet mines and they're going to blow The Volga out of the water.

Silk was an ex-army officer and he was trained in underwater demolition. He tells Savage that he can't join the party because he doesn't have the necessary skills.

Later, at the docks, with The Volga approaching, Silk and his team dive into the water. Savage watches from a distance. He has a plan just in case Silk and his crew fail to sink the ship.

As Silk and his frogmen approach the Volga, the Admiral onboard has been informed that six frogmen are approaching their vessel. He gives the order to use the ships sonic weapons.
Silk is the only survivor. He is taken onboard the ship for interrogation. After witnessing Silks failure, Savage executes his own plan. Using the cranes on the docks...Savage and his men swing into action. As Savage sweeps the deck clear of Volgans. The Admiral makes himself scarce and hids below deck. Savage swings aboard his special cargo...oil! This should take care of everything. Savage orders his men off the ship and he ignites the oil. Mission accomplished!
Fairly run-of-the-mill Invasion story. Nothing much to say here. Although the Bil Savage saying 'Hello Sailor...' is all kinds of disturbing!

The art by Carlos Pino is serviceable but kind of forgettable.

Prog 7 - Invasion

The Volgan troops comandeer a train. They joke that the British have no more fight left in them.

An hour later a Volgan armored column is making it's way to Oxford. At the front of the column is Volgan Field Marshall Zinski. The column comes to a halt at a railroad crossing. They wait awhile until eventually the barrier is lifted for them to cross. The Field Marsahll isn't to happy with the lenght of time it took the signalman to raise the barrier. He'll be glad when when "his kind will be replaced by efficient Volgans."

But the signalman is none other then Bill Savage! He radios his men..."The Fly is in the web!" He lowers the barrier again...this time trapping Zinski's car.
They realise that it's a trap..but too late! There's a train coming down the tracks. The soldiers in the car run for cover. Zinski is too slow. He's fat and can't seem to move quick enough...and...
...that's the end of Field Marshall Zinski!

Savage radios his units and they come out from the surrounding wheatfields where they've been hiding and take the Volgans by surprise. The Volgans haven't the stomach for battle and turn and flee.

Just as Savage decides to pull out Volgan gunships arrive! Now it's Savages' turn to be taken by surprise.
The elite Spyder Troops armed with flamethrowers are destroying the Resistance. Savage knows that they'll all be burned alive unless he can take out the Spyder Troop chopper. Armed with a rocket launcher...he shoots and hits one chopper causing it to crash into the second chopper. They're saved!
Something is bothering Savage...how did the Volgans know the resistance would strike at the railroad crossing.

Later back at the base, on Londons Isle of Dogs, Savage gets his answer. Listening to the Volgan News broadcast, it's revealed that thanks to a last minute tip-off the Volgans were able to destroy most of the resistance despite losing Field Marshall Zinski.

Savage and his Mad Dogs were betrayed!

After an investigation, a new member of the resistance confesses that he sold them out for money. Savage is pissed! Half his men were wiped out because of the traitors greed.

The Resistance has to get tougher if they're going to drive out the invaders!
Good installment.

It shows Savages' first setback. Even though they killed a lot of Volgans, the price was too high. The fact that a traitor was discovered amongst Savages men adds an extra dimension to the strip. Not everything in 'Invasion' is going to be so straight forward and black and white.

I like Mills structure to the script. The train on the first page is the train that gets derailed later on.

The Volgan arrogance and disregard towards the conquered is really emphasised here with Zinskis comments on shooting the signalman and also by the Volgan troops in kicking the civiians off the train and making them ride in cattle cars. Mills is definitely making comparisons with the Volgans and Nazis.

Mills script really shines. As for the art...I don't really care for it. Sarompas does an okay job but it feels lifeless...I can't put my finger on why...it just does.

Prog 6 - Invasion

After seeing the live executions on TV, Silk asks Savage what should they do. Everytime they hit the Volgans, they take hostages and execute them in retaliation. Savage's answer is 'Simple - Hit 'em harder!'

Bill leaves his 'Mad Dog' crew and goes window shopping!

Later a Volgan patrol hear a looter breaking into store. A Volgan soldier quips that only Volgans can have the luxuries found in these stores. They arrive at the store front and see only shop window dummies...
After mowing down the patrol, Savage continues looting the store, grabbing clothes off the racks.

The next morning in the West End of London, the Volgans gather up civilians, they will make them pay for the 'outrage' of the previous night!
The Volgans don't even bother searching the civilians, in their arrogance they think that they're not dangerous.

The hostages are brought to Wembley (Victory) Stadium where they are to face a firing squad. The execution is being broadcast Live all over London on big viewing screens.

As the firing squad take aim...the old man, that they'd picked on earlier, falls over. They laugh at him and say he will die where he falls. But this isn't any 'old man'...it's Savage!
And the other 'hostages' are his men in disguise!

Now, that they have the element of surprise they take out the Volgans in the stadium!

What follows is kind of bizarre...they sing football (soccer) songs as they wipe out the Volgan firing squad.
Savage and his men clean out the stadium of other Volgan troops. The 'Volgan' television presenter decides to take out some of the resistance. But Savage is quick. He may be out of bullets but he's still got his knife! On live broadcast from the stadium Savage addresses the public in yet more soccer cliches. he talks about his killing of the Volgans inside Wembley as a qualifying match and that the BIG match is coming soon and then he leads them in a sing song!
Savage and his Mad Dogs leave before more troops arrive.

Gerry Finley Day wrote this one, so it kind of makes sense that it would be a bit bizarre. Finley Day was notorious for his all-over-the-place scripts. His scripts always had heavy rewrites.

Whats' truly strange is the resistance chanting football slogans/songs as they kill Volgans and then Savages address to the nation ending in a rendition of 'You'll never walk alone!'.

Really strange.

The artwork is by Ian Kennedy. It's pretty standard fare but probably too clean for a strip like Savage.

Prog 5 - Invasion

At the Gants hill checkpoint Savage and his Mad Dogs go on a killing spree!
An armored car arrives on the scene and Savage takes action.
The resistance overpower the Volgans and take control of the checkpoint. Savage grabs some explosives and orders his crew back into the van.

Onlookers are in disbelief, they can't believe someone is fighting back against the invaders. They're elated, but their cheering is short lived...Volgan security cops have arrived on motorbikes and are running the civilians down for cheering the resistance. They give chase. Savage orders Silk to take off his jacket. He has a plan to stop his pursuers. He throws the jacket out of the back of the van. The Volgans think one of the resistance have fallen out of the vehicle. But they're mistaken...
Savage has wrapped the jacket around some explosives.

Scratch one squad of Volgans!
But it's not enough for Savage. He decides that instead of laying low he's going to Trafalgar Square to try and rouse the populace. Meanwhile, in New Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Volgan Secret Police, Marshal Vashkov has been informed of Savages escapade and where he's planning to go next. Vashkov orders his heavy armored units to converge on 'Volga' (Trafalgar) Square.

Savage has reached the square and addresses the crowd through a loudspeaker.
His rally is interrupted. Volgan tanks have arrived. Savage asks one of his men to rig the rest of the Volgan explosives around Lord Nelsons column. With the explosives set up, Savage retreats to a safe distance. The tanks enter the square and Savage unleashes hell!
Savage leaves knowing that he did a job well done. They drive to the abandoned docklands and set up their new base of operations.
A very quick paced episode. We see what kind of mayhem Savage is capable of when he leads a team. A couple of interesting things from these pages too...one, the Volgans are renaming landmarks, which means they see their occupation as long term, and two, from their point of view the resistance are 'terrorists'. Those two observations add more depth to the strip now that I reread it as an adult. There's only one part that brings it back to a 'kids' strip...it's when Savage asks one of his men to set the explosives up. He's conveniently called 'Blaster' because he used to work demolition.
It's like calling a team mate coffee lad because he used to work in a coffee shop. Then again, it makes sense because it's Gerry Finley Day that wrote the script. He's the writer that created Rogue Trooper, who's name happens to be Rogue and Bagman who happens to be a bagman etc.

Prog 4 - Invasion

I absolutely love this splash page. A really cool cut-away to reveal the insides of the resistance Headquarters and the text box on the bottom right saying that the location can't be revealed for security purposes. It's those neat touches that really involve the reader in the story especially the code stuff.

The brigadier asks Savage what he thinks of the underground fortress. Savage isn't all that impressed he wants to find out with all this weaponry why aren't they killing more 'Dirty Volgans!'

The Brigadier brings Savage into room full of men like him - rough necks! Although, the Brigadiers attiude comes across as a bit insulting.
The Brigadier tells Savage that the volunteer roughnecks are men like him...dockers, mechanics, electricians that have all passed tests that he himself had set up to make soldiers out of them.

Savage has a test of his own. He asks the men assembled to show them his hands.
On inspection he sees marks left from hard work, he knows that these men are who they claim to be...except the man claiming to be a miner! His hands have no marks and looks like he's never done a days hard work in his life.
He's been rumbled. He's no miner...he's a Volgan spy! The spy grabs the Brigadier and threatens to kill him unless they let him leave.
The spy and his hostage enter the elevator and start to ascend to the surface. Savage is having none of it. He grabs the dockers hook and latches himself onto the bottom of the elevator.

The elevator stops and Savage springs his surprise!

Savage has now more than proven how valuable he is to the resistance. So much so, that the Brigadier gives him his own resistance group to lead. The codename for the group is aptly called 'Mad Dog'. Bill also gets a pump action shotgun as a bonus. He won't have to reload so often now!

We then cut to a scene at a Volgan checkpoint on the road to London. The soldiers wave down a civilian van to check out what they're carrying. But this isn't an ordinary 'civilian' van.

It's carrying Savage and his 'Mad Dogs!'
Now that Savage has his team and they're all fully armed...the Volgans are going to be in for a hell of a time.

Let the mayhem continue...

Prog 3 - Invasion

What a fantastic 'splash' page! You can tell the artist used photo reference but he uses it so good compared to a lot of artists working in the industry today. He didn't just trace the reference...he enhanced it. There's a huge difference. To see some examples of enhancing photo-reference, check out Eisner nominated artist Steve Bryant's blog.
http://atomictiki.blogspot.com/
Steve is great at showing how to properly use reference without using it as a crutch.

Back to our story. The Volgans are continuing their brutality on the general populace. Savage is in hiding in a room above a cafe watching tv. The face on tv is Simon Creepton, Creepton is the mouthpiece of Volgan propaganda.
As Bill is watching the 'news' a group of men approach the cafe. The leader of this gang is the shadowy figure that was following Savage from last episode. The cafe owner tells the men that Savage is in the room overlooking the cafe.

As they approach the room, Bill notices their shadows under the door. They crash into the room, pull back the bed sheets...Bill isn't there! Only pillows!

Savage has got the drop on them.
The ringleader explains that he is Lieutenant Silk, he's been watching him and he's come to recruit Savage for the resistance. Savage declines.

Unknown to Savage and co, at that same time a Volgan patrol arrives. The cafe owner has turned them in. Bill takes care of them with a little help from Silk and gang.
After the Volgs are wiped out, one of Silks crew tries to grab Savage's gun but Bill jams the idiots hand in the gun barrel. Bill realises how desperate they are to get him to join and he changes his mind...but if he's going to sign up, he wants things done his way!
Not a bad episode. We're reminded again why Bill is so single minded in wiping out Volgans and now that he's part of the resistance, he can take his 'revenge' to even greater extremes.

With Savage now part of the resistance...it's time for some organised bloodshed and mayhem!

Prog 2 - INVASION

To be completely honest...one of the main reasons I wanted to do this blog was to show off some fantastic artwork. And this splash page is fantastic artwork!

An interesting note about Invasion is that the fictional Volgans were in fact supposed to be Soviet Union troops but the higher ups got cold feet and wanted fictional baddies instead. A bit of a shame really but worked out quite well in the long run for the 2000ad Universe. Pat Mills would later revisit the Volgans with the ABC Warriors and a more modern take on Savage.

The story opens with scenes of more Volgan brutality. The Volgans are killing the survivors of their nuclear attack on a major city (the strip says a midland city!) and hanging politicians from the nearest lamposts...which is not necessarily and bad thing. :-)

A group of Volgans are celebrating in a pub, rubbing the locals faces in it, when up pops Savage.

Savage proceeds to blast them to pieces and in totally bizarre fashion...he runs out of ammo and leaves the room to reload! The volgans come to their senses and try and rush Savage. Which Savage kills them all...leaves the bar...blows up their tank outside and walks off into the sunset while a stranger watches for the shadows and says...

The dialogue by todays standards is pretty funny. I couldn't help but think that the 'Stranger' is a Friend of Dorothy.

But that's not the only piece of dialogue that made me chuckle. Check out the panel below for some Dirty Harry inspired spoken words...but not as cool as the original.

Overall, it's pretty standard fare. The artwork is pretty damn good except for one panel. The panel I've posted below...It looks like Savage is shooting clones and the soldier in the middle is either doing a bizarre dance or has a huge headache!
One more thing of note. The tank crew that Bill offs in this episode are the
soldiers responsible for murdering Bills wife and kids. How Bill knows this...we
aren't told.

Prog 1 - INVASION

What a great splash page to begin a story with.

Invasion wasted no time in getting straight into the action. In 6 pages we get the invasion of Britain by an East Asian army -The Volgans -(no doubt based on the Soviet Union.) The reluctance of other nations to step in and help Britain, raping of Britains natural resources, a glimpse of how harsh living under a Volgan regime would be and finally, last but not least Bill Savage's 'origin' story. All that in 6 pages!

You can tell by the art on the strip that the artist used photo-reference a lot. But this is photo-reference done really well as opposed to some artists today that more or less trace the photos. Here's a panel with Angela Rippon-esque newsreader. To those that don't know or where too young to remember...Angela was the first female news anchor for the BBC.

Bill Savage was based on Stanley bakers character from 'Hell Drivers'.
Watch the trailer here...www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8qFD2s0Fwg


It wasn't unusual for Pat Mills, who was editor then, to loosely base ideas or characters on popular movies or actors. For example...the Harlem Heroes was Mills answer to Rollerball and Dredd was basically Clint Eastwoods "Harry Callahan'.



The basic story is this...In a war that took only 8 hours, Britain has been invaded by a harsh and brutal regime from Eastern Asia. Bill Savage is a lorry (Truck) driver who's returning to his family when he finds out that his family have been killed by a stray shell from a Volgan tank. Savage finds his shotgun and takes out the nearest Volgan patrol.

Britain may have surrendered but Savages war has only just begun.

Savage is Britains 'Punisher' or is the Punisher the USA's 'Savage'?