Spike was a weekly British anthology from DC Thomson, launched on 26th January 1983. A general anthology (e.g. not themed like its sibling Warlord [a war comic] or IPC's 2000 AD [sci-fi comic]), it was named for its initial cover star, the schoolboy Spike, a fairly standard mischievous boy who appeared in The Spike Report, though from the outset the main strip was clearly intended to be Iron Barr, a football strip about amateur goalie Charlie "Iron" Barr. Other initial strips included the spacefaring Starhawk, who had originated in Crunch in 1979, and skipped around various titles after that comic was cancelled; A Ghost in the Cockpit, a World War II story about a slain fighter pilot's spirit inhabiting his old Spitfire to help its new pilot battle the enemy; The Man in Black, later retitled The Truth About Wilson, following the adventures of a superhuman and seemingly immortal athlete; school strip The Bleak Street Bunch; and spy drama Ticker Tait, the story of retired Royal Marine Sergeant Sinclair Tait, who was forced to work for British intelligence's black ops division after they replaced his failing heart with an artificial one they could switch off remotely. Later strips included World War II strip Telford's Terrors, Winged Vengeance, Desert Fury and Stagg of the Secret Service; humour strip Krazy Cops; mystery drama The Town That Vanished; fantasy Megax the Warrior; football strip The Taming of Johnny Tough; crimefighting series The Mantracker; period Naval drama Midshipman Coward; teen drama On the Run!; and SF-oriented spy series Magnet, about a bionic secret agent.
With sales falling, Spike was cancelled with issue 67 on 28th April 1984, and merged a week later into Champ. The Spike Report was the only strip to truly transfer over, though Iron Barr became a member of Champ's We Are United cast following a transfer from his original football club, and Bleak Street Gang member Big Little moved schools to join Champ's Kid's Rule - OK!, while Starhawk would eventually reappear in Starblazer.
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