Bullet was a comic book

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 published weekly in the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 during the 1970s.

First published on 14th February 1976

1976 in comics

This is a list of comics-related events in 1976.- Year overall :* American Splendor, Harvey Pekar's long-running autobiographical comic book title, publishes its debut issue.* Fantagraphics Books, Inc. founded by Gary Groth and Michael Catron....

 by D.C. Thomson

D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd

D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd, is a publishing company based in Dundee, Scotland, best known for producing The Dundee Courier, The Evening Telegraph, The Sunday Post, Oor Wullie, The Broons, The Beano, The Dandy and Commando comics...

 for 7p, it focused upon adventure, action, revenge, science fiction, war and sport. It was a popular comic for boys throughout its publication.

The main character was a moustached, multi-talented, highly trained secret agent, aptly named Fireball. When his parents had died in a mysterious car crash when he was a young child, he became the ward of his father's friend Lord Peter Flint, a wartime hero (aka Warlord). Fireball had been trained by "Uncle Pete" (since childhood) in the arts of shooting, martial arts, sports and survival - this was as well as the usual reading and writing skills. The full Fireball story was secret but could be acquired by joining the "Fireball club" which gave you the story enclosed in a red, plastic wallet. This story was used as the plain text for a One-time pad

One-time pad

In cryptography, the one-time pad is a type of encryption, which has been proven to be impossible to crack if used correctly. Each bit or character from the plaintext is encrypted by a modular addition with a bit or character from a secret random key of the same length as the plaintext, resulting...

 for encrypting/decrypting secret messages which often appeared in Bullet's central pages as a sequence of random numbers. You also received a Fireball pendant for joining. Fireball's original pendant (which he always wore) saved his life on one occasion - it shielded him from a long range sniper's bullet. Fireball's arch enemy was Catriona Klansberg (aka "The Cat"). Fireball had a soft spot for her - he had a habit of letting her slip away after he had just thwarted her evil plan.

Fireball was said to have been modelled on Peter Wyngarde

Peter Wyngarde

Peter Paul Wyngarde is an Anglo-French actor best known for playing the character Jason King, a bestselling novelist turned sleuth, in two British television series in the late 1960s and early 1970s: Department S and Jason King .-Biography:He was born Cyril Goldbert in Marseilles, France, the...

.

In December 1978

1978 in comics

This is a list of comics-related events in 1978.- Year overall :* DC suffers the DC Implosion, the abrupt cancellation of more than two dozen ongoing and planned titles, with the vast majority of the books leaving uncompleted storylines .* Archie Goodwin resigns as Marvel Comics editor-in-chief,...

 the comic merged into the longer running Warlord comic.

Notable stories

Fireball: Bullet always included weekly stories about Fireball getting into various scrapes, going on dangerous missions, saving the world and generally kicking the backsides of the baddies - he was always able to maintain a sense of humour throughout the most death-defying situations.

Some of the other stories included:

• Twisty: Twisty Lunnon was a fantastic footballer, with an attitude, who also raced pigeons in his spare time and sometimes had brushes with the law. He started off playing as an apprentice with 4th division Sleethorpe United. He had a crooked left foot (caused by a car crash) which allowed him to bend the ball with astonishing accuracy.
• Smasher: a 50 feet (15.2 m), virtually indestructible robot which destroyed cities. It was controlled from a secret command bubble by Doctor Doom (not to be confused with Dr. Victor von Doom in Marvel Comics
  Marvel Comics
  Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
  
  ), an evil genius who planned to take over the world. Bullet ran several series for this story - they had to nuke it at the end.
• Wonder Mann: H.E. Mann had been raised by computers to become a world beating sportsman. A small radio/T.V "eye" linked Mann to Professor Wilkie and his assistant Tom Brace who were able to give remote assistance. He was seemingly unbeatable at every sport.
• Midge: Sixteen year old "Midge" Miller worked for Callaghan's the builders who were erecting a prefabricated shed at Marrow's shipyard. Midge started off as a 7 stone weakling and was bullied by his macho co-workers. However, in his spare time he took up a body-building course at the S.W.I.S.H., the Shipyard Workers Indoor Sports Hall and at the end of the story became a hunk to be reckoned with.
• Three Men in a Jeep: A 2nd world war story set in Northern France during 1944. Three men escaped from a military prison and started fighting their own war. They stole a Jeep and then went around killing huns, blowing things up and causing mayhem.
• Vic's Vengeance: Vic Mason swore to avenge his father, killed opposing the Dean brothers, leaders of a vicious gang terrorising the East End of London
  East End of London
  The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
  
  . Patch Burns, a scrap dealer and ex-policeman (with an eye patch) became Vic's ally - he mentored him, helped train him and gave staying alive tips.
• A Tale of Terror from Solomon Knight: A different scary story every week. Solomon Knight would introduce the story and then tell us what the story was all about at the end of it, sometimes leaving certain disturbing aspects open to the reader's imagination.
• Werewolf: When ex-detective Dave Barry inherits an old house, he gains the power to change into a werewolf whenever the moon shines. Using this power, he fights an endless war against crime.
• Ginger: Tim Brady was a fugitive on the run from his bullying stepfather who had attempted to drown Ginger, his oddly-coloured greyhound. Tim saved the dog's life and the once weakly pup developed into a potential champion. Several unsavoury people (including the stepfather himself) realised Ginger's worth and attempted to get him from Tim using unscrupulous means.
• Strike Force 2000: Fighting a constant war against a Revolutionary Organisation of Anarchy and Terror (R.O.A.T) are the three men of Strike Force 2000. They flew through the sky using jet propulsion systems strapped to their backs, carried machine guns and had a radio/tv "eye" link with a secret computer base.

Other Items

• Fireball Calling: The comic always had a two-page spread entitled Fireball Calling - it contained readers' letters (often followed by a reply from Fireball), trivia, the encrypted passwords/messages and competitions. Readers would get a fireball t-shirt for getting a letter printed. The writer of the week's best letter would receive an electronic pocket calculator - a much-coveted item in those days!
• Sports profiles: Often there would be a footballers' fact file and/or information about veteran or sports cars, etc.
• Fireball Club: There was a Fireball club that readers could join, in return for a small sum they would get a red plastic wallet containing a copy of Fireball's secret biography (which served as a key for decoding messages in the comic), an i.d. card and a Fireball Flaming 'F' pendant.