The latest issue of the current Battle Action – Issue Eight – maxi series, curated by Garth Ennis, arrives in comic shops next week in the UK (26th March 2025), featuring a great cover by Torunn Gronbekk.
Inside, in the latest episode of “Johnny Red: A Couple of Heroes” by Garth, with art by Keith Burns, the Flying Gun is turned loose in all its devastating firepower – and Johnny takes off on one last mission…
In “Nina Petrova: The Lucky Ones“, Torunn Grønbekk and artist Patrick Goddard team up for a flashback story, in which Nina must rescue Masha from a field hospital before the German invasion overruns the facility…
This adventure was originally planed for #9 – replacing the advertised “Dredger” tale from Garth and John Higgins, a “brutal tale”, in which we were to find out just how Dredger became the stone-cold bastard that everyone fears, and only a mother could love?
Nina Petrova was one of the very first action heroines in modern British comics, first appearing in Battle Action‘s “Johnny Red” strip in the issue cover dated 22 July 1978. She quickly made it clear that she had no need of rescue by Squadron-Leader Johnny Redburn from the get go: in fact, she decked him on their first meeting!
This isn’t the first time the Angel of Death, one of Russia’s wartime women aviators is in the spotlight, of course. In modern Battle Action times, “Nina Petrova and The Angels of Death” were in the limelight in the 2022 Battle Action Special, still available as a digital editiuon from the Tresury of British Comics website.
As the 2000AD website notes here, the characters were one more aspect of the Great Patriotic War that original “Johnny Red” writer Tom Tully chose to highlight. Soviet women served in many combat roles throughout the conflict, with air crew flying both fighters and conventional bombers for their nation’s air force, but Nina and her Angels represented a very specific unit: the 588th Night Bomber Regiment. Tully fictionalised them as the 7th Women’s Air Reconnaissance Regiment, who soon became a regular fixture in the strip, flying multiple missions alongside their comrades in Falcon Squadron.
• Battle Action #8 is on sale in British comic shop 26th March 2025 | On sale in the US 30th April 2025 | Buy it from Forbidden Planet (Affiliate Link)
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, British Comics - Current British Publishers, Comic Previews, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News
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