“Pressure Point” is issue #5779 of the long-running British war story comic series COMMANDO, published by D.C. Thomson, a story that pits two Royal Air Force pilots against a deadly plot engineered by the KGB.
In the darkest days of the Cold War, the RAF’s interceptor crews lived on a knife-edge, knowing that every alert could be the harbinger of nuclear Armageddon, risking their lives to meet the ever-present threat of Soviet attack – but for one beleaguered Lightning jet pilot, the intense pressure will push him beyond endurance and into a fatal confrontation that could spark World War III!
AUTHOR’S NOTES
The striking cover for “Pressure Point” is by Keith Burns (Iron Cross, Out of the Blue), with interior art by Esteve Polls (Fronteras, Mega-City Noir). For this story, I wanted to go back to the height of the Cold War and pit RAF Lightnings against their Soviet adversaries like the Tu-95 Bear, and build a plot around the high-pressure environment that NATO’s interceptor pilots faced on a daily basis in the 1970s (and still do today!) At one point, the editorial team floated the idea of setting the story during the Battle of Britain, but I convinced them this tale needed to be told under the shadow of nuclear war.
One of my inspirations for this story was “Cheerio Ivan“, this terrific painting by Alex Hamilton, depicting a pair of F6 Lightnings from No.74 Squadron intercepting a Tu-95 – for more about this piece, click here. As always, there’s a bit of dramatic license in my story, but once again D.C. Thompson gave me the opportunity to write about fast jets and my favourite bits of military history; sharp-eyed readers may note that some of the characters in the story have names referencing famous manufacturers of British military aircraft. Thanks to the Cold War Jet Experience team at RAF Hendon, Richard Pike (The Lightning Boys), Chris Sandham-Bailey (Cold War Jets) and Aeroplane Icons for their works of reference, which came in very useful on this script.
GALLERY
