Lion was a weekly British comics periodical published by Amalgamated Press/Fleetway Publications from 23 February 1952 to 18 May 1974. A boys' adventure comic, Lion was originally designed to compete with Eagle, the popular weekly comic published by Hulton Press that had introduced Dan Dare (ironically, Eagle was later merged into Lion). Lion lasted for 1,156 issues. By the 1960s Lion had settled into being one of the most popular British weekly titles of the time. Editor Bernard Smith was always proud to say that he had the latest issue of Lion delivered to Buckingham Palace every Friday, the young Prince Charles being an avid reader (in 1960, Prince Charles was 11 years old). Publication history In 1954, Amalgamated Press (AP) editor Reg Eves was named editor of Lion. Despite having no interest in science fiction, Eves was under orders from management to have a space hero to compete with Dan Dare, and commissioned Captain Condor from writer Frank S. Pepper. AP was acquired by IPC/Fleetway in 1959 (with Eves retiring as editor); partly as a result, Lion merged with several other comics during its life, including Sun in 1959, The Champion in 1960, Eagle in 1969, and Thunder in 1971. By the early 1970s sales were slipping, and in 1974 Lion was merged with Valiant. Several Lion strips continued in Valiant, but that title merged with Battle Picture Weekly in 1976. Lion Annuals were published until 1983. Content Lion's first issue contained a mix of text stories and comic strips. The flagship story in the original incarnation was Captain Condor – Space Ship Pilot, a science fiction adventure in the Dan Dare mould. The premiere issue also contained the first adventure of Robot Archie (called The Jungle Robot in early adventures) who would go on to become one of the title's most popular characters. The most popular story was Paddy Payne — Warrior of the Skies, written by Val Holding and drawn by Joe Colquhoun. Captain Condor was the cover feature from issue #1 to #283 (1952 to 1957); that spot was taken by Paddy Payne from 1957 to 1964. The military feature Badges of the Brave took over the cover from 1964 to early 1965. In the 1960s, Lion began to feature an increasing number of anti-hero characters such as The Spider and The Sludge (who would later battle Robot Archie in his own strip). Karl the Viking,