Yep Battle Action Force used the Classic UK Comic format of about half a dozen stories of 3-4 pages each. These stories could be anything from one off shorts to 3-4 month epics.
Speaking for myself the change from the Z Force era to the AF era came at about the time I stopped buying Action Figures, but my younger brother did carry on collecting, but he always preferred the earlier range. And comparing the two ranges now I still prefer the earlier figures despite the limited mobility as they look better as a group as the uniforms and style are much more consistent than in the AF range. The other thing that is good about the early range is it possible to build armies for each force as they all have generic figures. With AF the Infantryman couldnt be bought, only ordered by collecting points (surely a BAD decision).
After the change from Palitoy to Hasbro (and from the Red cards to the GI-Joe style ones) the range seems to have lost some of its appeal, the characters mainly became American and the designs of figures and vehicles gradually became more implausible and less realistic.
Comic confusion
A long and rambling answer.......
It's good to be back
Action Force STILL Needs You!
Action Force STILL Needs You! 
For the record, European Missions never reprinted any Battle stories. Someone decided to give the comic rights to Marvel UK, and swiped them from Battle. (The first Battle issue sans AF had the cover "UK Warship Fires On UK Helicoptor!!!" from Day Of The Jackal. Ahem.) Battle had big plans for their storylines, which you'll see when the Deep Cover scans go online. Boo! Hiss!
Whereas Battle was an anthology paper running several stories at once, Marvel UK basically had two strips, five pages a week of new British material, sometimes concurrent, oftimes not, and GI Joe reprints with little or no regard to continuity. They also had an occasional non-Joe backup story. Some poor sod also had the job of replacing "Joe" with "AF" in every word balloon!!!
50 issues later, that folded, Battle laughed and also folded, and Action Force monthly was released. I believe this was full of new UK material. I'm toying with scanning the Marvel UK strips for the site, and so I'd be very keen to know which UK stories were featured in European Missions, as it seems daft for me to scan strip already released in the States. If you could get me a list of story titles that'd be really helpful.
Whereas Battle was an anthology paper running several stories at once, Marvel UK basically had two strips, five pages a week of new British material, sometimes concurrent, oftimes not, and GI Joe reprints with little or no regard to continuity. They also had an occasional non-Joe backup story. Some poor sod also had the job of replacing "Joe" with "AF" in every word balloon!!!
50 issues later, that folded, Battle laughed and also folded, and Action Force monthly was released. I believe this was full of new UK material. I'm toying with scanning the Marvel UK strips for the site, and so I'd be very keen to know which UK stories were featured in European Missions, as it seems daft for me to scan strip already released in the States. If you could get me a list of story titles that'd be really helpful.
European Missions and AF monthly are exactly the same!
In fact the only reference to GI Joe in the European Missions is the covers and on the title pages of the strips (and they gave up on that from issue 6 onwards). All the strips refer to the team being Action Force and even the ads were AF toys. There are no different strips at all.
This might have something to do with them both being printed back to back in the UK with the same publishing team.
-Fluff-
In fact the only reference to GI Joe in the European Missions is the covers and on the title pages of the strips (and they gave up on that from issue 6 onwards). All the strips refer to the team being Action Force and even the ads were AF toys. There are no different strips at all.
This might have something to do with them both being printed back to back in the UK with the same publishing team.
-Fluff-
Thanks man, that's really helpful! But now the thought of scanning all the Marvel UK stories except for the monthlies feels a bit... half-hearted. I'm really in two minds aboiut putting the Marvel stuff on BFTB, the stories end on such a climax with Deep Cover, I don't know if they'd be out of place or not. What do you lot reckon?
Hmmm I'm of two minds about this. Some of the Marvel Action force stories were pretty good (like Destro tricking AF into comitting piracy!), and you got to see Cobra cells around the globe (I particularly remember a storyline set in Morocco) which ties in a lot more with the current Devils Due comic than it ever did with the old US-centric Marvel GI Joe comic.
On the other hand as you said, Deep Cover is an awesome epic storyline that ends very well (if on a vicious cliffhanger!) and the stories just weren't the same in Marvel's hands. On the whole I'd say stick with the Battle comics and maybe pick a few of the Marvel stories for scanning.
On the other hand as you said, Deep Cover is an awesome epic storyline that ends very well (if on a vicious cliffhanger!) and the stories just weren't the same in Marvel's hands. On the whole I'd say stick with the Battle comics and maybe pick a few of the Marvel stories for scanning.
Yeah, I think it'd be a culture clash to add the Marvel UK stuff to the Red Shadow based BFTB. There also seem to be plenty of copies of the Marvel comics on ebay, issues 1+2 still sealed etc., so I'll leave it for the mo.
I may well end up doing a Marvel UK based site, as one of my all time favourite comics was Zoids, and as both titles only ran for 50 odd issues it would help to flesh out the site.
There's also the Transformers comics too, all of the UK strip by Simon Furman was superb, many of which can be found at http://www.oneshallstand.com
Does anyone know what's happened to the Death's Head site?
I may well end up doing a Marvel UK based site, as one of my all time favourite comics was Zoids, and as both titles only ran for 50 odd issues it would help to flesh out the site.
There's also the Transformers comics too, all of the UK strip by Simon Furman was superb, many of which can be found at http://www.oneshallstand.com
Does anyone know what's happened to the Death's Head site?