Intended as an educational publication, the cover described it as "The National Boys' Magazine" and the content mixed comic strips with a much larger quotient of factual articles than most other Fleetway children's titles of the time.

Despite its mainly factual remit, Ranger is best remembered for debuting Mike Butterworth and Don Lawrence's fantasy epic comic strip "The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire".

Matthews assigned him to the newly conceived Ranger, which was another of Fleetway's attempts to match the success of Eagle by blending exciting adventure serials with the respectability of factual content and higher production values.

Regular educational features included "Your World Today", a collection of spectacular or interesting photographs from recent events around the world; "Bobby Moore's World of Sport", an illustrated column purportedly by the West Ham and England captain; military history strand "The Story of the Soldier"; eyewitness historical account series "At First Hand"; aviation thoughts from test pilot Neville Duke; a car feature from Formula Three racing driver Graham Tomlinson; annotated machinery in "Looking into Things"; a succession of real life tales penned by Biggles creator W. E. Johns (taken from The Biggles Book of Treasure Hunting); and historical picture quiz "What Why Where Who When?".

Most of the strips were devised by Matthews and Sanders but written by Mike Butterworth, and featured art from many of the company's most talented artists including Don Lawrence, Jesús Blasco and Geoff Campion, while Frank Hampson (albeit via unused previous work[3]), Ron Embleton, Ferdinando Tacconi and Eric Parker would contribute to covers and factual pieces.

While text stories had been on the decline in other Fleetway titles they fitted the image of Ranger; the first issue debuted John Hunter's western "The Range Rider", and from the second it was joined by a serialisation of Richard Armstrong's novel Sea Change.

[1] Sanders also felt the magazine was a casualty of inter-departmental rivalries in Fleetway, though he would summarise that the title as a whole was "a poor idea, badly executed, overpriced [...] and targeted at a market that didn't exist anymore".

As Look and Learn already had a plethora of factual pages, only the strips "Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire", "Space Cadet", "Rob Riley" and "Dan Dakota - Lone Gun" continued, while a second attempt was made to adapt the Asterix material as "In the Days of Good Queen Cleo".

However, Chief Caradoc and his village hold out thanks to a magic potion brewed by Doric the Druid, the exceptional cunning of the diminutive Beric the Bold and the superhuman strength of the son of Boadicea.

Tales from the alien culture of Elekton in which futuristic technology, such as antigravity vehicles and energy ray weapons, was blended with architecture, dress, and customs reminiscent of ancient civilizations.