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Post by berkley on May 16, 2023 2:55:19 GMT -5
I think it works well in the superhero-type story Perez was doing, in which the other characters are visually larger than life as well. Gulacy, OTOH, can draw a more sleek and slender Black Widow because his other characters aren't over-sized musclemen, etc. So it all depends on the visual context for me.
I'm not saying it doesn't work, just that George liked his women like he liked his pancakes........stacked!
As did Kirby, now that you mention it. And yeah, maybe in both cases it was due more to their own personal preferences than to a consciously thought out aesthetic decision in relation to superhero comics art but I only wish more superhero artists had followed suit because for me, in this particular case, their personal predilections happened to coincide with what works in that genre.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 17, 2023 19:46:29 GMT -5
My next entry is bending my rule, a bit, about spy characters and not just adventurers or superheroes. then again, so did Black Widow. However, this character debuted working for the head of Britain's intelligence service (or as he is identified, an important man in the Foreign Office); so, I am going to count it. I am, of course, talking about Modesty Blaise.... Modesty Blaise was the creation of writer Peter O'Donnell, along with artist Jim Holdaway. The pair had worked together on the detective strip, Romeo Brown. Romeo Brown was originated by Alfred Mazure, for the tabloid newspaper The Daily Mirror, in 1954 and the editor was unhappy with the results. O'Donnell was writing the science fiction/fantasy adventure strip Garth and was brought in to take over Romeo Brown. Jim Holdaway was put on the art and they continued on the comedic strip until 1962, when the editor abruptly canceled the strip. O'Donnell had also previously adapted Dr No, for the Daily Express. O'Donnell had conceived the idea of the character, after a chance meeting with a young girl, during his wartime service in the Middle East. He originally worked with Dan Dare creator Frank Hampson to develop the idea; but, he wasn't happy with the results. At his insistence, Holdaway was brought in and they concocted a classic. Modesty made her debut, in 1963, in the London Evening Standard, before becoming syndicated to papers and magazines throughout the world. O'Donnell wrote the strip for the length of its existence, ending the strip in 2001. Holdaway drew it until his death, in 1970, when he was replaced by Spanish artist Enrique Romero, who drew it until the end, apart from a seven-year period, where art was handled by John Burns, Patrick Wright, and Neville Colvin (colvin drew it the longest of the three). Modesty Blaise is a young woman, somewhere in her 20s, at the start (she has no idea how old she really is or what was the date of her birthday), who is living a life of retired luxury, when the series begins. The strip opens as Sir Gerald Tarrant, "an important man in the Foreign Office", and his man Fraser, walk towards a high rise building, in Hyde Park, and go up to a penthouse apartment, to see the titular character. As the walk, dialogue describes her as having a personal fortune of half a million pounds sterling (the modern equivalent of 13+ million pounds or $16 million USD) and that she came by it through somewhat shadowy means, as Tarrant calls her "An un-virtuous woman, with a price above rubies." Fraser reminds him that she never trafficked in protection or vice and was never at odds with their organization. They call up to her flat and announce themselves and she invites them up, where they see her dispose of a gentleman caller, who didn't know when to take a hint.... She ejects the cad and changes into more comfortable clothes and listens to Sir Gerald's offer. He has Fraser go over their dossier on Modesty. Height: 5 ft 6 in, weight 120 lbs, age approx 26, black hair, some Eurasian features. Turned up in a displaced persons camp, in Greece, origin unknown. At age 17, she was a croupier in a casino in Tangiers, run by a small criminal group. She took over the group and turned it into The Network, a vast organization which operated in smuggling, currency and gold rackets, art and jewelry theft and freelance intelligence brokering. Well travelled globally. In 1960, Married and divorced a derelict Englishman, James Turner, who died in Singapore, in 1961. Modesty expresses sadness to hear that. Fraser continues that she broke up The Network and retired in the UK. She confirms she married Turner for British citizenship. Tarrant says he could use someone like her and she coldly replies that she decided, at age 12, in the DP camp, that no one would ever "use" her, again. Tarrant tells her that Turner had a marriage certificate and that their marriage was null and void and she is still a stateless person, who could be deported as an undesirable. Modesty assumes that he is blackmailing her to take the job. He tells her quite the opposite and sets the marriage certificate alight, destroying its existence. Modesty smiles and asks how he knew she was a compulsive payer of debts. Tarrant wants Modesty to help destroy a murder-for-hire organization, called La Machine which is being used by the East, to target NATO. He suggests that Modesty has found retirement boring and offers her a chance for some excitement, to return purpose to her life. She considers the offer and then goes to see her former partner, Willie Garvin. Fraser gave his dossier as age 30, born in Whitechappel, served in the French Foreign Legion from 1950-54 and then for Modesty, in The Network. He is now retired and owns a pub, called The Treadmill, about 30 miles outside of London. Modesty goes to visit and he too is tired of the boredom and quickly signs on. We learn that Modesty met Willie Garvin in Saigon, when she was building The Network. He was in a jail cell, but she had seen him fight in a muay thai bout (Thai kickboxing) and was impressed with his skills. he is a drunkard and Modesty offers him a chance to work for her, if he is the man she thinks he is, or he is free to leave the cell and drink himself to death. he signs on and rise to become her right hand man, always referring to her as Princess, because that is what she is to him and he is her knight errant. Their's is a relationship of mutual respect and kinship, with no sexual or romantic element. Together, they return to a life of adventure and excitement, sometimes taking missions from Sir Gerald, sometimes initiating their own, after encountering someone in need or being approached by a friend in trouble. Sometimes trouble targets them, but it usually regrets it. Willie is an expert with knives and a crack shot, though he prefers to work in close. Muay thai is a rapid martial arts filled with elbow and knee strikes, and powerful kicks, with the shin. It is one of the most dangerous striking arts. Modesty prefers pistols, but handles a rifle like a marksman. She uses a revolver, because it is more reliable. She also carries a small wooden rod, with bulbous, weighted ends, called a "kongo" or yawara stick (seen in the first image, in Modesty's hand) which she uses to strike at nerve clusters and other vulnerable points. Both are experts in unarmed combat, ancient and modern weapons and explosives. willie is a tinkerer and inventor and custom makes much of their gear. Modesty dabbles in diamond cutting and jewel setting and is quite versatile with locks. Modesty Blaise was a textbook in storytelling. The stories played out across daily installments, with O'Donnell crafting intricate plots and well developed characters, with interesting quirks. Holdaway is an expressive and detailed artist, telling the story from different angles, adding a richness to things like fabrics and textiles, making the clothes look lived in, the rooms realistically furnished, and the fictional world come alive. The strip moves across an exotic collection of locales and involves all manner of criminals and enemy spies, particularly Gabriel, leader of a criminal organization who turns up in the comic strip, the first novel and the 1960s film. The Gabriel Set Up is the third adventure, as the criminal Gabriel heads a vast organization, including The Phoenix Clinic, near Winnipeg, where they use hypnosis and drugs to treat "patients" and then extract secrets used for blackmail and other purposes. We start out by seeing the operation in the clinic, as Gabriel comes to inspect the set-up.... He warns the local boss about inquiring outside his operation, then heads off to a conference of his top sub-commanders, which is too close to the clinic for the local bosses liking. Elsewhere, Modesty sends a gentleman friend on his way, as it is time for them to part company. he starts to argue and she shuts him down and he agrees, not wanting to lose the friendship they have. She says she has a visitor coming and he assumes it is another lover; but, it is Sir Gerald, down for a weekend's clay pigeon shooting and relaxation. Willie Garvin is off in Ontario, playing lumberjack. Sir Gerald lets slip something about the Phoenix Clinic, them says he is there for relaxation; but, Modesty presses the point. the clinic seems connected to some information that went out on the intelligence market, known only to Tarrant and a trusted man. The man had gone to the clinic for relaxation treatment, to alleviate the stress of the job. Canadian intelligence has cleared the clinic, but Sir Gerald has nagging doubts. Modesty contacts Willie and he snoops around discretely and wires Modesty that it "...has the smell of a Gabriel set-up." Sir Gerald reacts to that name Modesty reveals that she ran up against Gabriel, when she ran the Network; but, he was too big and she backed away. Modesty links up with Willie and his current girlfriend, Marj Lanier (daughter of a lumber king, who attended the clinic and ended up having to pay twice as much for a tract of land hewas secretly planning to buy). Modesty goes undercover, as a patient, under the guise of the daughter of a jam manufacturer and dilettante. She is given a general program of exercise and interviews, then subjected to the Cloud 9 treatment. She is placed under hypnosis, and subliminal instruction, then questions are put to her, starting with her name, which she responds she doesn't know. They switch to who she is and she answers Modesty Blaise. These leads to more intense questioning but she provides no answers. They break off the treatment, for fear she might remember it, due to the intense conflict. Willie and a Canadian intelligence contact check out the locale of Gabriel's meeting place, for his conference. Varley, the man at the clinic, contacts Gabriel and tells him about Modesty. he tells him to discharge her in the usual way and alert him with the address at which she is staying. Gabriels has a man make contact and orders Modesty and Willie come out to Lakeside, the manor house where he is staying. there, he asks what she was doing at the clinic and she says he will have to buy in to get that information. he warns her off and gives her 24 hours to agree or face the consequences. Modesty and Willie leave and go back to their hotel and get suited up for action, Willie brining his throwing knives and Modesty packing a revolver and her kongo. They break into the clinic and find the control set up. They crack a safe and find the intelligence records gleaned from the sessions. They are spotted and run into a fight but Willie and Modesty prove more than a match, use stealth and speed to surprise the ambushers and take them down, while sending them in all directions. Modesty and Willie split and escape separately and Gabriel sends a message to Willie, via Marj, as a man enters her room, in the night. he leaves Modesty's sweater, which she removed to use in a fight, which has blood and holes. The man says she is dead. Willie doesn't believe it. He takes a pistol and his knives and heads for Lakeside. he sets up a fake car emergency, then hijacks a semi-truck (and gives the driver $200) and uses it to smash the gates at Lakeside. Meanwhile, Modesty returns and talks to Marj and goes out to stop Willie, as he is walking into a trap. Willie not only goes through the gates, but he smashes into the house and systematically kills Gabriel's men. Then he comes after Gabriel, who escapes in a motorboat, as Willie collapses, from his wounds. modesty gets there in time and administers first aid and Willie survives. The success of the strip brought offers from Hollywood and the film rights were purchased by British Lion films, but it was never made. However, a Hollywood production, directed by Joseph Losey did happen, starring Italian actress Monica Vitti, as Modesty (with blond hair) and Terence Stamp, as Willie; and Dirk Bogarde as Gabriel. Peter O'Donnell crafted a script, which was rejected and a new one was cobbled together, using plot elements from it and other sources, but mostly turning it into a camp escapade, rather than a serious adventure film. The end result is a fine example of 60s camp filmmaking, but a horrible example of a Modesty Blaise adaptation.... As you can see, it also gets the Willie & Modesty relationship wrong. The "plot" revolves around Gabriel's attempts to intercept a shipment of diamonds headed to Sheik Abdul Tahir, an old friend of Modesty's. Sir gerald Tarrant (Harry Andrews) secures Modesty's aid in delivering the diamonds to the Sheik, in exchange for discounts on oil exports. Gabriel sends assassins, but Modesty survives. She strikes up a romance, again, with an agent of Tarrants. Modesty and Willie end up using themselves as bait to draw out Gabriel, who tries to woo Modesty, to his side. Clive Revell, the original Emperor, in The Empire Strikes Back, plays one of Gabriel's assassins, McWhirter, as well as Sheik Abu Tahir.Rosetta Falk is Mrs Fothergill, and Amazonian lesbian (though toned down in the film). Vitta is blond throughout and far too much is played for camp and comedy and Modesty is never particularly deadly, though Stamp has a menace, as Willie, from time to time. Bogarde plays Gabriel as fey and effete. If you enjoy 60s camp and avante garde European films, it's a pretty decent example, with vibrant colors, wild visuals, musical pieces, fantasy sequences, non-sequitors and other tricks. What it isn't is a good story. There is a fantasy sequence, where you see the Modesty strip and Vitti dressed as Modesty, with the black hair, in her trademark chignon.O'Donnell was frustrated with his dealings with the production and hated the end result, although he liked Stamp as Willie. He then took his script and turned it into the first Modesty novel, which is an excellent read, introducing the characters and the style, while pitting them against Gabriel and his team, in a serious conflict. The novels have their own continuity, though they more or less follow that of the newspaper strip. In the US, the strip was syndicated in some papers and appeared in the Menomonee Falls Gazette, a weekly tabloid that collected multiple comic strips. The strips were later collected in black & white reprints, by Ken Pierce Editions.... and Pioneer... Titan Books, in the UK, put out larger volumes, usually collecting about three adventures.... Comic review carried the strips and put out further book collections and Titan issued a new set of them, in the 2000s. Meanwhile, in 1982, a pilot was produced for a Modesty tv series, with Ann Turkel (a former model and girlfriend of Richard Harris) as Modesty, Lewis Van Bergen (later to play Jon Sable, in 1987) as Willie Garvin, and Keene Curtis (seen on Cheers, as the owner of the restaurant upstairs) as Tarrant. Carolyn Seymour (Quantum Leap, as Zoe, the guide to the evil leaper and Star Trek Next Generation, as a Romulan)plays the villain, Debbie Defarge. It was pretty mediocre, though not outright awful (though Turkel was) and was my first exposure to Modesty, other than a single panel, in The World Encyclopedia of Comics. A series did not follow. Quentin Tarantino was a fan and John Travolta can be seen reading the original Modesty novel hardcover edition, in Pulp Fiction. Tarantino acquired the film rights, but was distracted by other projects. Harvey Weinstein got Scott Spiegle, who directed From Dusk Til Dawn 2, to direct a quickie direct-to-video, to keep the rights going, with Tarantino as executive producer. the end result, My Name is Modesty, acts as a sort of prequel to the adventures, with Modesty acting as a croupier in a casino, which is taken over by a rival. modesty plays for time by telling stories, until she eventually takes out some of the goons. It features flashbacks to her life, transposing things to Eastern Europe, as she meets the old professor and befriends and defends him against predators and he teaches her to read and write and educates her about the world, as the travel. Alexandra Staden plays Modesty and does a very good job, but she looks so anorexic that she appears to be a concentration camp survivor. Note Nikolag Coster-Waldau, the future Jaime Lannister. Also notice how ridiculous it looks for him to get his but kicked by someone who makes Twiggy look athletically built. There is thin and there is eating disorder thin. The video was marketed as the first in a series but proved the only entry. In 2001, O'Donnell ended the series, with this final scene.... In 1996, the last novel appeared, The Cobra Trap.... It was a collection of short stories, like the earlier Pieces of Modesty, where Modesty appears at a different age, in each story. "The Bellman" adapts the comic strip adventure, "The Killing Ground", where Modesty is about 20 years old. The final story, "The Cobra Trap," sees Modesty at age 52. The story finds Modesty receiving the news that she has an inoperative brain tumor and she choses how she will die. She ends up giving her life to save innocents on a train, attacked by rebels in a foreign country. She reveals the truth to Willie, just before the end and dies in the gunfight. Willie takes out more of the rebels, before being shot, himself. The pair are then reunited in some form of after-life. Just before Cobra Trap was published, DC rather quietly published a Modesty Blaise graphic novel, with story by O'Donnell, adapting his first novel, and art by Dick Giordano and an uncredited Dan Spiegle. Giordano and Spiegle were perfect for this, as they had a long history with serious adventure and a style that fit with Holdaway and Romero. As in the novel, Tarrant and Fraser approach Modesty; but, to gain her trust, they provide information about Willie's whereabouts. He hired himself out as a mercenary and is languishing in a Latin American jail cell, awaiting execution. This puts Modesty in their debt and she goes down and springs Willie out of the cell and he then aids her as they are tasked to protect the diamond shipment to Sheik Abu Tahir. Gabriel seeks to steal it. We see McWhirter and a more masculine Mrs Fothergill and Gabriel is drawn to resemble the character from the earlier strip. The plot is not terribly different from the film, but plays out in a more direct fashion, as Modesty romances an old friend and Willie beds a woman. Modesty is surprised by one of Gabriel's men and forced to comply, to save her lover. She is forced to create a slip knot trap which is used to snare her thumbs, imobilizing them, and then the goon traps her right ankle in the crook of her left leg, then bends her left leg un hooks the foot under her bound hands, immobilizing her. It sounded painful in the novel and the art justifies that feeling. Willie arrives to rescue Modesty. Willie's girl is killed by Gabriel's men and Willie and Modesty decide to destroy him. They set themselves up as bait and allow themselves to be captured by McWhirter and Mrs Fothergill, then brought to Gabriel. They are brought aboard his ship, which is tracking the ship carrying the diamond payment and use a diving sphere to access the underside of its hull. Willie is forced to aid them, while Modesty is used as a hostage. They make their move after they make landfall and are put in cells. Modesty seduces a guard and clobbers him, then Willie picks the locks on their handcuffs, using a pick hidden in his boot. he then takes off his shirt and Modesty peels false skin off his back, which hides knives and a miniature transmitter. They transmit a message and then break out. Modesty faces Fothergill in combat and they are rescued by the cavalry, consisting of troops, led by the Sheik, to save his old friend, Modesty. Leaving aside spy adventures and crime stories, Modesty Blaise is one of the best adventure series ever created and arguably the best female adventurer ever created. Emma Peel could kick butt; but, Modesty had more layers to her. The strips and novels demonstrate the psychological scars on her as she has gaps in memory, from the trauma of childhood and it is implied that it included rape. It talks about her learning to turn off her mind, as a defense mechanism, which comes into play, in a few plots, when she is undergoing the threat of rape and torture. We see it in Gabriel Set-Up, as it is the defense against the hypnotic interrogation. She also has physical scars and the pair do get injured in combat, multiple times. there is real peril and both characters rescue one another, time and again. they stopped keeping score years ago. O'Donnell was a tremendous thriller writer and his artists were first rate. Jim Holdaway was a major influence on Walt Simonson and you can see some of that in the Manhunter series, especially when he uses his throwing knife, ala Willie Garvin. Maybe someday we will get a decent Modesty movie; but, I am not holding my breath. I suspect that she will not remain in an after-life for long, the way these things go. O'Donnell passed away in 2010, leaving behind a legacy of great comic strips, from Dr No, to Garth, to Romeo Brown and the sublime creation of Modesty Blaise, the novels as well as a series of romance novels, written under the pseudonym Madeleine Brent and won the Romantic Novel of The Year Award, from the Romantic Novelists Association. Comic book writers have stolen endlessly from him, including Chris Claremont, whose characterization for Storm, especially her younger days, owes much to Modesty Blaise. It also had some influence on the Honey west tv series. The character first appeared in 1957; but, the tv series took some cues from Modesty, as well as Cathy Gale, when it premiered, in 1965, especially Honey's black working clothes. Although I am temped to cover Honey West, she was strictly a detective, who used some spy gadgets and spy couture; but, dealt with ordinary crimes. Instead, our next entry is a return look at a different spy adventuress, Emma Peel, as we look at the further exploits of the lady and her partner John Steed, exploring the Steed and Mrs Peel comics from Eclipse/Acme Press and Boom Studios, as well as a meeting with a pair of caped crusaders. Get out your leather as we head back into Avengers country.
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Post by berkley on May 17, 2023 20:29:13 GMT -5
I'm a huge Modesty Blaise fan, though up to now mostly for the books, all of which I've read, and several of them more than once. Thos 1970s and '80s covers with the photographs of models were awful, though (as were the Bond paperbacks from the same era).
The strip I've read only the first one or two of the Titan collections but I have them all and plan to read them in order starting ... someday. I like Holdaway's art very much, Romero's less so - not that I thought he was bad, just not quite my style. I've looked at the other artists but can't recall my reaction to them at the moment - I think I liked Burns and Colville more than Romero, not as much as Holdaway. One of my biggest comics-related regrets is that Al Williamson didn't get the job when he auditioned for it. The sample strips he drew, which can be seen in one of the Titan collections (and, no doubt, online if you search for them) looked perfect to me and he might well have surpassed Holdaway as my favourite Blaise artist had he won the job.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 17, 2023 20:49:04 GMT -5
I'm a huge Modesty Blaise fan, though up to now mostly for the books, all of which I've read, and several of them more than once. Thos 1970s and '80s covers with the photographs of models were awful, though (as were the Bond paperbacks from the same era). The strip I've read only the first one or two of the Titan collections but I have them all and plan to read them in order starting ... someday. I like Holdaway's art very much, Romero's less so - not that I thought he was bad, just not quite my style. I've looked at the other artists but can't recall my reaction to them at the moment - I think I liked Burns and Colville more than Romero, not as much as Holdaway. One of my biggest comics-related regrets is that Al Williamson didn't get the job when he auditioned for it. The sample strips he drew, which can be seen in one of the Titan collections (and, no doubt, online if you search for them) looked perfect to me and he might well have surpassed Holdaway as my favourite Blaise artist had he won the job. Burns is fine; I'm not wild about Colvin. Romero is slicker than Holdaway and is more expressive, with the comedy, like "Willie the Djinn;" but Holdaway is a better storyteller and better at the action sequences. I tend to believe Holdaway's version of Modesty as having lived that life more than Romero's, who makes her look too much like a model.
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Post by berkley on May 18, 2023 0:18:39 GMT -5
I'm a huge Modesty Blaise fan, though up to now mostly for the books, all of which I've read, and several of them more than once. Thos 1970s and '80s covers with the photographs of models were awful, though (as were the Bond paperbacks from the same era). The strip I've read only the first one or two of the Titan collections but I have them all and plan to read them in order starting ... someday. I like Holdaway's art very much, Romero's less so - not that I thought he was bad, just not quite my style. I've looked at the other artists but can't recall my reaction to them at the moment - I think I liked Burns and Colville more than Romero, not as much as Holdaway. One of my biggest comics-related regrets is that Al Williamson didn't get the job when he auditioned for it. The sample strips he drew, which can be seen in one of the Titan collections (and, no doubt, online if you search for them) looked perfect to me and he might well have surpassed Holdaway as my favourite Blaise artist had he won the job. Burns is fine; I'm not wild about Colvin. Romero is slicker than Holdaway and is more expressive, with the comedy, like "Willie the Djinn;" but Holdaway is a better storyteller and better at the action sequences. I tend to believe Holdaway's version of Modesty as having lived that life more than Romero's, who makes her look too much like a model. Romero's a good artist but I find him a bit stiff in the way he poses his characters and I also don't like his inking style, the way he shades the borders of his objects and figures. Also the way he draws clothes: they don't seem to settle on the body in natural folds. Maybe that's why I find his art on Axa better than on Modesty Blaise, come to think of it: no clothes!
Looking up the list of the news-strip stories, I see I actually went farther than I'd thought: definitely the 5th Titan collection (I remember reading Bad Suki) and maybe as far as the 6th or 7th, or whenever Romero took over the artwork after Holdaway's death at such a sadly young age, since I find I hold such strong opinions about Romero's art.
Very much looking forward to reading the news-strip collections. It's great to know there are all these Modesty Blaise stories still to discover. Although I must admit, I do prefer the novels over the comics, good as they are, so I'd give up the Modesty Blaise strips altogether if that meant another twenty or thirty prose books.
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Post by foxley on May 18, 2023 3:04:27 GMT -5
Huge fan of Modesty Blaise, although I came to her through the novels, as the newspaper my parents subscribed to didn't carry the strip. I thoroughly recommend reading the strips, and would recommend the best way of doing so in the most recent Titan collection, which collects the entire run in 30 volumes between 2004 and 2017, starting with The Gabriel Set-Up and ending with The Killing Game. Each volume collects three or four stories, and includes all the arcs, including the few that weren't run in the Daily Standard (either due to industrial action or being produced for the Sunday edition of different paper). However, what really adds value to these collections is the introductions. Until his death in 2010, these were written Peter O'Donnell and gave his recollections about how he came to create each particular arc, his influences, etc. After his death, these were written by a variety of authors and pop culture experts and discussed O'Donnell and his life, the influence of Modesty Blaise on other media, and many other interesting topics. As a piece of trivia, O'Donnell also wrote gothic historical romance novels under the pseudonym Madeleine Brent. This aspect of his career gets discussed in one the intros I mentioned above.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 24, 2023 19:19:59 GMT -5
The Avengers was one of the most popular shows of the 1960s, reinventing itself from a crime show, with Ian Hendry and Patrick Macnee, to something slightly more syp-oriented, with Honor Blackman, as cathy Gale, to the glory years of Diana Rigg, as Emma Peel, to even replacing the divine Mrs Peel with the rookie Linda Thorson, as Tara King. However, all good things must come to an end and the series was cancelled, at the end of the decade, as Steed and Tara rocket off to the stars, while drinking champagne. That wasn't the end, though, as Steed returned, with some New Avengers..... Joining a somewhat expanded Steed are Purdey (no idea if it was first, last or only name) and Mike Gambit, portrayed by Joanna Lumley and Gareth Hunt. Gambit was there to handle the action, as Macnee was no spring chicken, any longer; but, Macnee wasn't going to let some young ruffian take his spot and Macnee went on a rigid diet and shed the extra pounds and looked like he hadn't missed a day since 1969. Still, Steed was more of the senior advisor, while Purdey and Gambit got into trouble and chopped and kicked their way out of it. The first episode, "The Eagle's Nest," was a doozy, as a scientist and physician, played by ex-Dr Frankenstein Peter Cushing, is kidnapped by what turns out to be a bunch of Nazi war criminals to revive someone who has been in suspended animation. Three, guesses, answers on a postcard...... Steed, Purdey and Gambit soon make short work of these Aryan A-Holes. The production was a joint venture, between ITV, a group of French investors (a French commercial, with Patrick Macnee and Linda Thorson was said to revive interest in The Avengers) and Canadian investors. The first season was fantastic and producer/writer Brian Clemens provided a nice mix of classic sci-fi plots and more serious espionage fare, set in the UK. For the second season, the Canadian backers wanted episodes shot in Canada and Clemens was busy with The Professionals and left things to other hands. The budgets were cut and the end result was a rather lackluster second series, which is generally not viewed favorably by fans...especially not compared to the first season, let alone the original series. Plans for a third season were scrapped, noth due to declining ratings and financial difficulties with the production company partnership. The Avengers were sent on their merry way, to be rescued by the Galactica, get drunk with Edwina Monsoon, and do coffee ads (Macnee, Lumley and Hunt, respectively). Meanwhile, in 1998, something masquerading as The Avengers turned up in theaters..... Uggghhhhhh......It isn't awful, but Ralph Finnes and Uma Thurman lacked chemistry, no matter how much the dialogue tried to sound like Brian Clemens wrote it. The only enjoyable thing, for me, was watching Sean Connery really ham it up (even worse than Highlander) and Patrick Macnee's "cameo," as an invisible agent. He was smart enough to be unseen in this turkey. It is watchable, in a kind of trainwreck fashion, but Uma was better in the hands of Quentin Tarantino and Finnes was better as a King's Man. Now, in between The New Avengers and the theatrical farce was a new mini-series, reuniting John Steed and Emma Peel, as well as Tara King. It also let us get to know Mr Peel, Emma's returned husband Peter. Poor Tara; always a bridesmaid......... The series was from Avengers fan Grant Morrison and artist Ian Gibson and was part of the joint publication from Eclipse Comics and Acme Press, in the UK. Starting in issue 2, there was a back-up story, from Anne Caufield and Ian Gibson, featuring Emma and husband Peter Peel; and, eventually, John Steed. The main story, "The Golden Game, " finds Tara King waiting for someone, in a pub, called the Crown & Anchor. Eeventually, her "date" arrives, a blustery man known as Admiral Fanshawe, a figure of some importance in a government ministry. Tara is meeting with him to discuss evidence of leaks from his department, possibly a mole, which he finds distressing. They leave together and Fanshawe wants to show Tara around the ministry and get to the bottom of things. The "camera" pulls back, as they departs and tells us why the admiral was late, and how he got to the "bottom of things." We next see Steed pull off the road to use a public toilet. he goes into a stall, sits down, with trousers up and pulls the chain for the flush valve and then descends to a secret chamber below, where Mother and Rhonda await him. Mother briefs him on the problem of a mole and th discovery of the real Fanshawe's body. He tells Steed to trust no one, while also remarking that he hopes no harm has come to Tara, who is missing. He gives Steed a die, with an anchor, a heart and other symbols on it. Steed goes home and finds a package waiting for him....an illustrated children's book, called the Golden Game. he recalls Mother's words and calls the one person he trusts, to help.... They meet up at Fanshawe's funeral and Steed fills Emma in. they head to Fanshawe's rather eccentric house, which features parts of a ship, as the structure, and a butler, with an eye patch and a piratical air about him. he leads them into the house, where games seemed to have been much favored, as they must play hopscotch, to cross a corridor. They cross a giant chessboard to the conservatory, which is fashioned like a giant ship-in-a-bottle.... They find a copy of a letter that Fanshawe wrote to an "agony aunt," (advice column), Dear Doris, by Doris Storm, in the magazine Metropolitan. They believe a link and go to speak to Ms Storm. Emma masquerades as someone looking to speak to Ms Storm, for advice and is told that she is giving blood, at a Bloodmobile. We the see a nurse, who seems to be acting under someone else's control, inject her, rather than draw her blood, then stumble off. Another nurse calls out and Emma tackles the hypnotized woman, but is too late to save Doris Storm, who mutters something about "Rooks and Ravens." Steed follows up a lead to the Palamedes Club, a private club for the inventors of games, to which Fanshawe was a founding member. Steed finds a would be applicant rejected, then tries his own application; but it told he has to be nominated by a current member. A man named Bird, a member, rolls up and says he is nominating Steed and the doorman goes to get an application. Steed says he saw Bird at Fanshawe's funeral and Bird says he can't talk in the club, but to meet him at the Hare & Hound, after Doris Storm's funeral. Steed and Emma compare notes and then Mother rings Steed, informing him that Fanshawe's own office was the source of the leaks and Fanshawe was working on a wargame, codenamed "Hangman." Fanshawe had privileged codes that allowed access to the computers controlling the country's nuclear arsenal. Meanwhile, Doris Storm was administered Digitalis, which stopped her heart. She was also a member of the Palamedes Club, having invented a Lonely Hearts game. They attend Doris' funeral, where Steed points out Bird, who he says is know as The Chairman of the Board (Frank Sinatra might have something to say about that) and owner of the prominent nightclub The Rookery, a haunt of the rich and famous (and powerful). They go to meet him at the Hare & Hounds, but he is waylaid by someone dressed as the King of Clubs. The man strikes him down.... Steed finds a dying Bird, who utters some rhyming lines, before expiring. Steed meets with Emma and passes on the rhymes, then shows her their origin, the book, The Golden Game, which he was sent, anonymously..... The book has pages which each indicate the death of Fanshawe, Storm and Bird. Steed shows her the die found by Fanshawe's body, which is used in a pub game, called Crown & Anchor. Each symbol on it represents one of the dead: Anchor-Fanshawe-King, Tara, Heart-Doris Storm, Club-Bird, Diamond-Evelynn Glass, a jeweler murdered before Tara met Fanshawe, and the Spade...the Ace of Spades, the Death card. They attend Bird's funeral, when Steed notices the sexton, shoveling earth with his spade. he realizes he is the Spade and goes after him, but nearly gets decapitated by a thrown spade. Steed trips him with his umbrella and Emma tackles him, but gets dirt thrown in her eyes and he escapes. However, he dropped a piece of paper with a Hangman game on it, with the spaces filled in, spelling out "BOOM." Steed meets with the secretary of the Palamedes Club, a Mr Chance (the name comes with the job). He learns the club dates back to 1878, but was disbanded during WW2 and was only recently reconstituted, by Fanshawe, Storm, Bird and Glass. Steed has to pass a test of luck, by rolling a pair of dice, which comes out double sixes. he is presented with a commemorative dart board and invited to an inauguration ceremony, at the clubs country house. They then ask the name of his game and he replies Rooks and Ravens and Chance and Wolow (the other man with him) act stunned. Steed meets with Emma and she says her research shows that the book was never published and it has a passage about "rooks & ravens." Steed hangs the dart board and he and Emma just miss getting impaled by a crossbolt, with a flag of a spade on it. They go to Waddington Hall, the country house. The door has a slot machine and Steed pulls the lever and it spells out "WELCOME" and the door opens. Sting enters and finds a darkened hall, with giant chess pieces. A voice calls out "Checkmate!" and the lights come on, revealing Chance and some robed men. He informs Steed that someone already tried to apply with Rooks & Ravens, a game that requires cooperation, rather than competition. The game was virtually unplayable and created by a Hilary Fox, the Mister Reynard, of the book. There is a mass "Eeny Meany, Miney Moe" and Steed is "it." Chance produces a gun and points it at Steed. Emma, back at Steed's apartment, is looking at the latter pages and solves a puzzle that gives her a location, Tods Tor, near Waddington Hall, and the last page shows a game of Hangman. She rishes off to help Steed. Steed knew Fox, at Eton and there was mutual dislike. Chance forces him to climb a high ladder, to a platform, with a large snake's head ("Snakes & Ladders," the earlier form of the American game of Chutes and Ladders). He is forced to enter the serpent's mouth and slide down its gullet, which leads him to a cushioned landing, in a chamber, where waits Hilary Fox, aka Reynard. He hears only Fox's voice and finds himself inside a large pinball game and he must avoid the ball. He escapes through a doorway and ends up on a firing range, where the targets fire back. Meanwhile Fox carries on a rant about how Steed was always a winner at everything and that he recommended Fox to the Ministry, which allowed him into Fanshawe's department and near the codes. He learned he could make anyone do anything, by playing the right game. Steed is forced to play jackstraws to retrieve a key, that will allow him to move to the next room, while Fox rolls thermonuclear dice, as part of the bigger Golden Game. Steed gets the key and finds himself facing more traps, as he must play Statues, to cross a pool of acid Meanwhile, Emma has gotten directions to Waddington Hall, but is chased by men dressed as undertakers, on a multiple seat tandem bike. They fire weapons at her and force her off the road. the check the wreckage, but she isn't there, then she pops up and throws people about. Emma uses a retrieved weapon to force the lone conscious man to lead her to Steed. Steed navigates the acid and nearly gets dropped in it, when Emma arrives and lends a hand. She leads him out and he sees that she has already clobbered the Palamedes Club members and they go to Fox's chamber and confront him. Fox is launching a nuclear warhead at London and Steed is forced to play Hangman, to save Tara from the gallows... Steed must guess a six-letter word, but Fox is clever enough to not use the most common vowels, as Steed is urged to start with them, by Emma. Fox mocks him as he fails and Tara moves closer to the noose. Fox starts making riddle rhymes and Steed sees letters reflected in Fox's glasses and calls out that the word is "RHYTHM." Fox shrieks that Steed cheated and presses the button to hang Tara; but she isn't having any of it. Emma finishes off the hangman and helps Tara, remarking that she has lost weight, since they last met (see below). Fox goes to launch the missile and Steed launches his bowler hat, hitting Fox square between the eyes. Fox tosses a boobytrapped roulette bal to Steed and he, Emma and Tara play Hot Potato, until it gets tossed back to Fox and explodes, killing him and destroying the launch mechanism. The escape from the house, before it collapses and take the tandem bike back to town, while Emma asks him if he cheated. Thoughts: Well, trust Grant Morrison to create a story that is taken from something else. Okay, that may be a bit unfair; but, he does have a habit of repurposing other people's work, more than creating his own. It's hard not to, in comics; but, he gets singled out by some parties as this creative god, but it doesn't take much research to find where he got the inspiration for many stories. However, the flip side of that is he pays tribute to his inspirations and you could just as easily say he was paying homage to a classic Avengers story; namely, the Sixth (and final) Series episode, "Game," written by Richard Harris (not the hard drinking Irish actor but the British tv writer who specialized in the ITV adventure shows, like The Avengers and The Saint). In that episode, a disgraced officer systematically murders the officers that served on the court martial that convicted him, including Steed. The episode features Peter Jeffrey, a character actor with a ton of credits, including The Return of the Pink Panther (General Wadafi, head of the Lugash security services), Midnight Express and just about every major British tv series you could mention, including Doctor Who. Jeffrey plays ex-Sergeant Daniel Edwards, who forces the officers of his court martial to play a series of deadly games. he kidnaps Tara, to force Steed to play, to prevent her death. It was the second broadcast adventure for Tara, after her debut, in The Forget-Me-Knot, which passed the torch from Emma (who is captured in the episode, forcing Steed to get the aid of rookie agent Tara King) to Tara. Tara is mainly a damsel in need of rescue, in the episode, which was a troubling element of her series, as she is less active than Emma (though not for lack of trying, in better episodes). Emma was often the damsel in need of rescue from various deathtraps, but she had a bit more agency in the majority of her stories and often found her own way out of the trap, and rescues Steed. Tara got to do a little bit of rescuing, but not quite as much (though largely because she only got the one series of episodes). So, we have the same basic plot, of a revenge carried out via games, with Tara a hostage as a motivator. Morrison gets the style of the series right, with plenty of eccentric characters and locales, as well as a kind of Alice In Wonderland tone to everything. The quip from Emma about Tara losing weight since they last met is a nod to their only meeting, at the end of "The Forget-Me-Knot" If you compare Tara in the scene to the closing titles, she is thinner in the latter. When Linda Thorson was cast in the role, one of the notes from the producers was that she needed to drop some weight (notice they don't give similar notes to male actors?). They did some experimenting with her overall look, as the character, trying to find something as iconic as Emma Peel and her "Emma Peelers," her stylish action outfits). They also tried making Tara a blond, bleaching her hair, which damaged it and looked washed out, on camera. This is apparent in the episode, "Have Guns, Will Haggle." It was shot early on, but producers weren't happy and ordered reshoots. They kept some footage and Tara is seen donning a blond wig, as part of her cover, to match the original footage that was retained. She slimmed down and then they experimented with wardrobe with her, but never found a suitable look. Her flat also contained various wig dummies, as the idea of wigs being a signature element, though Have Guns was really the only time it was a central thing. Looking at the story, it appears that Morrison is not a Tara King fan, as she is given nothing to do but be a damsel-in-distress and a plot device. Emma gets all the action. Granted, the title is Steed and Mrs Peel and she was the most popular co-star; but it is a bit of a slap to Tara, who rarely gets her due, because she follows Emma. Cathy Gale was no Emma Peel, either, but Honor Blackman doesn't suffer under such things, since she established the idea of a female partner and a liberated one. I suppose part of that is Tara is written as a bit of a Steed Worshiper and the relationship is less flirtatious-but-celibate (well, never overtly stated one thing or another) and more of a definite romantic attraction, at least on her part. Ian Gibson does a fantastic job with everything, from suitable likenesses (not requiring approval of the actors, but capturing the general look of them) to the exotic surroundings, the oddball characters and the storybook elements, along with the more mundane settings. In other words, he captures all elements of the series, with a nice clean look. The mini-series includes a back-up piece, in issues 2 and 3 (Issue one has two chapters, out of 4, for "The Golden Game") where we see Emma, with her newly returned husband, Peter Peel. We first get exposition, via pictograms of The Leopard People, an offshoot of the Incas, rumored to live in a hidden jungle civilization. We see that test pilot Peter Peel is forced to bail out of a plane and lands in the jungle, breaking his leg. He is found and attended to by the Leopard People. Peel is also somewhat amnesiac and stays with the Leopard People, for a while, who think he fell from the sky. They also speak of men cutting through the forests and disease and that Peter can help them. They restore Peter's memory and he returns to England, after three years in the jungle and is reunited with Emma. The story then picks up where "The Forget-Me-Knot" leaves off... We learn that Peter's resemblance to Steed is a joke they play, as peter throws off the bowler and reveals his blond hair. we also see that Emma truly loves him and they shared a life of adventure, before he was lost. They go back to the seaside village, where they stayed, for a night, on their honeymoon (before joining an around-the-world helicopter race!). They stay at the same pub/inn, but things are more run down and deserted and the barman seems odd and we see him notifying someone that they are there. Meanwhile, Steed meets with Mother (on paddle boats) and is assigned to look in a series of disappearances of agents (and others), at the village. Peter and Emma look around the village and stop in at the chapel to see if the kindly old vicar is there and are attacked by small Incas. They fight them off and Peter proves the equal of Emma, but more turn up and Emma ends up in the usual predicament.... Emma loses consciousness, then wakes up in a bed, with Steed at its side. She tells him about the Incas and he says there was no one around the chapel. She shows him, but there is no sign of anything from the fight. The go to see the vicar, who is not the nut who tied her to the altar, though Emma notices little boxes with the same rainbow decoration they have seen at the pub and the church windows. She asks him about it and he produces a weird gun and says the contents were shrunk via the power of the Inca crystal, Emma ends up rnning off and Steed gets whacked in the head and taken prisoner. Eventually, Emma find that a box she has dropped has resulted in restored carnival workers and the Leopard People are chasing her. They take her prisoner then present her with Steed and her husband, staked out before a steam roller and she can only rescue one. She must choose between Steed and Peter. Meanwhile, the press arrive, by invitation, and see the Leopard People as savages, as Emma stops the steamroller. They write stories of their brutality, which then throws shade on Peter's interviews about their kindness and endangered civilization. We see all three still captives and shrunk down, then it is revealed that a group of white men, who are out to deforest the region, to get to gold deposits, are behind it all. Emma is able to gain control of the shrinking device and restore everyone and catch the villains. The trio depart together and the couple is heading to the Amazon, to help the Leopard people and Steed begs off. The story end up being a nice, if rather confusing sequel to "The Forget-Me-Knot," and allows Peter to be something other than a Steed doppelganger. Emma ends up being the one that saves the day. The story does kind of ignore series continuity, as "The House That Jack Built," detailed some of Emma's past, that her family name was Knight and that she inherited the family business (a major industrial empire), which she ran, after her father's death. She says to Peter she was prepared just to be a house wife, when they married, with no mention of the family business. Gibson is artist here, too, and does a fine job; but, Caufield's story kind of skips some progression in things. Its main strength is in developing Peter and Emma, as a couple. That would again be it, for a while; but, in 2012, Boom! Studios picked up the license and reprinted Steed & Mrs Peel, as a six issues limited series, then launched a new series, written by Mark Waid & Caleb Moore.... The series opens with Steed & Mrs Peel in a government bunker, as WW3 is launched and the outside world is devastated by a nuclear strike. A strange coincidence about breakfast that morning and Steed's watch not being wound, in the morning, plus a fire in a room, suggests something isn't right. They go to survey the outside world and see devastation, and the geiger counters indicate high levels of radiation; but, clouds aren't moving in the expected patterns and the soil isn't affected the way it should have been. They fight off a "mutant" attack, then run into some young people who claim to be the Hellfire Club. Steed and Emma and their group go with the Hellfires. The whole thing turns out to be a con, orchestrated by the revived Hellfire club, who are led by the children of John Cartney, the previous leader of the Hellfire Club. Emma is taken down by the daughter, with the aid of gas and brainwashed into becoming the Queen of Sin, again (the inspiration for the X-Men's Hellfire Club and Jean Grey being turned into the Black Queen, by Mastermind). Steed is able to bring her around and expose the fraud and alert the authorities. The Helffire Club kidnapped key officials to condition them to a nuclear holocaust, then condition them to do or say anything to prevent such a holocaust from occuring, including giving authority over to the Cartneys and the Hellfire Club. What follows is a series of interconencted stories. At one point, in the Hellfire Club story, we see a gloved hand with a swirling design and hear the name Dirigent. In the next issue, we see a masked man and some dancers, at a Black & White Ball, that ends in murder. It turns out Dirigent is the one who hypnotized Emma into becoming the Queen of Sin, again. He is defeated, but it turns out he was part of a bigger scheme. A woman is held prisoner in a fake hotel and her military officer husband is forced to steal an experiment from a government lab, by a Dr Glass. His scheme involves time travel, but at the end, we learn one of his cohort reports to someone else. That leads to a man obsessed with suicide and then a return of the Cartneys and we learn that John Cartney survived the fall into the the river, from the Hellfire Club (at the climax of "A Touch of Brimstone") and is alive, but trapped in a halo, to brace his head and mute. The Cartneys free Dr Glass and others and we then see John Cartney's brain placed into a Cybernaut body, along with Dirigent's hypntosing mechanism, Dr Glass' time goggles and the suicide formula. It was all quite nostalgic of the show, while adding new elements, including the decadent children of Cartney, who seem to have an incestuous relationship. I suspect it was no coincidence that this series debuted a year after Game of Thrones hit tv screens, with the Jaime and Cersai Lannister relationship. That, in itself, wasn't that original, as Robert Adams" Horseclans fantasy series, about a post-apocalyptic future, where things regress to a medieval state, featured a pair of twins who had an incestuous relationship, though the author tried to make it seem like it wasn't as big a deal as taboos make out, scientifically. Boom followed up with another series, meant to be 6 issues, but only 3 were published, with the series numbering altered on the covers, as, apparently, Studio Canal, the rights-holders of The Avengers, pulled the license and Boom! was forced to abandon the story that was supposed to play out over the other 3 unpublished issues. Waid was only involved in the first 3 issues, then it was all Caleb Moore. The art in the series is good and it captures the general likenesses of Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, while also providing a nice mix of character moments and action. Backgrounds and environments are a bit minimalist; but, it does move through relatable environments, rather than just colored panels. There are parts that are stiff, here and there; but, it is good, solid storytelling. On the whole, the series is quite entertaining, if hardly groundbreaking. it does what it sets out to do, to create new Avengers stories, while capturing the feel for the original series. It wallows in nostalgia, which seems to be the theme for licensed properties, specifically chosen to appeal to an older demographic. It does lack the style of the earlier WEclipse and Acme material, though. The Avengers is very much a product of its time and that is probably why anything other than nostalgia doesn't work out very well. It is a fantasy 1960s, in a Lewis Caroll setting, in a society of class privilege and Public School ethos, with a decidedly kinky edge to it. The Boom material probably captures the kinky aspect a bit more, though the Acme material has enough for character bits, without letting it sit front and center. No Emma in leather, no whips, no kinky villains; just a bit of damsels in peril and bondage, mixed with bizarre set pieces, in a nod to the more surreal and less sexual elements. From here we take a look at an early indie work, from Brian Michael Bendis, with a story set in an espionage world. Ciome back for an examination of his work, Fire, and see both Bendis the writer and Bendis the artist.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 24, 2023 19:24:09 GMT -5
Whoops, I forgot Steed & Peel meeting Batman. We'll come back to that with a mini-installment, plus some art examples for the Boom issues. Kind of out of time, today.
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Post by foxley on May 25, 2023 3:12:10 GMT -5
Purdey appears to have been her only name. I have a vague memory that she said something along those lines in one of the episodes. Someone either addressed her as Miss Purdey or asked her "Purdey what?" and she replied "Just Purdey" or something similar. Joanna Lumley is given credit for naming the character (early drafts called the female companion "Charley"). The name comes from James Purdey & Sons: a British gunmaker based in London, specialising in high-end bespoke sporting shotguns. Purdey shotguns are regarded as objects of beauty as well as exceptional quality firearms, and the name was intended to convey a combination of elegance and deadliness.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 28, 2023 19:13:43 GMT -5
Here is my Part 2 of the later Avengers comics. I promised some art from the Boom Studios issues and here is a bit from the first three issues, where Steed & Mrs Peel face the children of John Cartney and a new Hellfire Club. The first issue finds them in a government bunker, as World War III unfolds and the world outside is devastated in a nuclear strike.... A series of accidents and some troubling aspects that everyone has the same memory of breakfast, yet remembers little before breakfast, lead Emma and others to venture outside the bunker and they run into some mutants, then the Hellfire club descendants. In the next issue, we see that they have thrown their lot in with the Hellfire Club group, as they are better stocked for survival. However, again, there is some funny business... Emma notices that a general is missing and goes looking for him; but no one has seen him. She visits the young Ms Cartney and they have a set-to, with Emma getting gassed.... Steed discovers the brainwashing technique, to fill the officials with so much horror for this future that they would do anything the Hellfire Club wants, to prevent it. However, he is ambushed by the Queen of Sin.... Issue 3 finds Steed getting kicked around by Emma, in her dominatrix gear and circumstances prevent him from enjoying it (he was an Etonian, after all). When a flute of champagne to the face doesn't restore Emma's mind, he resorts to another stratagem... She decks the male Cartney sibling, then she and Steed end up on the run from the female of the species, and her Helffire goons. They find a garage, as well as the costumes used to fake the mutants, and Emma switches into some motorcycle leathers and they escape, pursued by Ms Cartney and her thugs. A fight in the wastelands sees a rematch between Emma and Cartney.... ...with Emma emerging victorious. She then fires off a flare gun and we soon see fighter jets and a Vulcan bomber arrive, as it turns out they are on a private island, in the South China Sea. Emma determined based on the movement of the clouds where on the globe they were and they radioed a message to British authorities, leading to the rescue party being dispatched. The Cartneys and the Hellfire goons are hauled off to jail. As I said in the last installment, that brings in Dirigent, who is a background presence in this storyline, who then goes front and center in the next, then experiments in time travel, leading to the return of the Cybernauts and John Cartney, to exact revenge on Emma for what happened to him at the climax of "A Touch of Brimstone." This trades in nostalgia for the classic episodes and plots, particularly the aforementioned "A Touch of Brimstone" and "The Cybernauts," which featured the killer androids, who would return again, later in the series and in The New Avengers. Meanwhile, the Avengers would make a crossover with another 60s icon: Batman & Robin.... The story opens in Gotham City, where Bruce Wayne accompanies Michaela Gough (cute), of United Automation, to an exhibition of the White Star, a fabulous and massive jewel, on loan from the British Royal Family. Wayne Enterprises and United Automation are entering into business together. Michaela is a liberated woman, running a major company and also asking bruce out on a dinner date. however, they are interrupted by the Catwoman, who is there to steal the White Star.... Catwoman's henchmen start smashing cases and grabbing priceless jewels abd bruce sends a signal to the Batcave, where Alfred and Robin are sprucing up the place. They are able to hear Bruce's transmissions of the robbery and Robin tells Alfred he will have to put on his Bat costume and masquerade as Batman, since Robin doesn't yet have his license. While they are getting into gear and racing to the location, help arrives in a rather different form... Emma took care of the henchmen (while explaining the principles of cricket, to educate them after they show ignorance to the phrase "That's not cricket!") and Steed employs his ever-present umbrella to trip up and capture the Catwoman. Michaela faints from the excitement, landing in Steed's arms. Catwoman expresses appreciation for Emma's fashion sense. Batman and Robin arrive too late and as the criminals are removed by the Gotham police, we see a trenchcoated, shadowy figure, with a metallic face, watching. Batman and Robin are formally introduced to John Steed and Mrs Emma Peel, at Commissioner Gordon's office and they have great admiration for one another and Mrs Peel appears to flirt with a very under-aged Robin. "Mrs Peel, you're trying to seduce me!" Steed and Emma inform the Dynamic Duo that a series of jewel robberies has plagued their shores and the stolen items haven't turned up to be fenced, nor are they likely to be cut down, as it would destroy their greater value as finished pieces. We see a close-up of a fountain pen, in Steed's breast pocket, which contains a micro-transmitter, which relays their conversation to a receiver, manned by a very definite woman, seen only from behind. She sends out a message to agents Able, Baker and Charlie, after hearing that the crime fighters wish to see Catwoman and interrogate her. Able, Baker and Charlie all have the same trenchcoat and metallic face.... Batman suggests they pool their resources at the Batcave, though Robin tells Emma she will have to be blindfolded, to maintain secrecy of its location. Emma is quite pleased by that bit of information. The three cybernauts get to Catwoman's cell before Batman and the others and smash their way in (through the building wall), to eliminate her. The building shakes and the crime fighters rush to the cells and find Catwoman fighting for her life. The cell bars prevent them from getting in and Batman uses the Bat-Laser to burn through the lock, while Steed uses his steel fiber umbrella to protect Catwoman from the blows of the cybernauts. They get Catwoman out, then use Bat Anti-Oil spray, which causes the cybernauts to rust and seize up, stopping one of them. Robin then hits in the idea to maneuver the remaining two cybernauts into striking one another, like Biff-Bamm Robots (or even Rock-'Em, Sock-'Em Robots!), which works. The hidden controller recalls them and they retreat. She then alerts Lord Fogg to be ready. They follow the cybernauts through the hole in the wall and see a thick fog enveloping the area and see the British criminal, Lord Fogg, leave with the two cybernauts, after stepping onto some kind of platform, which raises up into the air, disappearing into the pea soup. Catwoman reveals she was only contacted via phone and by messages from the cybernauts (she thought they were just henchmen, in fancy gear) and has no idea who contracted her to steal the White Star. Commissioner Gordon receives word that Micheala Gough has been abducted by men who match the description of the cybernauts. A quick survey of her destroyed room suggests the same, though there is no sign of their exit. Ema looks out an open window and suggests skyward. Steed finally recalls why United Automation sounded familiar and the couple fill in the Caped Crusaders about their battle with professor Armstrong and his creations, the cybernauts, as he used fountain pens, with a homing beacon, to attract the killers to rivals for a lucrative contract and eliminate them. Batman decides to take the couple to the Batcave, though with the administration of Bat-gas, rather than a blindfold, much to Emma's disappointment. There, they examine the head of the destroyed cybernaut and discover that it's internal "brain," includes a series of diamonds and Batman remarks about theories that the crystalline lattice could be used for data storage, which now explains the series of jewel thefts. They realize that with the theft of the White Star, they could create an army of cybernauts. Said army lands near the entrance to the Batcave and marches in, setting off alarms. The see them on the monitor and wonder how they found the Batcave, when Steed discovers the pen in his breast pocket. he can't figure out how it was slipped in there. Batman uses the Bat-Beam, from the Batmobile, to stop the first wave, but more come and one tosses a downed cybernaut into the Batmobile, smashing the Bat-Beam antenna. They conduct a defense, using the Bat-Anti-Oil sprays, while Batman prepares a more permanent defense. Batman goes over to the nuclear reactor and fiddles with it, as the others run out of Bat-Anti-Oil spray. batman then throws a switch.... ...and the reactor emits an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) like in a nuclear explosion, destroying the control circuits of the robots. Fortunately, the Batcave equipment is shielded against EMP (which is possible). The unseen controller contacts another agent, Mr Freeze and tells him to begin his part of the operation. The British Duo and the Dynamic Duo travel together, tracing the signal from the pen transmitter to a lighthouse, with Steed riding in the Batmobile, with Batman, while Emma pilots the Batcycle, with Robin in his sidecar. Robin questions whether Emma knows how to ride a motorcycle and she responds that she has a BSA, back in England, with a sidecar, for Steed and has twice entered the Isle of Man TT race, where she crashed both times. She assures him that the third time 's the charm. They converge on an old, abandoned lighthouse and Batman and Robin scale it, while Steed & Emma go in through the front door, to work their way up. They find a control room and come face to face with the hidden controller..... ...Michaela Gough! She escapes with the help of Lord Fogg and an airship.... ...which looks suspiciously like the Albatross, from the film version of Master of the World (and a bit like the Prometheus, in The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne). The quartet find themselves in a locked room with killer African bees. Emma recalls the proper dance sequence to communicate with bees and she is able to get batman to the door to use the Bat-Laser to cut them free and escape. The Quartet of Quality follow the airship in the Batcopter (piloted by Steed) and the Batjet (piloted by batman, with Emma in the rear seat). They are attacked by rocket pack-equipped cubernauts and have to do some fancy flying to elude and eliminate them, since Batman doesn't believe in weapons (until Tim Burton gets his hands on him). Robin is able to reconfigure a tracking receiver to become a jammer and scramble the cybernauts guidance circuits and destroy them. The group then splits to return to England and chase after Michaela Gough. Batman and Robin travel incognito, as "Matches" Malone and his young friend (no alias given...call him Pixie Stix Paul), but are met at the airport by Steed and Emma, in his Bentley. Michaela speaks to her unseen "father" and she and Mr Freeze present the White Star. We cut to the Tower of London, where Detective Inspector Gordon, of Ireland Yard (though Commissioner Gordon, earlier, made a mistake and said his cousin works for Scotland Yard; but, it was Ireland Yard, in the three part Season 3 episode with Lord Fogg, in Londinium) and robin notices a cold area, near the display case. A quick examination finds cannisters of pressurized coolant and Batman determines that the White Star is, literally, ice. They are then attacked by the Beefeaters, who are cybernauts, with human facemasks. The bat-Anti-oil sprays have no effect, as Gough had these units sprayed with a non-stick polymer. However, the coolant tanks prove useful in freezing them. They track Michaela to Lord Fogg's former mansion, which is now the property of United Automation. There, they encounter Mr Freeze, Lord Fogg, cybernauts and boobytrapped floors. they subdue the villains, then face the quartet of teenaged girls that Lord Fogg and Lady Peasoup were training to become criminals. They were ga-ga for Robin and they circle him and are revealed as cybernauts. The villains are also targets and work with the heroes to escape, which they do, via the elevators in the rigged floor. They meet up with Michaela and discover that her "father" is a computer bank, with the encoded mind and memories of Professor Armstrong. She sought the White Star to be a sophisticated brain, for a cybernaut body, to hold the mind of Prof Armstrong. She is then revealed to be a cybernaut, herself.... They all triumph and then Emma and Steed take the Dynamic Duo to be presented to their greatest fan.... Thoughts: This followed on the heels of crossovers between Batman '66 and The Green Hornet & Kato and the man From UNCLE, as well as Wonder Woman '77. Ian Edgington wrote the series and Matthew Dow Smith handles the art. Edgington does a pretty good job of both capturing the tone and style of Batman, as well as the Avengers, right down to the kinky undercurrent of that series, as Emma expresses excitement, then disappointment at not being blindfolded to be taken to the Batcave. Mrs Peel did spend a lot of time in leather and bondage. Of course, Batman wasn't above gassing women and taking them to the Batcave, without their consent, as well as keeping them tied up, as in the Bookworm episodes, with Roddy McDowell.... (ps if you want to see how dark the first season could get, rewind back to Bookworm flying into a rage at Miss Limpett) The series makes fine use of the Julie newmar Catwoman, in the opening chapter, then Lord Fogg (Rudy Valee), of "The Londinium Larcenies" (Season 3) and the George Sanders version of Mr Freeze, from Season 1. They are contracted lieutenants of Michaela Gough and her scheme. Even more, it makes great use of the classic Cybernauts episode of the Avenger and Michaela's name was a dead giveaway, if you were an Avengers fan. In that classic story, Michael Gough, the future Alfred, in the Burton & Joel Schumacher Batman films, plays Prof Armstrong, the creator of the cybernauts and head of united Automation. He resides, in a wheelchair, in his automated factory, which uses punchcard keys, to gain entrance. The cybernauts would follow a signal from a micro-transmitter, hidden inside a fountain pen, which was planted on each of the victims. In the end, Steed defeats them by putting the pen on Prof Armstrong and he is killed by his own assassin. As is pointed out in the series, Armstrong was unmarried and without children, though a brother does appear in "Return of the Cybernauts," as he seeks vengeance for the death of his brother. in Series 6. They apepar again, in "The aLast of the Cybernauts," in The New Avengers. Gough would return in the Series 5 episode, "The Correct Way To Kill," as the turncoat Russian spymaster, Nutski. If you watched the series, then you knew Michael Gough was Armstrong and that Michaela Gough was probably the woman we see from behind, controlling the cybernauts. She is also a redhead, as is the unseen woman. Smith does a good job with the likenesses and he plays up the period as we first see Michaela wearing a Mondian-inspired dress.... Yves St Laurent introduced a line of dresses, with geometric patterns, based on the Dutch abstract artist, Piet Mondrian, in 1965. other designers also produced couture, based on Mondrian's work. Later, when Michaela is revealed, at the lighthouse, she removes her black trenchcoat to display a Paco Rabanne metallic dress.... Rabanne's work was also a major element of 1960s fashion and design. Then, there is the design of Lord Fogg's airship, which invokes that of the Albatross, as mentioned above.... That film featured Vincent Price as Robur, the master of the Albatross, a science pirate, in the mode of Captain Nemo. Price would also play Egghead, in several Batman episodes. The design in the comic is a little closer to an airship inspired by the Albatross, but called the Prometheus, in the Sci-Fi Channel adventure series, The secret Adventures of Jules Verne..... In that series, Jules Verne is a young, impoverished writer, who dreams of fantastic inventions. A secret cabal, known as the League of Darkness, seeks his visions to create advanced weapons, with which to establish a new order, in the world. They are opposed by freelance adventurer Phileas Fogg, who travels in his own airship, the Aurora, piloted by his manservant, Passepartout, as well as Fogg's cousin, Rebecca Fogg, who is a serving British agent, and a sort of Victorian Emma Peel (right down to leather action wear). The League builds the Prometheus and dupes Verne into aiding what he thinks is a group dedicated to ending war and suffering, by putting an end to the American Civil War. However, the League actually intends to use the Prometheus to aid the Confederacy, until Fogg is able to reveal to Jules that he has been played for a sucker and they destroy the Prometheus. Emma appears in her iconic leather suit, only ever seen in the episode "Death At Bargain Prices," as a sales costume, designed for a range of space toys. It was then used for the opening sequence used in the US market, to introduce the show..... Emma wears other leather gear, a carryover from the Cathy gales episodes, as leather proved more durable for fight scenes. As the series moved into color broadcast, Emma was outfitted in more colorful, but sleek action suits, made of stretchable fabrics. However, Smith also shows her is various outfits that were seen in the series, with Steed in his traditional Pierre Cardin suits, iconic bowler hat and umbrella. The Dynamic Duo are in their 60s costumes. When they travel as "Matches" Malone and friend (Pixie Stix Pete, as I call him), they are drawn as Adam West and Burt Ward, in their usual attire, with pencil mustaches... Kind of surprised the tv series never tried that (Robin did go undercover, sort of, as a teenage punk, in the Joker episode, with the rigged vending machines at Gotham HS, but as Dick Grayson, in a leather jacket), though I don't know the timeline to the "Matches" Malone alias, as I mostly recall it from the O'Neil/Adams stories, after the series. Research says he first appeared in Batman #242, in the early 70s; so, too late for the series. He does turn up in Batman The Brave and The Bold. My one quibble with the series is that the digitally printed art has the figures floating above their environment. I assume the figures and backgrounds existed on two separate (or more) layers and the characters never seem to fully inhabit their environment. I could be wrong about this and it might just be the way Smith drew it, as I have seen line art, from the pre-digital age, where the characters don't seem to really inhabit their world. Some artists weren't great about depicting characters sitting in chairs and with cushioning molding itself to the body, or about having them interact with furniture or decorations. However, in multiple panels, it seems like the figures are done separately from the backgrounds, as in animation. The scene above, on the airplane, the figures really seem separate from their seats. It's a minor thing, but I do find it a bit distracting, especially in the opening chapter, at the exhibition, as the backgrounds are kept slightly blurred and impressionistic, especially when Catwoman and her gang appear. It kind of takes me out of the action. I have the same problem with CGI in most modern movies. Characters do not interact with the artificial worlds and the computer constructs do not have weight or move as real objects or animals would and the eye detects it (especially if you pre-date visual effects). The difference with animation is that figures move through scenes, so the separate layers aren't as noticeable, except when they have something like a rock, on another layer, which then breaks away and falls, as seen endlessly on The super Friends, when rocks would suddenly appear a lighter shade then their surroundings and would then give way into an avalanche. The lighter tone was because they would be photographed on a separate cell layer and then moved away from the scene, in successive shots. The Simpsons mock this in the Poochie episode, when that hated character is taken out of Itchy & Scratchy. That now concludes the look at the Avengers in comics and we move on to Brian Michael Bendis' Fire (aka Project Fire), where we will no doubt mention David Mamet at least once.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 3, 2023 22:16:34 GMT -5
So far, we have seen the fairy tale world of super spies and agents who deal in absurd threats. James Bond has about as much to do with real intelligence work as Charlie Brown does with Major League Baseball. Ian Fleming was an administrator, an assistant tot he head of Naval Intelligence, in WW2. He was recruited because of family connections and experience in the banking industry, as well as journalism. He didn't run agents, though. he didn't go out in the field and collect it. He shuffled papers and thought up wild ideas that were mostly never initiated because they were fantasy. After the war, he took those wild ideas and put them into fantasy stories; a fairy tale world where Britain still had an empire and the best men in any nation had an English mother (read the books...every station chief had a foreign father and an English mother). The Avengers fought weirdos and madmen with ridiculously complex schemes, most of which put a big spotlight on them, rather than work covertly and quietly to gain intelligence the old fashioned way. That tended to be the way of the spy novel, in the post-war era. Once in a while, you got someone who knew a bit more than they talked about openly, like Graham Greene. Greene came from a wealthy and important family, with a lot of influential political connections. He worked as a journalist and writer and eventually worked for MI-6 in the real world of espionage, interlocked with politics and economics. His novels had a better grain of truth to them. Then came John le Carre, a pseudonym for David Cornwell. Cornwell was the son of a fraudster, someone with connections to the notorious Kray Brothers crime family. He grew up with an unstable home, a hatred for public school life and a facility for languages, with study in Switzerland. It was at Oxford, after his national service, that he was recruited into MI-5, eventually moving over to MI-6, working as cover agent, in the British Embassy, in Bonn, in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). He moved in diplomatic circles but his real job was collecting and analyzing information about politics, economics and security matters; the real stock in trade of espionage (as well as military strength). During this time, he started writing mystery stories, about a, Oxford scholar, George Smiley, who was a drab little nothing of a man, who was actually one of the craftiest intelligence officers, working for The Circus, a branch of British Intelligence. In the early novels, Smiley is pretty much just a detective solving mysteries that overlap with the security services. over time, the novels became more about real intelligence work. One of the reasons for this was that Cornwell's cover was blown by notorious British Intelligence traitor, Kim Philby. Cornwell's days as an under-cover agent were over. His original novels were vetted by his bosses, before publication; but, after, he could act as he wanted, within the limitations of the Official Secrets Act. His novels became more intricate and reflective of the greater world of spying and it's relationship to world politics and economics. His spies aren't glamorous swashbucklers, attired in tuxedos, drinking martinis and carrying out high speed chases in luxury sports cars. They are dull people, who deal in secrets, misfits and loners, drunkards, homosexuals, people with bad relationships and cynical to the bone. Not much of this world has made it into comics, because it is more about character and detailed plot, rather than action and big visuals. Others tread somewhere in the twilight world between the poles of Fleming and Le Carre. Len Deighton was another journalist, with connections in government and security, who wrote of an unnamed spy, working for some branch of intelligence, where loyalties are always in question, paperwork rles everything and the mundane is more common than double-agents. Within this world, this unnamed officer deals with a group on the other side who are creating a "brain drain" in the West. Scientists disappear and then reappear, but psychologically damaged. He goes to West Berlin to contact a Soviet colonel who wants to defect, and gets embroiled in a war over identity documents that point to the identity of a German war criminal. He deals with a Right Wing businessman, with his own private army and sabotage network, who is out to start a revolution, in Latvia. The novels were turned into a series of films, with Michael Caine as the near-sighted man, now called Harry Palmer, who is pulled into these plots, while he fills out reports, in triplicate, and signs chits for his surveillance work and the issue of his pistol. Deighton's world is a bit more fanciful, but treads closer to Le Carre. Robert Ludlum is one who walked a path closer to Fleming, though without the Etonian background and advanced alcoholism. His world is all about conspiracies and covers, with secret agendas within secret agendas. Amnesiac killers who survive attempts to kill them and try to learn who they are, while everyone is out to kill them. He is the father of The Bourne Identity, about a nameless man, who is fished out of the ocean and then crosses Europe, trying to piece together who he is, while facing deadly assassins. Today's entry is closer to Ludlum, than anything, though its creator fancies himself more along the lines of Le Carre, but without the literary pedigree. That man is brian Michael Bendis, and today's entry is his work, Fire, aka Project Fire. Brian Michael Bendis was born in Cleveland, OH, in 1967, to a religious Jewish family. he attended a private Orthodox Hebrew school. from the age of 13, he wanted to be a comic book writer abd submitted a novelization of a Chris Claremont X-Men story as a creative writing project, in high school. For a time, he worked as a caricaturist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, as he broke into comics, through Caliber, the eclectic independent publisher, run by Gary Reed. It is there that he began to publish stories, including an early work, consisting of two graphic novel volumes, composing the story of Fire. The protagonist is a collecge student, named Benjamin Furst. When we first see him, he is being beaten by two men, and interrogated by a woman.... He's tossed in a cell and then reflects back to where it all began, at a museum, as he was studying a painting for a class. He spots an attractive young woman, in a little black dress who actually speaks to him and he gets so tongue tied he runs away. He runs into her again, elsewhere in the museum and she asks what he feels about an abstract work. He finally spits out it makes him feel forsaken, then turns and she is gone. he tries to tell his friend, Vaughn, but he is busy telling an anecdote about hooking up with a flutist, at a party. he doesn't see the woman watching him. Later, as he walks home, a man tries to mug him, armed with a sharpened screwdriver and Ben fights him off. He spots the woman again, the next day, getting into a car, with his mugger. Later that evening, while studying in his dorm room, he has a visit from the young woman, who tells him she works for the CIA... The girl, DD, disappears for a couple of days and then turns up, with two agents, who have Ben's stuff loaded, when he returns from a movie. He is taken not far away, to an old, disused library and meets Linda dagger, the head of Project Fire. He is trained there, preparing for the job to come. he is given money and everything he needs, but nowhere to spend it, as the library facility becomes his entire world. he immerses himself in books: politics, history, and philosophy, studying the details. He reads the history of the CIA and its wartime predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). He likens them to a buffer zone against war, at best, and an international mafia, at worst. he looks for stories of noble agents and finds none; but keeps looking. he learns the art of unarmed combat, then learns marksmanship by shooting cadavers, to get used to bullets hitting bodies. he spends over two years training. Then, they send him out on his first assignment. ben goes to a bar to meet a man named Sanchez, who the agency got away from his country's military rulers, rescued his family, to work for them. Now, his family have been taken and he waves a gun at Ben. Ben shoots him under the table, with a zip gun, which consists of little more than a barrel and firing pen, made to look like a fountain pen. It fires darts, which dissolve and become untraceable. the barman pulls out a shotgun and he shoots him dead, with an actual pistol. He is then shot in the back, by someone coming from the men's room. The light fades to black, then we see it was all staged. it was his final test, a no-win situation and he did not reprogram the computer. he is sent to London's West End, to set up shop, to then deal with a situation developing in Japan. Ben is set up at the London Times, in a lower level job, as Jake Donaldson. He is well placed to be in a crossroad of information. he is sent to Japan, to deal with an industrialist, who stopped relaying information. He makes contact with a man who will do something about it, then the man's heirs will return their corporation's resources to the fold. The assassin rigs an explosive in a golf ball, as the industrialist tees off and detonates it, killing him instantly. ben observes, from a distance, then returns home 5 hours later. he is troubled by what he saw and sees blood on his hands. Ben has other jobs, which are worse and spends his time sitting in a cafe, reading. DD turns up to give him a parcel to deliver to a contact in the British security services. She then asks if he likes his new life and he admits he doesn't. she asks why he stays and he says he has nothing else. She moves in and asks if he ever thought about.....he responds, then she cuts him off... Ben meets the contact and delivers the package and the man starts questioning whether he looked inside. ben says no and they spar, verbally, then the man gives him insight into who he is and what Project Fire is.... Ben is shaken by the meeting and starts to realize how in over his head he is. he returns to his flat to find DD and says he needs to talk to Dagger about some time off, that his nerves are shot. DD seduces him. She is gone, in the morning and Ben is attacked by the British contact, along with a girl, from the cafe. He is staring up at a gun, from the floor, then fights for survival. he kills the two men and holds the gun to the woman, getting information from her. They aren't British and are a cleanup crew, sent to deal with him, but contacted via cut-outs. The woman tries to escape and Ben shoots her dead, like the others. He takes the cash they had on them, their payment for the job, and takes a flight to Malaysia, to lie low. After many months of stewing, he returns to the US and heads for the library. he breaks into the building and Dagger's office, hacks her computer and obtains the project files, revealing what he feared, that he was a a fall guy, a disposable agent. Use and get rid of, and get another. Ben's activities are monitored and Dagger is alerted. ben is captured, beaten and interrogated, then dumped in the cell, as the story comes full circle. DD visits him, holding a gun, about to shoot him and he kills her with the zip gun pen. He then escapes. We see a piece of writing paper, as Ben loads an envelope to mail to a journalist, when Dagger walks in. Ben has a beard and changed his hair color and style. Dagger tells him she has a mission. He says he walked, she says "tough." Thoughts: This was Bendis' first major work, though AKA Goldfish is the work that got him major attention. He wrote and drew it and the writing is what you expect, overdone, full of pottymouth exclamations, long conversations, told via narration and circular in structure. The opening leads to flashback, which then progresses until it comes back to the present, then back to the past to circle around again. ben is never fully developed, mostly kept as a mystery. From DD we learn he grew up in an orphanage, spent time in juvy, yet is in college. he is Jewish and, at one point, tells a story of a great grandfather who served in the Czar's army and the Czarina knew he was a Jew. His squad is assigned to raise a Jewish shtel. It parallels Ben's story, as he is trapped in his world of deception and killing. Bendis' influences are all over, but sit on the surface. it is one part Robert Ludlum, one part Le Carre, a little Graham Green and a whole lot of Luc Besson's La Femme Nikit. In that film, Anne Parrilaud plays a young woman, Nikita, who is a drug addict. She and a group of users break into a pharmacy (owned by the father of one of the group), who calls the police, then confronts them, with a shotgun. A psychotic member of the group, Rico, shoots him dead. the police turn up and a firefight ensues, while Nikita is mostly out of it, under a counter. A pistol falls near her and when the police search, after killing everyone else, she puts the gun to the head of a cop and shoots him. She is then knocked out with a shotgun but to the head and arersted and tried and sentenced to life in prison. She is visited in the prison by two men in lab coats, who administer a drug to her, without speaking to her. She wakes up in a bare room, in a bed, with a table. A well-dressed man enters and speaks to her. he shows her photos of a grave and a funeral, attended by her mother and sister. She is given an offer, to become something for the state. the alternative is the grave. She is given time to think, then attacks the man when he returns, takes his gun and uses him as a shield, as she tries to escape the building. She is cut off and, in desperation, goes to shoot herself in the head, but the man kept one chamber empty, in his revolver, for safety, then shoots her in the leg. She recovers and then begins her training to become an agent, given training in martial arts, marksmanship and firearms, and tips in hair, make-up, dress and how to use her femininity as a weapon. She is then taken out on her birthday, to a fancy restaurant and given a present, by her supervisor, Bob (the man she attacked). It contains a Desert Eagle .44 Magnum automatic pistol and a spare magazine. She is told to shoot the man and his bodyguard, sitting at a nearby table, then go to the men's room and climb out a window. he then leaves. she follows instructions and kills the men, then goes to the restroom and finds the window bricked over. She then has to escape the building, with the man's other troops pursuing, with automatic weapon, including a rifle with grenade launcher. She makes it out and back to the training facility and yells at Bob that it was a set-up and he tells her it was her rgaduation exercise. She is then sent out, with the cover of a nurse, to await instructions. She sets up housekeeping in a flat and meets a young man, working at a supermarket and is attracted to him. She invites him to dinner and they make love. A romance blooms. he designs boats, but works the job to pay the bills, until he can establish himself. Meanwhile, Nikita is contacted for a mission. She goes to a hotel, reports in and is given a maid's uniform and a room service order to deliver, with various items bugged. She delivers the meal and then is sent home. Later, she is visited by Bob, who is invited to dinner, to meet her boyfriend. He masquerades as her uncle and gives them tickets to Venice, for a vacation. They see the sights in a gondola, then return to their hotel to make love and order room service. She receives a call and instructions to go into the bathroom, to find and assemble a weapon and activate a radio. She reports in and is told to wait for the target, then told to shoot a woman. The boyfriend tries to talk to her, through the door, unaware of what she is doing, in the bathroom. She is then tasked to set up an operation to infiltrate a foreign embassy and photograph documents in a safe. it goes wrong and the target and another agent are killed and she calls for instructions. A "cleaner" is dispatched to cover up the mess and help her complete the mission. Nikita ends up on the run, by the end. All of those plot elements are present, here, along with Le Carre's sad and cynical geopolitics, Ludlum's conspiracies and false identities and some of Graham Greene's sadness. It is a cynical work that reflects the dark underbelly of the Reagan and Bush 80s, with covert operations, secret arms sales, lies to Congress, propping up dictator's and wars conducted for economic stability/gain. Nothing is what it seems and Ben is a patsy, caught in the middle. Like Cornwell and his literary children, he is a misfit, with few family ties and no other purpose. he is intelligent and a voracious reader. He gains knowledge and works under the cover of a journalist. Visually, Bendis is a good artist. His style shows influences of Paul Gulacy and, possibly, Gene Day...it certainly shares a lot of day's visual elements, which influenced Dave Sim and there are parallels in Bendis' layouts and those of Sim, who followed the guide set by Day. Howard Chaykin is another influence, both visually and in his writing. David Mamet has been cited as a big influence on his dialogue scenes and he has also cited Luc Besson's Leon, the Professional, as an influential work. he is also influenced by crime writer Jim Thompson and james M Cain, and the world of film noir, though those influences are stronger in Goldfish and Jinx, his crime work, as well as the historical fiction, Torso. All in all, this is a really good and intriguing read, which dabbles in the more literary world of spies, as well as the more stylistic spy films of the Harry Palmer series, The Third Man, and Luc Besson's stylistic films, which have noir sensibilities, in a neon and modern setting. Besson and filmmaker Jean-Jacques Beineix (Diva), became known in France for introducing a sort of neon noir, with elements of the New Wave filmmakers, as well as their use of moody soundtrack music, using synth and other modern stylings. Besson's films were scored by Eric Serra, who mixed driving bass lines and light melodies, switching from fast action, the bubbly romance, reflecting the mood of the scenes and adding another layer to things. You can listen to the Nikita soundtrack as you read Fire and capture much of the mood, though it lacks the lighter moments of Nikita's romance, with her boyfriend. ben and DD are never real lovers, just agents and pawns in bigger schemes. Next time, we travel into DC's War Comic territory, as we take a look at their late-era features OSS, dealing with the wartime spies, led by Col. William J Donovan.
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Post by foxley on Jun 3, 2023 23:16:11 GMT -5
So far, we have seen the fairy tale world of super spies and agents who deal in absurd threats. James Bond has about as much to do with real intelligence work as Charlie Brown does with Major League Baseball. Ian Fleming was an administrator, an assistant tot he head of Naval Intelligence, in WW2. He was recruited because of family connections and experience in the banking industry, as well as journalism. He didn't run agents, though. he didn't go out in the field and collect it. He shuffled papers and thought up wild ideas that were mostly never initiated because they were fantasy. After the war, he took those wild ideas and put them into fantasy stories; a fairy tale world where Britain still had an empire and the best men in any nation had an English mother (read the books...every station chief had a foreign father and an English mother). The Avengers fought weirdos and madmen with ridiculously complex schemes, most of which put a big spotlight on them, rather than work covertly and quietly to gain intelligence the old fashioned way. To be fair to Fleming, he was personal assistant to Rear Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence. Godfrey was a notoriously abrasive character who made enemies within government circles. Fleming was a naturally charismatic and likable man and much of his value came from acting as Godfrey's liaison with other sections of the government's wartime administration, such as the Secret Intelligence Service, the Political Warfare Executive, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the Joint Intelligence Committee and the Prime Minister's staff.
Fleming also organised 30 Assault Unit and directed their operations. 30 Assault Unit conducted vital intelligence work in the Mediterranean and in the run-up to D-Day.
On the subject of more realistic espionage comics, I hope you will be covering Greg Rucka's excellent Queen & Country book (which was inspired by the gritty The Sandbaggers TV series). Whiteout: Melt (the second of Rucka's Whiteout minis) might also count as an espionage work, and introduces a character who would return in Queen & Country.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 4, 2023 10:40:08 GMT -5
So far, we have seen the fairy tale world of super spies and agents who deal in absurd threats. James Bond has about as much to do with real intelligence work as Charlie Brown does with Major League Baseball. Ian Fleming was an administrator, an assistant tot he head of Naval Intelligence, in WW2. He was recruited because of family connections and experience in the banking industry, as well as journalism. He didn't run agents, though. he didn't go out in the field and collect it. He shuffled papers and thought up wild ideas that were mostly never initiated because they were fantasy. After the war, he took those wild ideas and put them into fantasy stories; a fairy tale world where Britain still had an empire and the best men in any nation had an English mother (read the books...every station chief had a foreign father and an English mother). The Avengers fought weirdos and madmen with ridiculously complex schemes, most of which put a big spotlight on them, rather than work covertly and quietly to gain intelligence the old fashioned way. To be fair to Fleming, he was personal assistant to Rear Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence. Godfrey was a notoriously abrasive character who made enemies within government circles. Fleming was a naturally charismatic and likable man and much of his value came from acting as Godfrey's liaison with other sections of the government's wartime administration, such as the Secret Intelligence Service, the Political Warfare Executive, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the Joint Intelligence Committee and the Prime Minister's staff.
Fleming also organised 30 Assault Unit and directed their operations. 30 Assault Unit conducted vital intelligence work in the Mediterranean and in the run-up to D-Day.
On the subject of more realistic espionage comics, I hope you will be covering Greg Rucka's excellent Queen & Country book (which was inspired by the gritty The Sandbaggers TV series). Whiteout: Melt (the second of Rucka's Whiteout minis) might also count as an espionage work, and introduces a character who would return in Queen & Country.
I'll be getting to Queen & Country; but, I need to read a bit of it, first. I missed it, initially and got digital files, later. From what I have read, Fleming directing 30 Assault Unit was more in the administration of it. One source I read said he would come up with wild ideas, that they would see if they were feasible; but were more often than not impractical. Their record, as a unit, was outstanding, with some major intelligence coups. The thing with Fleming is that the truth of what he did gets exaggerated to ridiculous levels, to draw parallels to Bond. The worst example of this is the made-for-tv movie, Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming, starring Jason Connery. Connery was chosen to portray Fleming, because of his father (he's Sean's son), despite being a relatively inexperienced actor (he had done the Robin of Sherwood series, taking over as Robin in the Hood, from Michael Praed). He's wooden as all hell, which doesn't help thing; but, the real issue is the complete fantasy it concocts, around real events in Fleming's life. Fleming was a journalist and covered a show trial in the USSR. They turn it into an intrigue, where he is approached by a mysterious woman and then betrayed, to draw a parallel to From Russia With Love. They introduce a man who creates strange devices, but no one pays attention to him until Fleming has him outfit a team of agents. The man is supposed to be the inspiration for Q; but, Q is a creation of the films, not Fleming. Fleming had the Armourer, Maj. Boothroyd, in Dr No, for the scenes of Bond getting his Walther PPK, after using a .25 cal Beretta automatic in earlier books. This was due to a firearms expert, Geoffrey Boothroyd contacting Fleming about a field agent like Bond using a pistol with little stopping power; "a ladies gun." He suggested several weapons, including the Walther and Fleming picked it because he liked the name. He named the armourer after Boothroyd, as a tribute. That character appears in Dr No, in an adaptation of those scenes. In From Russia With Love, that character becomes Q (though isn't named Boothroyd, until The Spy Who Loved Me) and issues him with the attache case filled with tricks. There was a real life figure, who developed gadgets for the SOE and others, who informed the Q of the films; but hewas absent from Fleming. Then, they have Fleming take part of an intelligence raid, loosely based on a 30 Assault Unit mission, which leads to German agents planting a bomb in Fleming's flat, which kills the woman he loves, ala Tracy, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. All of it was fiction, apart from slivers of truth that Fleming at Eton, then kicked out of Sandhurst (with gonorrhea), a failed job at a bank (gained through family connections) and time as a journalist, leading to working for Adm. Godfrey, the inspiration for M (also Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, aka C, the head of MI-5). I haven't seen Goldeneye,: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming, with Chares Dance (Game of Thrones, For Your Eyes Only). I have heard that the BBC series Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond, with Dominic Cooper, did address his affairs with Ann Charteris, while she was married to other men, as well as their rather kinky sex life. Bond is basically an updating of patriotic (read jingoistic and racist) adventurer Bulldog Drummond, set in a pulpy world of madmen, super criminals and secret criminal organizations, which is hardly the stock in trade of the intelligence services. It is the world of pulp crime and detective stories, which is more what Bond represents, than actual spying. Ludlum was a failed actor who wrote plots that would be good for movies, but mostly chase their own tails. Deighton wrote thrillers, ala Fleming, but with more intricate plots and with working class figures, which made a change from the upper class figures of Fleming and Bulldog Drummond, as well as other characters in detective fiction, like Lord Peter Whimsey, or the actual MI-6, which recruited heavily from the middle and upper classes, via Oxford & Cambridge, just as William J Donovan did, with the Ivy League Schools, for the OSS.
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Post by foxley on Jun 5, 2023 2:51:54 GMT -5
This is a topic I could debate until the cows come home, but in the interest of not derailing codystarbuck 's excellent thread more than I already have, I'll try and keep my response short. I agree there has been a tendency to exaggerate Fleming's exploits in Naval Intelligence in an attempt to conflate hi with Bond. However, when Fleming's novels fell out of favour, there was also an attempt to undermine his reputation as an author by downplaying his achievements and portraying him as unqualified and an overgrown schoolboy playing at being spy. As is often the case, the truth probably somewhere between the too extremes. Yes, Fleming did come up with a lot of wild ideas. But that was also a part of his job description. Having come in from the outside, part of his job was to come up with ideas that would never occur to standard intelligence operatives, and it was up to others to determine if they were practical. And not all of his ideas were completely outlandish. Although it was not implemented when he suggested it, one of his plans for delivering false intelligence into German hands was identical to the plan that was implemented more than a year later as Operation: Mincemeat. How much input he had into 30 Assault operations following its formation is still a matter of debate, but handling its admin is still not a task to be sneezed at. He was definitely responsible for its formation, having seen and analyzed the success of a German group headed by Otto Skorzeny, who had undertaken similar activities in the Battle of Crete in May 1941. He saw immediately how this could be applied to Allied intelligence effort and made getting it founded a personal crusade. He also went in to bat for 30 Assault when some of the brass attempted to use them as a conventional commando unit, seeing this as a criminal waste of their special talents and a waste of resources. Yes, he certainly never accompanied them on raids, but he did go along as an observer on some missions, monitoring them from the warship they were launched from, showing he was more hands-on than some claim. Was he racist? Yes, but (barring his strange beliefs regarding Koreans) no more so than any other Western writer of his period. The same applies to allegations of sexism, and his heroines are often more independent than his critics (many of whom have never read the novels) acknowledge. And there is very little evidence of misogyny--another common accusation leveled at the novels--in the books. Kingsley Amis does a nice deconstruction of the misogyny claims in The James Bond Dossier. As for Bond being based on Fleming, while Bond's personal tastes tend to mirror Fleming's own, much of Bond was actually based on a Serbian double agent named Dusko Popov who worked for MI6 during the war, although this was not widely known until certain documents were declassified in the 1970s, nearly a decade after Fleming's death. In a case of reality being unrealistic, several of the outlandish things that happened to Bond actually happened to Popov, and Popov's autobiography has been described as reading like a James Bond novel. And, yes, Spymaker is a terrible movie.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jun 5, 2023 4:06:24 GMT -5
(...) As for Bond being based on Fleming, while Bond's personal tastes tend to mirror Fleming's own, much of Bond was actually based on a Serbian double agent named Dusko Popov who worked for MI6 during the war, although this was not widely known until certain documents were declassified in the 1970s, nearly a decade after Fleming's death. In a case of reality being unrealistic, several of the outlandish things that happened to Bond actually happened to Popov, and Popov's autobiography has been described as reading like a James Bond novel.(...) That would be Spy/Counterspy; I read it a few (well, about 6) years ago. It's an interesting read, but not quite like reading an espionage novel. Also, I often found it a bit offputting because it's an autobiography written in the first person, so the narration often comes across as constant boasting - and apparently a few minor incidents he recounts did not actually happen (although most of the main claims he made about his accomplishments have been corroborated by later declassified documents). It really is. Even though I knew next to nothing about Fleming's biography, I could tell as I was watching that pretty much everything being shown was a bunch of b.s. And the younger Connery, while competent as an actor, has none of his dad's charisma. He was seriously outclassed by co-star Kristen Scott Thomas (and man, what a waste of her talent).
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