Comic of the Week 01/17/2012
Two years before Marvel’s premiere super team of the same name debuted in 1963, the The Avengers debuted on British TV screens with Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman. The rights to air the hit spy-fi show in the US were sold to ABC in 1965, when Diana Rigg joined the cast as Emma Peel – it’s the 1965-1968 era of the show that this comic draws from.
The show continued without Diana Rigg until 1969 and was revamped in 1976 as The New Avengers, this time running for two seasons and starring Joanna Lumley. The concept refused to die, re-emerging as a 1998 movie starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman that suffered scathing reviews.
Comics legend Grant Morrison has now revived the concept as a six issue mini-series from Boom! Studios, with his artistic collaborator Ian Gibson, the first issue of which goes on sale tomorrow.
Tara King meets an old sailor, Admiral Fanshawe, in a gambling pub. They walk to the quay and discuss the existence of a mole in his department. The sailor is next seen tied to an anchor at the bottom of the sea.
Steed descends into the sewers to meet his boss, Mother. They discuss the ‘rash and irritatingly impetuous’ Miss King and Steed is asked to investigate the death of Fanshawe. He shows Steed a die found beside his body.
Steed calls Mrs. Peel and they meet in a graveyard, observing Fanshawe’s funeral. He recruits her to work the case with him. They visit Chez Fanshawe, where they’re instructed to play hopscotch down a long hallway by a butler who assumes them to be members of the Palamedes Club, which Fanshawe used as a meeting place for games enthusiasts. They search his ‘ship in a bottle’ conservatory and find a letter to an ‘agony aunt’, Doris Storm, on the subject of foxhunting. Mrs. Steed goes to visit Doris and learns she is giving blood at that moment.
Mrs. Peel heads down to the ambulance to speak with her as one of the nurses injects her with ‘something’. She rugby tackles the nurse and then finds the apparently dying Doris who mutters the last words ‘Rooks and Ravens.’
It’s a bizarre issue, delightfully paying homage to the surreal, stylish spy drama origins of the source material. It’s more nostalgia than new reading pleasure, but an enjoyable diversion.
You can discuss Steed & Mrs. Peel #1 here on the HAIRcomics forums.
Knowing nothing about the series except for really liking the ’98 movie, I was a little confused, but enjoyed it. The fact that it seemed like “Foggy” that Miss King was talking to threw the die, but was also the dead body makes me confused. So, don’t really know what’s going on there. Anyway, I think the nurse at the end that stabs Doris Storm seems to be hypnotized… and perhaps the enemy is a rival spy group that uses gaming euphemisms for all their code? Anyway, it was an interesting read, and about as vague and mysterious as the movie, but it definitely seems like an odd way to try to hook new readers. I agree, it’s mostly a nostalgia thing.
Heather, definitely an odd way to lure in readers who are unfamiliar with the TV show/movie! I think the preceding scenes leading up to the discovery of the body were meant to lead the reader to think that Tara King was reeling her victim in.
It was stylish and fun in a wacky-geeky-silly kind of way that gently pokes fun at super spy gadgetry a la James Bond, such as the access to the HQ being via public toilets that drop into the sewers below.
Not having seen the show or the movie I was lost as can be. But I did find the characters interesting. Maybe if I read the next one it will help me understand what is going on.
Agreed with Rebecca.
Okay, I’ll say more.
My only frame-of-reference for this comic was the movie in which Sean Connery played a villain, and it was awful. The comic confused me because no one ever took off their bowler and used it as a weapon. (Was that the movie? It’s fuzzy.)
I’m sure that they spent a lot to acquire the rights. Maybe it’s too early to tell what they intend to do with it.
It was a divisive movie, Adam, really popular with some and derided by many others. I wasn’t a fan, like you. I think the film-makers misunderstood the campy nature of the TV show: I don’t think it set out to be campy, back in the day, I think they were doing their best to make an entertaining spy-fi show on a budget and that it ended up being campy. The movie went for deliberately campy and in doing so failed to capture the nostalgia for the show.
I have to say, when it comes to the comic I expect better from comics legend Grant Morrison. This wasn’t as smart as I’ve come to expect from him.