{"id":29535,"date":"2024-03-19T09:00:33","date_gmt":"2024-03-19T09:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=29535"},"modified":"2024-03-18T17:14:08","modified_gmt":"2024-03-18T17:14:08","slug":"steed-mrs-peel-golden-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2024\/03\/19\/steed-mrs-peel-golden-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Steed & Mrs Peel: Golden Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\" \"\"
\nBy Grant Morrison<\/strong>, Anne Caulfield<\/strong>, Ian Gibson<\/strong>, Ellie De Ville<\/strong> & various (Boom Studios)
\nISBN: 978-1-60886-285-6 (TPB\/Digital edition)<\/p>\n

The<\/strong> (British) Avengers<\/strong> was an astoundingly stylish, globally adored TV show glamorously blending espionage with arch comedy and deadly danger with technological extrapolation, running from the Swinging Sixties through to the end of the decade. A phenomenal cult hit, it and sequel The New Avengers<\/strong> still summons up pangs of Cool Britannia style, cheeky action-adventure, kinky quirkiness, mad gadgetry, dashing heroics, bizarrely British fetish attire, surreal suspense and the wholly appropriate descriptive phrase \u201cSpy Fi\u201d\u2026.<\/p>\n

Enormously popular everywhere, the light-hearted show evolved from 1961\u2019s gritty crime drama Police Surgeon <\/strong>into a paragon of witty, thrillingly sophisticated espionage adventure lampoonery with suavely urbane British Agent John Steed<\/em> and dazzlingly talented amateur sleuth Mrs. Emma Peel<\/em> battling spies, robots, criminals, secret societies, monsters and even \u201caliens\u201d with tongues very much in cheeks and always under the strictest determination to remain calm, dashingly composed and exceedingly eccentric\u2026<\/p>\n

As played by Patrick Macnee, Steed was a nigh-effete dandy and wry caricature of an English Gentleman-spy, counterbalanced by a succession of prodigiously competent woman as partners and foils. The format was pure gold, with second sidekick Peel (as played by Dame Diana Rigg) becoming the most popular right from her October 1965 debut. Rigg was hired to replace Honor Blackman – landmark character Dr.<\/em> Cathy Gale<\/em> – the first full-on, smartly decisive fighting female on British Television.<\/p>\n

Blackman left to play the female lead in Bond movie Goldfinger<\/strong> – allowing her replacement to take the TV show to even greater heights of global success – as she became a style icon of the era. Her trademark Op art \u201cEmmapeeler\u201d catsuits and miniskirts (designed by series costumiers John Bates and Alun Hughes) were sold across the country and the world\u2026<\/p>\n

Emma Peel\u2019s connection with viewers cemented into communal consciousness and the world\u2019s psyche the feminist archetype of a powerful, clever, competent and always-stylishly-clad woman: largely banishing screaming, eye-candy girly-victims to the dustbin of popular fiction. Rigg left in 1967 – also for an 007 role (Tracy Bond<\/em> in On Her Majesty\u2019s Secret Service<\/strong>) – and was followed by Linda Thorson as Tara King<\/em>: another potent woman who carried the series to its demise in 1969. Continued popularity in more than 90 countries led to a revival in the late 1970s as The New Avengers <\/strong>saw posh glamor-puss Purdey<\/em> (Joanna Lumley) and manly Gambit<\/em> (Gareth Hunt) as assistants to the apparently ageless, debonair and deadly Steed\u2026<\/p>\n

The show remains an enduring cult icon, with all the spin-off that entails. During its run and beyond, The Avengers<\/strong> spawned toys, games, collector models, a pop single and stage show, radio series, audio adventures, posters, books, a modish line of \u201cAvengerswear\u201d fashion apparel for women and all the other myriad merchandising strands that inevitably accompany a media sensation.<\/p>\n

The one we care most about is comics and, naturally, the popular British Television program was no stranger there either. Following an introductory strip starring Steed & Dr. Gale in listings magazines Look Westward<\/strong> and The Viewer<\/strong> – plus The Manchester Evening News<\/strong> – (September 1963 to the end of 1964), legendary children\u2019s staple TV Comic<\/strong> launched its own Avengers strip in #720 (October 2nd<\/sup> 1965) with Emma Peel firmly ensconced as co-lead. This series ran until #771 (September 24th<\/sup> 1966) with the dashing duo also appearing in TV Comic Holiday Special<\/strong>, whilst a series of young Emma Peel adventures featured in June & Schoolfriend<\/strong>, before transferring to DC Thomson\u2019s Diana <\/strong>until 1968 whereupon it returned to TV Comic<\/strong> from #877, depicting Steed and Tara King until 1972 and #1077.<\/p>\n

In 1966 Mick Anglo Studios produced a one-off, large-sized UK comic book, and two years later America\u2019s Gold Key\u2019s Four-Color<\/strong> series published their own try-out book utilising recycled UK material. It was called John Steed\/Emma Peel<\/strong> since some outfit called Marvel had secured an American trademark for comics called \u201cThe Avengers<\/strong>\u201d. There were of course wonderful, sturdily steadfast hardback annuals for the British Festive Season trade, starting with 1962\u2019s TV Crimebusters Annual<\/strong> and thereafter pertinent TV Comic Annuals<\/strong> before a run of solo editions graced Christmas stockings from 1967 to 1969: later supplemented by a brace of New Avengers<\/strong> editions for 1977 and 1978.<\/p>\n

Between 1990 and 1992 Eclipse Comics\/ACME Press produced a trans-Atlantic prestige comic book miniseries. Steed & Mrs. Peel<\/strong> was crafted by Grant Morrison & Ian Gibson with a second exploit scripted by Anne Caulfield, and that entire affair was reprinted in 2012 by media-savvy publishers Boom! Studios as a soft pilot for their own iteration which you\u2019ll find reviewed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The original 90s comics tales are whimsically playful and diabolically clever but perhaps require a little backstory. When Emma Peel joined the TV show, she was a new bride, recent widow and old acquaintance of Steed\u2019s. The motivation for bereaved martial artist\/genius level chemist Emma Knight<\/em>\u2019s call to action was that her brand new husband (dashing test pilot Peter Peel<\/em>) had been lost over the Amazon jungles and his loss impelled her into a life of (secret) service. The amateur adventurer\u2019s second career ended in-world when hubby was found alive and she returned to him and the Amazonian Leopard-People he had discovered, leaving Steed to muddle along with fully trained professional British agent Tara King\u2026<\/p>\n

Here that marital reunion informs Morrison (Animal Man<\/strong>, Zenith<\/strong>) & Ian Gibson\u2019s \u2018The Golden Game\u2019<\/em>: a 4-act chapterplay serially comprising \u2018Crown & Anchor\u2019<\/em>, \u2018Hare & Hounds\u2019<\/em>, \u2018Fox & Geese\u2019<\/em> and concluding instalment \u2018Hangman\u2019<\/em>. It opens six months later with Mrs Peel\u2019s abrupt recall to duty after Miss King goes missing whilst investigating leaks at the Admiralty and suspicious doings at elite games fraternity The Palamedes Club.<\/p>\n

When the disappearance is linked to the truly baroque murder of puzzle-obsessed founding member and key military strategist Admiral \u201cFoggy\u201d Fanshawe<\/em>, Steed\u2019s handler \u201cMother\u201d insists he investigate but trust no one, which the super-agent imputes to mean no one currently active in the agency\u2026<\/p>\n

With willing and able Emma Peel back from South America, he traces a string of excessively imaginative card and boardgame-themed slayings to an old school chum who really can carry a grudge and knows how to implement stolen nuclear launch codes to a wild and weird climax with Peel ultimately saving the day and the world\u2026<\/p>\n

Anne Caulfield scripted fantasy-fuelled follow-up \u2018Deadly Rainbow\u2019<\/em> as Mr and Mrs Peel reunite in the scenic English village of Pringle-on-Sea – where they had their honeymoon – only to find the laws of science and nature being warped by what appear to be the Leopard People Peter had befriended in the Amazon\u2026<\/p>\n

With minds clouded, telepathy and prophecy running riot, zombies marching and entire bodies (not just heads) being shrunken amidst scenes of bucolic domesticity, Peter soon goes missing again. When exploitative American resource plunderers who have been deforesting the tribe\u2019s hidden home, it\u2019s not long before Steed comes to Emma\u2019s call\u2026<\/p>\n

The breezy satire, edgy social commentary and especially the pure peril-embedded nonsense of the original shows is perfectly captured by much-missed, recently departed pioneering 2000 AD<\/strong> stalwart Ian (Ballad of Halo Jones<\/strong>, Robo-Hunter<\/strong>) Gibson (February 20th<\/sup> 1946 – December 11th<\/sup> 2023) who especially goes to town on the weird events of the second saga and also contributes a variant cover gallery featuring 11 playfully suspenseful images.<\/p>\n

Emma Peel may have been a style icon of the sixties, but she was also (and still is) a fierce, potent, overwhelming example and role model for girls. Her cool intellect, varied skills and accomplishments and smooth confidence inspired – as much as action contemporary Modesty Blaise<\/strong> – a host of fictive imitators whilst opening up new vistas and career paths for suppressed millions of prospective and downhearted future underpaid secretaries, nurses, shopgirls and teachers and frustrated wives. Peel\u2019s influence even briefly reshaped the most powerful symbol of female empowerment in the world as her crimebusting detective troubleshooter alternate lifestyle became the model for sales-impoverished Wonder Woman<\/a><\/strong> who in the late 1960s ditched powers and costumes for bullets and boutiques\u2026<\/p>\n

Thrilling, funny, and eternally fabulous, Emma Peel is a woman to be reckoned with and these are tales you need to read\u2026
\n\u00a9 2012 StudioCanal S.A. All Rights Reserved. The Avengers and Steed & Mrs Peel are trademarks of StudioCanal S.A. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Grant Morrison, Anne Caulfield, Ian Gibson, Ellie De Ville & various (Boom Studios) ISBN: 978-1-60886-285-6 (TPB\/Digital edition) The (British) Avengers was an astoundingly stylish, globally adored TV show glamorously blending espionage with arch comedy and deadly danger with technological extrapolation, running from the Swinging Sixties through to the end of the decade. A phenomenal … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Steed & Mrs Peel: Golden Game”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[191,42,113,75,125,225,169,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-best-of-british","category-comedy","category-crime-comics","category-humour","category-mystery","category-spy-stories","category-tv-adaptations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-7Gn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29535"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29543,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29535\/revisions\/29543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}