I SPY [3]: The Brian Walker Period.
THE I SPY SAGA may have bowed out in a spectacular finish in May 1970, leaving followers of the strip with no lead hero for over four months, [ along with an I SPY- free SPARKY] however fan demand was such that the character duly returned in October of that same year, in the issue dated number 300.
Our hero is seen relaxing at SPY HQ casually chatting to Boss at his desk, recounting how the lethal explosion at Masterminds' lair had propelled him outwards and he landed in a tree, spending the last few months recouperating and re-tuning his many secret devices: not exactly a convincing, satisfactory explanation for his back-to-normal reappearence----taking into account the sheer severity of the explosive blast at the climax of the previous episode---------, but there was something a lot more alarming about I SPY's first new appearence in almost five months:
THINGS THEY HAD A-CHANGED...[almost] ----------FOREVER: Everything...looked.....very different!!!!!!!
This was hardly surprizing, for the duties on the new stories were taken over with a different artist who utilized a very different approach to drawing: for the next couple of years, I SPY was to be drawn by BRIAN WALKER, and I have to come clean and admit that, before October 1970, I never fully considered the possibilty of my favorite strip being taken over by a very different artist: I noticed the changes instantly: just relatively small differences, that nevertheless mean a lot to ardent fans of a specific character; for example, the Les Barton version of I SPY had wafer-thin hinged panels in his suit required to unleash his devices: on the Walker version, the hinged panels are as thick as slices of bread. In late 1970, I was very disappointed at the loss of Barton as the I SPY artist, but in the past two decades I have tempered my earlier misgivings on this.
Brian Walker is a VERY good artist and his version of I SPY is extremely effective and imminently memorable: a lot of his drawing technique extends to very good depictions of buildings and elaborate machinery especially. His depiction of the lead hero was a lot more dimensional and shaded than the original 'matte-black' version. However, the streamlined, almost abstract approach to drawing the character were Barton Hallmarks I have always preferred: this is all just down to personal taste of course, and I have to confess that seeing the WALKER version of the early-ish serials today, they are deeply impressive works, and a very valid inclusion into the archive spy-files that make up the History of the character: his ink-wash technique often looks stunning, and the overall artwork is of a type that could only have been struck in 1970-71; it sums up the period perfectly. If Barton had drawn these later episodes, I doubtless would have preffered this at the time, but I have very powerful memories of the WALKER version, which today I savor and relish with much appreciation.
The Walker serials ran in two seperate blocks [maybe so Bri could catch up with his often- intricate artwork?]: the first of these ran for 22 weeks, encompassing issues 300-321, [17 Oct 1970-13 Mach 1971]. Scripting very likely seems to have been done by Peter Clark, who wrote the bulk of the Barton set: PC went on to become Editor of WARLORD in 1974.
The Brian Walker black-and-white serials were:
I SPY vs. FATMAN: this story ran for six weeks, and truth be told, this was not really an auspicious debut for the new serials: the basic premise is fine, but overall this one does not gel too well. Weedy civil servant Froghoppit---surely the least impressive spy-villain out of the entire canon------steals the technology for advanced, inflatable, nuclear-powered rubber suits, which expand to give the wearer artificial, but lethal, super-powers. This makes this outing the closest that I SPY ever got to outlandish, Marvel Comics-like mayhem: but for me it is the lame character of Froghoppit that lets this one down somewhat: yes he has to be a wimp for dramatic comparison reasons, thus, this is perhaps the main fatal flaw in the scripting dept. Contains a VERY elaborate booby-trapped/ticking-clock defuse-a-lethal-bomb extended tableaux, and the closing chapter, with a small army of suited Fatmen bouncing around a cityscape in their nuclear suits, loks like it could have been scripted by Stan Lee: shards of great potential in this story that never fully satisfies. If Barton had drawn this story, would it have been an improvement? Well-----it's possible.
I SPY and the GHOST of MR X: this one ran for six weeks too and it's a hyper-imaginitive corker! Some fans rate this one as the best Mr X tale ever, and it's a high-concept winner all the way. Mr X, apparantly back from the dead, disappears and reappears inhumanly and superhumanly, anywhere he desires at his leisure, and not only that, he goes on to make make vast, entire sections of the British landscape completely disappear from the map, including the whole of Scotland! Reading this bamboozling mystery first time around, I have to admit I was stumped as to how the villain pulled off these dazzling feats: it turns out he has procured hyper-advanced rocket-fuel, which powers his adapted top-hat into a supersonic' vehicle' that makes him move faster than the human eye can make out. He manages to steal wide landscapes by attaching land-masses to strengthened steel cables, connected to his highly-powered rockets! The sheer audacity of these ideas make this one a standout, and we also get a re-appearence [the final one] from I Spy's now-ally, Aye Mc Spy. One bizarre interlude sees McSpy, I Spy and Boss rocket towards the moon, on a crash-collision course.
Other delights include the last word on the old 'circular saw' cliffhanger, Mr X appearing at the League of Nations in a delapidated jallopy, where he threatens to de-stable the whole planet with his rocket-power: and also we get the lavish spectacle of seeing all the seperate parts of Britain stolen by Mr X, concealed high above the clouds, looking very much like some vast jigsaw puzzle! This mind-bending story is actually very easy to follow, so the scripting has been well-plotted: this one is a must-see within the I SPY canon.
I SPY and the Voice!
---Oh, dear! The years 1969-71 easily yielded the cream of the I SPY crop, but this three-part entry represents the only true clunker within this otherwise sterling period: the premise is as deliciously eccentric as ever: a two-bit spiv-villain in the shape of Fingers utlizes recordings of Tenors singing in high-pitched frequencies [you know the sort of thing: shattering a glass with the human voice alone!] which he blasts through speakers in order to demolish/obliterate entire buildings: this is all very well, but each of the three instalments ends with the same 'toppling house' scenario, which is pushing it a bit-------we also get the only Granny Spy scenarios of the Walker era, with some very fetching shots of her on her motor-bike. This story is for completists only, although the visuals are of the usual high standard.
I SPY and the COPYCAT:
Huzzah! After the previous story mis-fire, the series is back on sparkling form, in this lush-and -lavish six-parter, that pulls out all the stops and takes no prisoners, regarding danger and high-falutin' melodrama, all built upon another very imaginitive premise that runs second only to the high-jinks recounted during the Ghost of MR X story. In this one, a well-heeled, unseen genius [true I SPY fans realized it was MR Mastermind all along, that cee-gar and Rolls Royce was a dead giveaway!] unleashes a hyper-advanced scienentific device that produces ray-beams capable of reproducing exact fully-operational copies [sort of like an uber-3-D -printer] of any object, or indeed people. Early examples of this technological marvel include a tank crew and even I SPY himself: he meets 'himself' in a duelling scene above a clifftop. Better still is to arrive within this tale however; the best episodes are two set in and around the now-decaying former MASTERMIND TOWERS COMPLEX, including a very elaborate incident of I SPY gatecrashing the MM premises in a 'flying Rolls Royce'. These episodes are atmospheric and eerily-effective in the extreme, and overall the artwork and story rank amongst the finest the series ever bequeathed.
Masterminds' re-appearence is as unconvincing as that of I SPY after the vast explosion at the climax of the Barton series : it's the exact same so-so excuse-------however this is redeemed by a great gag where MM unleashes his 'index-finger-bullet-device' against our hero. Great scene as I SPY is pursued in mid-air by a small army of his doppelgangers. The main drawback in this story is the sheer unliklihood of such advanced technology [even the Prime Minister and soforth are replaced by wholly convincing, evil duplicates] coming along anytime soon: certainly not today in 2015, let alone in 1971! Maybe 300 or so years in the far future? But no matter, this is all high-fantasy stuff and shall be treated as such. Also contains the unforgettable sight of Mastermind pushing a pram near Ten Downing Street---in drag! He now sports a beard, so clearly the ambitious bad-'un is anticipating British zany-DJ Kenny Everett by a fair few years! We also see a lot of SMOKING in this story, a theme sadly absent today in a lot of latter-day comics.
An absolute winning story, probably the best of the Walker tenure , and very much on par with anything achieved when Les Barton wielded the dip-pen.
THERE WAS THEN A BREAK IN THE SPY-SERIES FOR 12 WEEKS: the action resumed in SPARKY issue 333, the remainder of the b/w Walker stories lasting until issue 355: a second block of another four stories. These were:
I SPY and the Seven-Stone Supermen:
---------this 5-parter saw the concept take off into yet more unchartered territory: the premise here sees the demented evil genius DOCTOR Q [banned from legit scientific circles] put into practise his controversial 'Superman' theory: he aims to extract the talented qualities from top specialists in their respective field: ie, fitness ability from athletes, leadership qualities from the Prime Minister, etc. This he does by hiring a band of motley wide-boys, who deliver lethal rocket-ized booby-trapped devices which ensnare the victims and deliver them to Q's countryside laboratory.
Quite creepy in bits: the manacled victims undergo some sort of ghastly process [off-frame] and they end up being labelled, shrunken down and placed into a tiny drawer: I SPY himself is one of these victims, and the depth of Q's depravity is revealed as I SPY is shrunken down to a small black liquid pool, which the evil scientist sponges up and bottles! Our hero declares that 'this is the tightest squeeze' he has ever endured! The liquidized victims manage to escape and reverse the process in the finale. A gloomy, gothick tale [DR Q resembles the evil Coachman out of Disney's Pinocchio] that may well be familiar to more readers than usual out of the generally neglected and wholly un-reprinted early serials, , as this entire tale was reprinted in the 1980 SPARKY Book.
I SPY and the AMAZING MR. X:
------------------another 5-parter affair, with MR X utilizing soaring, hypnotic music to help him escape jail once again, before going on to threaten the entire nation with the lethal musical melodies. Episode One is especially well-drawn, and ends with yet another memorable cliiffhanger as our hero is dragged behind a speeding train: there is a 'deep space' interlude with great visuals of the villian decked out in hi-tech space garb [it has to be said that MR X sometimes resembles an evil hob-goblin, complete with pointed Spock ears, in the Walker tenure!] : overall this outing is mere supporting fare to the other highlights in this series, but still a well worthy addition to the impressive canon.
I SPY and the SKYWAYMEN:
-------------an especially imaginitive six-parter that is so off the beaten I SPY track, that back in 1971 I never especially warmed to it. Today, I rate this story as one of the very best 1971 efforts and it's insistince in skewing into bold new territory is imminently admirable! Dick-Turpin-like vagabonds appear out of nowhere to rob and hold up modern armored vans and even 20th-Century jet airlines! They possess superior technology that enables them to soar through the skies, and they can even 'freeze' 'planes in mid-air, in order to rob them! Early impressive scenes include I SPY and Boss, who are trapped in a plummeting stolen Security van: there is a fantastic mid-air escape scenario in this one.
This story was also notable for starting off with the SPY HQ office introduction of a robotic sniffer-dog called AUTO-HOUND, a character which may have pointed towards our hero having a permanent 'assistant a-la Doctor Whos' K9 or even Gnasher-like: in true I SPY anti-formulae outlook, the mini-robot is destroyed fairly early on. I SPY discovers a 'lost tribe ' who live high in the clouds: centuries ago, they developed anti-gravity technology, and they rightly keep well clear from the rest of society: their customs still resemble 17th or 18th-Century life, despite their advanced technology. A band of renegades from this seperate society rebel and start attacking 'our world' : hence the SKYWAYMEN of the title. The artwork has a deliberately dated look [even within the context of 1971 production standards] which makes for a very different-looking atmosphere throughout.
Also contains the very un-I SPY- like threat of two collared grizzly bears, which sounds jarring, but looks great. At story end, I SPY resolves to keep his knowledge of the secretive, otherwise pacifist secret society up in the clouds: the titular baddies are sorted out, so their future seems assured. Even BOSS never gets told about the existance of the sky-people, an admirable trait I have seen recounted in older SUPERMAN stories, and the only known use of this story device anywhere in the spy-saga,
Fantastic, Medievel-like Imagery in this one, a story which perhaps points to SPARKYS' Alice in Wonderland-like past involving the theme of revisiting long-bygone worlds: the overall ambience is [refreshingly] like something out of DREAMY DAVE and DOZY DORA in some excerpts. An absolute [atypical] winning entry, in every way.
I SPY and the RETURN of the MATIC-MEN:
---------The final black-and-white Walker Piece is yet another six-parter, and it's a re-introduction of the fabled MATIC-MEN indestructible Robots that featured so heavily in the final Barton serving. Someone has sent MR MASTERMIND a cake to his jail-cell, and the prison staff have rightfully broken it up for inspection: however the staff have overlooked the cake currents, which turn out to be tiny electronic transmitters, the final key components that Mastermind needs to activate his MARK II Matic-Men via remote-control: early visual delights include the gloomy gothick sight of the distant giant robots springing into life within their secret dungeon location. Springing their leader from his high-up prison cell, [they form a sort of 'robotic ladder' for this purpose]. MASTERMIND escapes custody, and his nigh-indestructible Robots who act as minders for him mean he can do whatever he wants, as his robots dispense Chieftan Tanks with ease.
Mastermind stops off at Saville Row in order to dress better, and in a scripting master-stroke, moves into Buckingham Palace with the Matic-Men, after seeing the Windsors are 'away on Royal Tour'! There are some bizarre elements thrown into the script-mix : the huge Robots are also attired in tailored suits, and there is a pretty strange football match with the Matics taking place on the Palace Lawn. MM also fancies a new swimming-pool installed, so the Matics get to work, constructing one. I SPY goes to visit the triumphant and un-touchable Mastermind in the Palace, and manages to secretly record a long conversation from the demented genius, which he later cuts-and-pastes [no digital recording nonsense back in 1971!] the dialog so that Masterminds' word is no longer the Law regarding the orders the Matics recieve.
The design of the MATIC-MEN in the Walker incarnation are bulkier and more shambling in some of the poses compared to the more streamlined Barton original versions, but nevertheless they cut a suitably hulking menace throughout. The final black-and-white Brian Walker I SPY story winds up with the unlikely sight of the hyper-refined Mastermind being forced to refill a swimming-pool he had his robots created, on the Palace Lawn. Presumably, he soon gets blisters on his lily-white skin.
I am not the only I SPY fan and commentator to point out that this last pretty good story was very likely the last of the truly great I SPY efforts and represents something of a sad watershed within the overall phenomenon as a result of this.
There were still a lot more entries to surface in the future spy-files, however:
I SPY, BOSS SPY and MR X characters all copyright of D C Thomson and Co Ltd, 2015.
Our hero is seen relaxing at SPY HQ casually chatting to Boss at his desk, recounting how the lethal explosion at Masterminds' lair had propelled him outwards and he landed in a tree, spending the last few months recouperating and re-tuning his many secret devices: not exactly a convincing, satisfactory explanation for his back-to-normal reappearence----taking into account the sheer severity of the explosive blast at the climax of the previous episode---------, but there was something a lot more alarming about I SPY's first new appearence in almost five months:
THINGS THEY HAD A-CHANGED...[almost] ----------FOREVER: Everything...looked.....very different!!!!!!!
This was hardly surprizing, for the duties on the new stories were taken over with a different artist who utilized a very different approach to drawing: for the next couple of years, I SPY was to be drawn by BRIAN WALKER, and I have to come clean and admit that, before October 1970, I never fully considered the possibilty of my favorite strip being taken over by a very different artist: I noticed the changes instantly: just relatively small differences, that nevertheless mean a lot to ardent fans of a specific character; for example, the Les Barton version of I SPY had wafer-thin hinged panels in his suit required to unleash his devices: on the Walker version, the hinged panels are as thick as slices of bread. In late 1970, I was very disappointed at the loss of Barton as the I SPY artist, but in the past two decades I have tempered my earlier misgivings on this.
Brian Walker is a VERY good artist and his version of I SPY is extremely effective and imminently memorable: a lot of his drawing technique extends to very good depictions of buildings and elaborate machinery especially. His depiction of the lead hero was a lot more dimensional and shaded than the original 'matte-black' version. However, the streamlined, almost abstract approach to drawing the character were Barton Hallmarks I have always preferred: this is all just down to personal taste of course, and I have to confess that seeing the WALKER version of the early-ish serials today, they are deeply impressive works, and a very valid inclusion into the archive spy-files that make up the History of the character: his ink-wash technique often looks stunning, and the overall artwork is of a type that could only have been struck in 1970-71; it sums up the period perfectly. If Barton had drawn these later episodes, I doubtless would have preffered this at the time, but I have very powerful memories of the WALKER version, which today I savor and relish with much appreciation.
The Walker serials ran in two seperate blocks [maybe so Bri could catch up with his often- intricate artwork?]: the first of these ran for 22 weeks, encompassing issues 300-321, [17 Oct 1970-13 Mach 1971]. Scripting very likely seems to have been done by Peter Clark, who wrote the bulk of the Barton set: PC went on to become Editor of WARLORD in 1974.
The Brian Walker black-and-white serials were:
I SPY vs. FATMAN: this story ran for six weeks, and truth be told, this was not really an auspicious debut for the new serials: the basic premise is fine, but overall this one does not gel too well. Weedy civil servant Froghoppit---surely the least impressive spy-villain out of the entire canon------steals the technology for advanced, inflatable, nuclear-powered rubber suits, which expand to give the wearer artificial, but lethal, super-powers. This makes this outing the closest that I SPY ever got to outlandish, Marvel Comics-like mayhem: but for me it is the lame character of Froghoppit that lets this one down somewhat: yes he has to be a wimp for dramatic comparison reasons, thus, this is perhaps the main fatal flaw in the scripting dept. Contains a VERY elaborate booby-trapped/ticking-clock defuse-a-lethal-bomb extended tableaux, and the closing chapter, with a small army of suited Fatmen bouncing around a cityscape in their nuclear suits, loks like it could have been scripted by Stan Lee: shards of great potential in this story that never fully satisfies. If Barton had drawn this story, would it have been an improvement? Well-----it's possible.
I SPY and the GHOST of MR X: this one ran for six weeks too and it's a hyper-imaginitive corker! Some fans rate this one as the best Mr X tale ever, and it's a high-concept winner all the way. Mr X, apparantly back from the dead, disappears and reappears inhumanly and superhumanly, anywhere he desires at his leisure, and not only that, he goes on to make make vast, entire sections of the British landscape completely disappear from the map, including the whole of Scotland! Reading this bamboozling mystery first time around, I have to admit I was stumped as to how the villain pulled off these dazzling feats: it turns out he has procured hyper-advanced rocket-fuel, which powers his adapted top-hat into a supersonic' vehicle' that makes him move faster than the human eye can make out. He manages to steal wide landscapes by attaching land-masses to strengthened steel cables, connected to his highly-powered rockets! The sheer audacity of these ideas make this one a standout, and we also get a re-appearence [the final one] from I Spy's now-ally, Aye Mc Spy. One bizarre interlude sees McSpy, I Spy and Boss rocket towards the moon, on a crash-collision course.
Other delights include the last word on the old 'circular saw' cliffhanger, Mr X appearing at the League of Nations in a delapidated jallopy, where he threatens to de-stable the whole planet with his rocket-power: and also we get the lavish spectacle of seeing all the seperate parts of Britain stolen by Mr X, concealed high above the clouds, looking very much like some vast jigsaw puzzle! This mind-bending story is actually very easy to follow, so the scripting has been well-plotted: this one is a must-see within the I SPY canon.
I SPY and the Voice!
---Oh, dear! The years 1969-71 easily yielded the cream of the I SPY crop, but this three-part entry represents the only true clunker within this otherwise sterling period: the premise is as deliciously eccentric as ever: a two-bit spiv-villain in the shape of Fingers utlizes recordings of Tenors singing in high-pitched frequencies [you know the sort of thing: shattering a glass with the human voice alone!] which he blasts through speakers in order to demolish/obliterate entire buildings: this is all very well, but each of the three instalments ends with the same 'toppling house' scenario, which is pushing it a bit-------we also get the only Granny Spy scenarios of the Walker era, with some very fetching shots of her on her motor-bike. This story is for completists only, although the visuals are of the usual high standard.
I SPY and the COPYCAT:
Huzzah! After the previous story mis-fire, the series is back on sparkling form, in this lush-and -lavish six-parter, that pulls out all the stops and takes no prisoners, regarding danger and high-falutin' melodrama, all built upon another very imaginitive premise that runs second only to the high-jinks recounted during the Ghost of MR X story. In this one, a well-heeled, unseen genius [true I SPY fans realized it was MR Mastermind all along, that cee-gar and Rolls Royce was a dead giveaway!] unleashes a hyper-advanced scienentific device that produces ray-beams capable of reproducing exact fully-operational copies [sort of like an uber-3-D -printer] of any object, or indeed people. Early examples of this technological marvel include a tank crew and even I SPY himself: he meets 'himself' in a duelling scene above a clifftop. Better still is to arrive within this tale however; the best episodes are two set in and around the now-decaying former MASTERMIND TOWERS COMPLEX, including a very elaborate incident of I SPY gatecrashing the MM premises in a 'flying Rolls Royce'. These episodes are atmospheric and eerily-effective in the extreme, and overall the artwork and story rank amongst the finest the series ever bequeathed.
Masterminds' re-appearence is as unconvincing as that of I SPY after the vast explosion at the climax of the Barton series : it's the exact same so-so excuse-------however this is redeemed by a great gag where MM unleashes his 'index-finger-bullet-device' against our hero. Great scene as I SPY is pursued in mid-air by a small army of his doppelgangers. The main drawback in this story is the sheer unliklihood of such advanced technology [even the Prime Minister and soforth are replaced by wholly convincing, evil duplicates] coming along anytime soon: certainly not today in 2015, let alone in 1971! Maybe 300 or so years in the far future? But no matter, this is all high-fantasy stuff and shall be treated as such. Also contains the unforgettable sight of Mastermind pushing a pram near Ten Downing Street---in drag! He now sports a beard, so clearly the ambitious bad-'un is anticipating British zany-DJ Kenny Everett by a fair few years! We also see a lot of SMOKING in this story, a theme sadly absent today in a lot of latter-day comics.
An absolute winning story, probably the best of the Walker tenure , and very much on par with anything achieved when Les Barton wielded the dip-pen.
THERE WAS THEN A BREAK IN THE SPY-SERIES FOR 12 WEEKS: the action resumed in SPARKY issue 333, the remainder of the b/w Walker stories lasting until issue 355: a second block of another four stories. These were:
I SPY and the Seven-Stone Supermen:
---------this 5-parter saw the concept take off into yet more unchartered territory: the premise here sees the demented evil genius DOCTOR Q [banned from legit scientific circles] put into practise his controversial 'Superman' theory: he aims to extract the talented qualities from top specialists in their respective field: ie, fitness ability from athletes, leadership qualities from the Prime Minister, etc. This he does by hiring a band of motley wide-boys, who deliver lethal rocket-ized booby-trapped devices which ensnare the victims and deliver them to Q's countryside laboratory.
Quite creepy in bits: the manacled victims undergo some sort of ghastly process [off-frame] and they end up being labelled, shrunken down and placed into a tiny drawer: I SPY himself is one of these victims, and the depth of Q's depravity is revealed as I SPY is shrunken down to a small black liquid pool, which the evil scientist sponges up and bottles! Our hero declares that 'this is the tightest squeeze' he has ever endured! The liquidized victims manage to escape and reverse the process in the finale. A gloomy, gothick tale [DR Q resembles the evil Coachman out of Disney's Pinocchio] that may well be familiar to more readers than usual out of the generally neglected and wholly un-reprinted early serials, , as this entire tale was reprinted in the 1980 SPARKY Book.
I SPY and the AMAZING MR. X:
------------------another 5-parter affair, with MR X utilizing soaring, hypnotic music to help him escape jail once again, before going on to threaten the entire nation with the lethal musical melodies. Episode One is especially well-drawn, and ends with yet another memorable cliiffhanger as our hero is dragged behind a speeding train: there is a 'deep space' interlude with great visuals of the villian decked out in hi-tech space garb [it has to be said that MR X sometimes resembles an evil hob-goblin, complete with pointed Spock ears, in the Walker tenure!] : overall this outing is mere supporting fare to the other highlights in this series, but still a well worthy addition to the impressive canon.
I SPY and the SKYWAYMEN:
-------------an especially imaginitive six-parter that is so off the beaten I SPY track, that back in 1971 I never especially warmed to it. Today, I rate this story as one of the very best 1971 efforts and it's insistince in skewing into bold new territory is imminently admirable! Dick-Turpin-like vagabonds appear out of nowhere to rob and hold up modern armored vans and even 20th-Century jet airlines! They possess superior technology that enables them to soar through the skies, and they can even 'freeze' 'planes in mid-air, in order to rob them! Early impressive scenes include I SPY and Boss, who are trapped in a plummeting stolen Security van: there is a fantastic mid-air escape scenario in this one.
This story was also notable for starting off with the SPY HQ office introduction of a robotic sniffer-dog called AUTO-HOUND, a character which may have pointed towards our hero having a permanent 'assistant a-la Doctor Whos' K9 or even Gnasher-like: in true I SPY anti-formulae outlook, the mini-robot is destroyed fairly early on. I SPY discovers a 'lost tribe ' who live high in the clouds: centuries ago, they developed anti-gravity technology, and they rightly keep well clear from the rest of society: their customs still resemble 17th or 18th-Century life, despite their advanced technology. A band of renegades from this seperate society rebel and start attacking 'our world' : hence the SKYWAYMEN of the title. The artwork has a deliberately dated look [even within the context of 1971 production standards] which makes for a very different-looking atmosphere throughout.
Also contains the very un-I SPY- like threat of two collared grizzly bears, which sounds jarring, but looks great. At story end, I SPY resolves to keep his knowledge of the secretive, otherwise pacifist secret society up in the clouds: the titular baddies are sorted out, so their future seems assured. Even BOSS never gets told about the existance of the sky-people, an admirable trait I have seen recounted in older SUPERMAN stories, and the only known use of this story device anywhere in the spy-saga,
Fantastic, Medievel-like Imagery in this one, a story which perhaps points to SPARKYS' Alice in Wonderland-like past involving the theme of revisiting long-bygone worlds: the overall ambience is [refreshingly] like something out of DREAMY DAVE and DOZY DORA in some excerpts. An absolute [atypical] winning entry, in every way.
I SPY and the RETURN of the MATIC-MEN:
---------The final black-and-white Walker Piece is yet another six-parter, and it's a re-introduction of the fabled MATIC-MEN indestructible Robots that featured so heavily in the final Barton serving. Someone has sent MR MASTERMIND a cake to his jail-cell, and the prison staff have rightfully broken it up for inspection: however the staff have overlooked the cake currents, which turn out to be tiny electronic transmitters, the final key components that Mastermind needs to activate his MARK II Matic-Men via remote-control: early visual delights include the gloomy gothick sight of the distant giant robots springing into life within their secret dungeon location. Springing their leader from his high-up prison cell, [they form a sort of 'robotic ladder' for this purpose]. MASTERMIND escapes custody, and his nigh-indestructible Robots who act as minders for him mean he can do whatever he wants, as his robots dispense Chieftan Tanks with ease.
Mastermind stops off at Saville Row in order to dress better, and in a scripting master-stroke, moves into Buckingham Palace with the Matic-Men, after seeing the Windsors are 'away on Royal Tour'! There are some bizarre elements thrown into the script-mix : the huge Robots are also attired in tailored suits, and there is a pretty strange football match with the Matics taking place on the Palace Lawn. MM also fancies a new swimming-pool installed, so the Matics get to work, constructing one. I SPY goes to visit the triumphant and un-touchable Mastermind in the Palace, and manages to secretly record a long conversation from the demented genius, which he later cuts-and-pastes [no digital recording nonsense back in 1971!] the dialog so that Masterminds' word is no longer the Law regarding the orders the Matics recieve.
The design of the MATIC-MEN in the Walker incarnation are bulkier and more shambling in some of the poses compared to the more streamlined Barton original versions, but nevertheless they cut a suitably hulking menace throughout. The final black-and-white Brian Walker I SPY story winds up with the unlikely sight of the hyper-refined Mastermind being forced to refill a swimming-pool he had his robots created, on the Palace Lawn. Presumably, he soon gets blisters on his lily-white skin.
I am not the only I SPY fan and commentator to point out that this last pretty good story was very likely the last of the truly great I SPY efforts and represents something of a sad watershed within the overall phenomenon as a result of this.
There were still a lot more entries to surface in the future spy-files, however:
I SPY, BOSS SPY and MR X characters all copyright of D C Thomson and Co Ltd, 2015.
It is a shame the series changed radically after the two short B/W series which were superb! I never can never really rate the Dec 71- Aug 72 colour series i'm afraid!
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