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Shattered Visage (The Prisoner)
Encyclopedia
The Prisoner: Shattered Visage is a four-issue comic book mini-series
based on The Prisoner
, the 1967 television series starring Patrick McGoohan
. The name is a reference to Percy Shelley's famous poem Ozymandias
, which forms part of the introduction.
The series was illustrated by Mister X
creator Dean Motter
and co-written with Mark Askwith
. It was later collected as a 208 page trade paperback
, with the addition of a new prologue.
and encounters an aged, psychologically scarred Number Six
. While the decades-old conflict unfolds between Six and Number Two
(as played by Leo McKern
in the TV series), secret agents in London have their own plans regarding the intelligence mine that is The Village, as well as the secret lying at its very core.
The trade paperback included a two-page text piece that explained the surreal final episode, "Fall Out
" as drug-enhanced psychodrama designed to break Number Six. However, the story itself regards the episode series as a pivotal point of characterization, as opposed to dismissing it entirely.
Patrick McGoohan
and ITC Entertainment
subjected the story and art to a thorough evaluation. The likenesses of McGoohan and Leo McKern were featured for their characters’ returns. According to Dean Motter, the notoriously critical McGoohan "didn't hate" the series while McKern was flattered to be a "comic book villain" for the first time.
Blade. Her daughter, Meagan, is left in the care of her estranged husband and a boarding school.
Alice's husband, Thomas Drake, is a secret service officer concerned about the man known as Number Two. Number Two has written a tell-all book (The Village Idiot) about the Village, the retirement home for spies, which Thomas rewrote to obscure and remove classified information. Number Two was jailed for violating the Official Secrets Act
, but his twenty year sentence is up and he's being released. Thomas fears that Number Two will return to the Village, and that what he does there will break open the secrecy of British covert operations.
Alice begins her sea voyage, but she runs into a storm. Her ship is washed onto the shores of an island, which appears to be an evacuated, abandoned holiday resort. (Earlier scenes showed Thomas Drake and an associate taking efforts to reprogram Alice's navigational computer, and later scenes reveal they intended for her to sail by The Village as an advance scout.) Seeking help, Alice explores the Village. She enters the Number 2 house and finds a giant domed room. In the oval-shaped center chair sits a bearded man, who wears a black suit jacket with white lining. He informs her that she is in the Village, and that she is Number Six. This man is the former, original Number Six.
Alice spends the night in the number six living quarters in the Village. The next morning, Number Six takes Alice on a tour. He is a gentle man who lives a solitary life as the sole inhabitant of the Village. He says that the other Villagers were "free to go" while he was "free to stay". While Six is clearly mentally scarred and paranoid, Alice finds him kind as he catches fish and makes them dinner. But when Alice wanders away at night, a giant white sphere (Rover
) encloses her and bears her back to the green-domed house to meet the newly-returned Number Two.
Alice recognizes Number Two as the initial author of The Village Idiot. He asks if she's seen Number Six, alleging that he wishes to help Six escape. He describes Number Six as a valuable and powerful man, unjustly punished for actions performed on behalf of his countrymen. "The system imprisoned him, interrogated him, broke him, drove him mad," says Two, recounting the events of the TV series. "The man that would not bend, simply broke. Shattered and alone, he chose a number and christened himself Number One." (Fall Out) Alice asks (echoing the series) who Number One actually was, and Number Two responds that she has missed the point. Two explains: "Here's a man who raged against numbering of any kind. To choose any number, even the number one, was a contradiction. He was caught between belief systems. He had accepted. His days were numbered. He was ours, body and soul. We had won!" Alice is appalled at Two's glee and leaves angrily.
Back in London, Thomas Drake and his partner, an American agent named Lee West, prepare a private expedition to the Village. Despite the lack of official resources that Thomas' superiors are willing to commit, Thomas and Lee are convinced that the Village is at the center of someone's manipulations. There have been a series of recent assassinations of Marconi Electrics scientists - Marconi Electrics was the office building of Number Six's superiors ("Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling
"). Later, Thomas' mentor, a Mrs. Butterworth ("Many Happy Returns
"), is smothered in her sleep. It seems the former operating staff of The Village are being eliminated.
At night, Number Six and Alice walk through the silent streets of the Village. They are confronted by Number Two. Number Six claims to have known all along that Number Two sent Alice as a scout, pointing out Alice's warder's attitude ("Checkmate
") and warder's watch (Six, isolated from modern technology, has noticed Alice's digital watch). Alice protests, but is ignored as Two and Six engage in a fistfight. Disgusted, Alice leaves them to it. Two and Six battle in a raging storm, Two calling Six a coward. He says that Six lost twenty years ago (Fall Out) and won't return to the outside world because he'd have to face defeat. Two says that Six's secret information is now worthless and that Six is nothing. Their fight takes them inside an old mill where Two gains the upper hand. Number Six remains defiant, declaring that he is a free man and his life is his own. Two, choking Six around the neck with both hands, answers, "Then take it!" Both fall out the window of the mill, into the water below.
Shortly afterwards, the door to the number six residence in the Village opens. Number Six enters and begins to cut his beard.
Two separate forces soon enter the Village, although which 'side' either represents is uncertain. First, Thomas and Lee bring a small handful of associates. Shortly afterwards, a group of soldiers sent by Thomas Drake's superior, Director Ross of Operations, follow. It is unclear if Ross has been spurred into action by the assassinations, if he is after Drake for disobeying orders in venturing to the Village, or if he is acting on his own. Lee, Thomas and their detail of troopers arrive first, and enter the home of Number Two, ostensibly seeking the secrets of The Village. In Number Two's domed office, Lee triggers the lift below the center chair, lowering them into the underground chambers. Past the jukebox and the "Well Come" sign is an ornate chair (as seen in Fall Out). Sitting in the chair is a figure who speaks of how he will escape and return to destroy The Village, and how he is a free man (echoing the original Number Six). He rises from the shadows, and is revealed as Number Two, saying that Number Six is dead. Lee and Thomas step past him, climbing lower into vertical tunnels ahead. They descend into clear tubes with the word ORBIT printed on them (also seen in Fall Out). Lee and Thomas are now in the heart of The Village, and find housed there several nuclear missiles, still as usable and deadly as ever.
Lee admonishes Thomas for not recognizing the truth behind the Village. "It was all in the files. You just have to read between the lines," Lee explains. "Power. Control. That's what the Village is all about." Unexpectedly, the launch sequence for the missiles is triggered. Thomas re-emerges into the upper level to find Number Two setting off the missiles without opening the silo doors. The Village is destroyed in a massive explosion, supposedly killing all who remain. Beyond the reach of the flames, however, Alice Drake's boat, apparently repaired, is seen sailing away.
Director Ross, back in London, receives a report that indicates all the assassinations have one man in common: a mysterious, top-hatted man with a mustache. (The observant reader will already have noticed this man in the background throughout various pages of the comic.) When Ross takes the report to his superior, the Colonel, Ross finds that the Colonel has been replaced by the same mustached man (in a manner similar to the TV series' Number Two's being regularly rotated). Ross' report is burnt and his resignation demanded. Later that night, Ross is gassed unconscious in his home. He is loaded into a hearse by two men, to be transported, as was Number Six, to whereabouts unknown. This echoes the start of the TV series.
Number Six and Alice Drake are then seen sitting together on a park bench. Six is clean-shaven and tidily dressed. Alice says that one crucial question remains unanswered: who was Number One? Six answers her, and his own, question thus: "Does the presence of Number Two require the existence of Number One?"
Alice then asks about Number Six's secrets, and he assures her that they are safe: "None of us would be here if they weren't," he tells her with a confident smile. Alice, accepting this, remarks that her digital watch is commonplace these days. Six bids her farewell with the Village salute, saying, "Be seeing you." He leaves as Meagan, Alice's daughter, enters the park and embraces her mother.
This happy reunion is displayed on a video monitor, which is shown to be one screen on a domed ceiling of monitors in a new version of The Village's surveillance centre.
On the final page, this new control room is shown to be housed in London's Palace of Westminster
...
", the surreal, dreamlike final episode of the series, in a variety of ways;
' attempts to ban it. The Village Idiot is clearly a thinly veiled allusion to ex-MI5
agent Peter Wright
's book Spycatcher
. There were several attempts by the British Government to ban the publication of Spycatcher, but was successfully published in a number of other countries. It is also safe to assume that significant elements of Spycatcher were censored, as with The Village Idiot where the secret services decide that "you grudgingly divulge a lesser evil in order to protect the greater one".
Topics removed from the fictional The Village Idiot included;
The shared acronym of the first four topics: "POP", pops up in several places during the course of the program. It is the code word referenced in rough drafts of the original series - McGoohan saying that if humans couldn't "put it all together", (that is, bring our human morals up to speed with our technological abilities and overcome the animal within), we would "POP" and destroy ourselves. It featured prominently in an early version of the series' closing credits (which can be seen in the early versions of "Arrival
" and "The Chimes of Big Ben") and as a lyric included in the POPular, cryptic and obtuse rhyme "POP Goes the Weasel
", a much-used musical-motif in the series, and particularly heavily referenced in the closing two episodes "Once Upon a Time" and Fall Out.
Limited series
A limited series is a comic book series with a set number of installments. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is determined before production and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues....
based on The Prisoner
The Prisoner
The Prisoner is a 17-episode British television series first broadcast in the UK from 29 September 1967 to 1 February 1968. Starring and co-created by Patrick McGoohan, it combined spy fiction with elements of science fiction, allegory and psychological drama.The series follows a British former...
, the 1967 television series starring Patrick McGoohan
Patrick McGoohan
Patrick Joseph McGoohan was an American-born actor, raised in Ireland and England, with an extensive stage and film career, most notably in the 1960s television series Danger Man , and The Prisoner, which he co-created...
. The name is a reference to Percy Shelley's famous poem Ozymandias
Ozymandias
"Ozymandias" is a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, published in 1818 in the January 11 issue of The Examiner in London. It is frequently anthologised and is probably Shelley's most famous short poem...
, which forms part of the introduction.
The series was illustrated by Mister X
Mister X (Vortex)
Mister X was a series of comic books first published in 1983–90 by Toronto-based Vortex Comics. Created by album and book cover designer Dean Motter, it was developed for a year in close collaboration with comic artist and illustrator Paul Rivoche, whose series of poster illustrations stirred up...
creator Dean Motter
Dean Motter
Dean Motter is an illustrator, designer and writer who worked for many years in Toronto, Canada, New York City, and Atlanta. Motter is best known as the creator and designer of Mister X, one of the most influential "new-wave" comics of the 1980s....
and co-written with Mark Askwith
Mark Askwith
Mark Askwith is a Canadian producer, writer, interviewer , and a familiar name in the fields of science fiction and comics.-Early life:...
. It was later collected as a 208 page trade paperback
Trade paperback (comics)
In comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...
, with the addition of a new prologue.
Overview
Set twenty years after the final episode of the television series, Shattered Visage follows former secret agent Alice Drake as she is shipwrecked on the shores of the VillageThe Village (The Prisoner)
The Village is the fictional setting of the 1960s UK television series The Prisoner where the main character, Number Six, is held with other former spies and operatives...
and encounters an aged, psychologically scarred Number Six
Number Six (The Prisoner)
Number Six is the central fictional character in the 1960s television series The Prisoner, played by Patrick McGoohan. In the AMC remake, the character is played by Jim Caviezel, renamed "Six"....
. While the decades-old conflict unfolds between Six and Number Two
Number Two (The Prisoner)
Number Two was the title of the chief administrator of The Village in the 1967-68 British television series The Prisoner. More than 17 different actors appeared as holders of the office during the 17-episode series .The first...
(as played by Leo McKern
Leo McKern
Reginald "Leo" McKern, AO was an Australian-born British actor who appeared in numerous British and Australian television programmes and movies, and more than 200 stage roles.-Early life:...
in the TV series), secret agents in London have their own plans regarding the intelligence mine that is The Village, as well as the secret lying at its very core.
The trade paperback included a two-page text piece that explained the surreal final episode, "Fall Out
Fall Out (The Prisoner)
"Fall Out" is the seventeenth and final episode of the allegorical British science fiction series The Prisoner, which starred Patrick McGoohan as the incarcerated Number Six...
" as drug-enhanced psychodrama designed to break Number Six. However, the story itself regards the episode series as a pivotal point of characterization, as opposed to dismissing it entirely.
Patrick McGoohan
Patrick McGoohan
Patrick Joseph McGoohan was an American-born actor, raised in Ireland and England, with an extensive stage and film career, most notably in the 1960s television series Danger Man , and The Prisoner, which he co-created...
and ITC Entertainment
ITC Entertainment
The Incorporated Television Company was a British television company largely involved in production and distribution. It was founded by Lew Grade.-History:...
subjected the story and art to a thorough evaluation. The likenesses of McGoohan and Leo McKern were featured for their characters’ returns. According to Dean Motter, the notoriously critical McGoohan "didn't hate" the series while McKern was flattered to be a "comic book villain" for the first time.
Plot synopsis
In London, Alice Drake, adventurer, travel book writer and former secret agent, prepares to embark upon a round-the-world sailing expedition on her boat, the VorpalVorpal
Vorpal sword is a phrase used by Lewis Carroll in his nonsense poem "Jabberwocky".- Context and definition :Carroll published Through the Looking-Glass in 1871. Near the beginning, Alice discovers and reads "Jabberwocky"...
Blade. Her daughter, Meagan, is left in the care of her estranged husband and a boarding school.
Alice's husband, Thomas Drake, is a secret service officer concerned about the man known as Number Two. Number Two has written a tell-all book (The Village Idiot) about the Village, the retirement home for spies, which Thomas rewrote to obscure and remove classified information. Number Two was jailed for violating the Official Secrets Act
Official Secrets Act
The Official Secrets Act is a stock short title used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, India and Malaysia and formerly in New Zealand for legislation that provides for the protection of state secrets and official information, mainly related to national security.-United Kingdom:*The Official Secrets...
, but his twenty year sentence is up and he's being released. Thomas fears that Number Two will return to the Village, and that what he does there will break open the secrecy of British covert operations.
Alice begins her sea voyage, but she runs into a storm. Her ship is washed onto the shores of an island, which appears to be an evacuated, abandoned holiday resort. (Earlier scenes showed Thomas Drake and an associate taking efforts to reprogram Alice's navigational computer, and later scenes reveal they intended for her to sail by The Village as an advance scout.) Seeking help, Alice explores the Village. She enters the Number 2 house and finds a giant domed room. In the oval-shaped center chair sits a bearded man, who wears a black suit jacket with white lining. He informs her that she is in the Village, and that she is Number Six. This man is the former, original Number Six.
Alice spends the night in the number six living quarters in the Village. The next morning, Number Six takes Alice on a tour. He is a gentle man who lives a solitary life as the sole inhabitant of the Village. He says that the other Villagers were "free to go" while he was "free to stay". While Six is clearly mentally scarred and paranoid, Alice finds him kind as he catches fish and makes them dinner. But when Alice wanders away at night, a giant white sphere (Rover
Rover (The Prisoner)
Rover is a fictional entity from the 1967 British television program The Prisoner, and was an integral part of the way 'prisoners' were kept within The Village. It was depicted as a floating white ball that could coerce, and, if necessary, disable inhabitants of The Village, primarily Number Six...
) encloses her and bears her back to the green-domed house to meet the newly-returned Number Two.
Back in London, Thomas Drake and his partner, an American agent named Lee West, prepare a private expedition to the Village. Despite the lack of official resources that Thomas' superiors are willing to commit, Thomas and Lee are convinced that the Village is at the center of someone's manipulations. There have been a series of recent assassinations of Marconi Electrics scientists - Marconi Electrics was the office building of Number Six's superiors ("Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling is the thirteenth episode of the television series The Prisoner, produced while Patrick McGoohan was in America filming Ice Station Zebra. As a workaround to McGoohan's absence the writers contrived to have Number Six's mind implanted in the body of another man , who...
"). Later, Thomas' mentor, a Mrs. Butterworth ("Many Happy Returns
Many Happy Returns (Prisoner episode)
Many Happy Returns is the seventh episode of the television series The Prisoner.-Additional guest cast:* Group Captain - Brian Worth* Commander - Richard Caldicot* Gunther - Dennis Chinnery* Ernst - Jon Laurimore* Gypsy girl - Nike Arrighi...
"), is smothered in her sleep. It seems the former operating staff of The Village are being eliminated.
At night, Number Six and Alice walk through the silent streets of the Village. They are confronted by Number Two. Number Six claims to have known all along that Number Two sent Alice as a scout, pointing out Alice's warder's attitude ("Checkmate
Checkmate (The Prisoner)
Checkmate is the ninth episode of the television series The Prisoner; as its title suggests, the plot centres around a game of chess in which the pieces are humans, directed by a mysterious "man with a stick". The chess game has been described as a metaphor for life itself, albeit a somewhat...
") and warder's watch (Six, isolated from modern technology, has noticed Alice's digital watch). Alice protests, but is ignored as Two and Six engage in a fistfight. Disgusted, Alice leaves them to it. Two and Six battle in a raging storm, Two calling Six a coward. He says that Six lost twenty years ago (Fall Out) and won't return to the outside world because he'd have to face defeat. Two says that Six's secret information is now worthless and that Six is nothing. Their fight takes them inside an old mill where Two gains the upper hand. Number Six remains defiant, declaring that he is a free man and his life is his own. Two, choking Six around the neck with both hands, answers, "Then take it!" Both fall out the window of the mill, into the water below.
Shortly afterwards, the door to the number six residence in the Village opens. Number Six enters and begins to cut his beard.
Two separate forces soon enter the Village, although which 'side' either represents is uncertain. First, Thomas and Lee bring a small handful of associates. Shortly afterwards, a group of soldiers sent by Thomas Drake's superior, Director Ross of Operations, follow. It is unclear if Ross has been spurred into action by the assassinations, if he is after Drake for disobeying orders in venturing to the Village, or if he is acting on his own. Lee, Thomas and their detail of troopers arrive first, and enter the home of Number Two, ostensibly seeking the secrets of The Village. In Number Two's domed office, Lee triggers the lift below the center chair, lowering them into the underground chambers. Past the jukebox and the "Well Come" sign is an ornate chair (as seen in Fall Out). Sitting in the chair is a figure who speaks of how he will escape and return to destroy The Village, and how he is a free man (echoing the original Number Six). He rises from the shadows, and is revealed as Number Two, saying that Number Six is dead. Lee and Thomas step past him, climbing lower into vertical tunnels ahead. They descend into clear tubes with the word ORBIT printed on them (also seen in Fall Out). Lee and Thomas are now in the heart of The Village, and find housed there several nuclear missiles, still as usable and deadly as ever.
Lee admonishes Thomas for not recognizing the truth behind the Village. "It was all in the files. You just have to read between the lines," Lee explains. "Power. Control. That's what the Village is all about." Unexpectedly, the launch sequence for the missiles is triggered. Thomas re-emerges into the upper level to find Number Two setting off the missiles without opening the silo doors. The Village is destroyed in a massive explosion, supposedly killing all who remain. Beyond the reach of the flames, however, Alice Drake's boat, apparently repaired, is seen sailing away.
Director Ross, back in London, receives a report that indicates all the assassinations have one man in common: a mysterious, top-hatted man with a mustache. (The observant reader will already have noticed this man in the background throughout various pages of the comic.) When Ross takes the report to his superior, the Colonel, Ross finds that the Colonel has been replaced by the same mustached man (in a manner similar to the TV series' Number Two's being regularly rotated). Ross' report is burnt and his resignation demanded. Later that night, Ross is gassed unconscious in his home. He is loaded into a hearse by two men, to be transported, as was Number Six, to whereabouts unknown. This echoes the start of the TV series.
Number Six and Alice Drake are then seen sitting together on a park bench. Six is clean-shaven and tidily dressed. Alice says that one crucial question remains unanswered: who was Number One? Six answers her, and his own, question thus: "Does the presence of Number Two require the existence of Number One?"
Alice then asks about Number Six's secrets, and he assures her that they are safe: "None of us would be here if they weren't," he tells her with a confident smile. Alice, accepting this, remarks that her digital watch is commonplace these days. Six bids her farewell with the Village salute, saying, "Be seeing you." He leaves as Meagan, Alice's daughter, enters the park and embraces her mother.
This happy reunion is displayed on a video monitor, which is shown to be one screen on a domed ceiling of monitors in a new version of The Village's surveillance centre.
On the final page, this new control room is shown to be housed in London's Palace of Westminster
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
...
'Fall Out' Re-examined
Shattered Visage addresses "Fall OutFall Out (The Prisoner)
"Fall Out" is the seventeenth and final episode of the allegorical British science fiction series The Prisoner, which starred Patrick McGoohan as the incarcerated Number Six...
", the surreal, dreamlike final episode of the series, in a variety of ways;
- The trade paperback opens with the text of a classified intelligence report on the Village. This report describes the events of Fall Out as "a theatrical tour-de-force involving actors as well as hallucinogenic drugs," organized by Leo McKern's Number Two. It refers to Number Two's death and resurrection as "staged."
- In Fall Out, Number One was unmasked to reveal the face of Number Six. This is finally explained by Number Two's recollections. Number Two describes Fall Out as the point where Six was "driven mad," broken, and finally accepted a number; Number One. This is in line with what is seen in Fall Out: Number Six is given a ceremony that lauds his revolutionary spirit and the President describes Number Six as "the only individual" and therefore the ideal leader of the Village. Shattered Visage explains that this psychologically entrapped Six. Before, the Village sought to crush Number Six's sense of identity. In Fall Out, they claim to accept his individuality, and declare he is therefore perfect as their leader; as Number One.
- Shattered Visage indicates that when Number Six unmasked Number One to find his own face, he accepted himself as Number One. The idea that his individuality made him a number, even Number One, broke his mind at last. The final episode is therefore explained as a drug-enhanced psychodrama. This view of events can be supported by the events of the penultimate episode, "Once Upon A TimeOnce Upon a Time (The Prisoner)"Once Upon a Time" is the title of the 16th episode of the British science fiction-allegorical series, The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan as Number Six...
", in which a brainwashing device regressed Six to childhood and forced him to relive various periods of his life. This may have contributed to Six's psychological disintegration which, according to this comic, reached its breaking point in the final episode.
- According to the text piece, the Village was liberated by UN troops shortly after the finale. This rationalizes the gun battle and helicopter evacuation seen in Fall Out; it was the skewed perceptions of a drugged Number Six as rescue finally came. The episode Many Happy Returns provided Number Six's superiors with enough information to eventually locate the Village.
- As Number Two recounts the events of Fall Out, two panels show a wide shot of Number Six driving a mini-moke and then a close up of his face behind the wheel. This mirrors the title sequence of the TV series, which was reused for the final shots of the finale episode. In the final episode, this served as a hint that Number Six had not escaped or would not be free for long. This similar sequence appears when Number Two establishes that Number Six never left the Village.
- When Alice Drake finds Number Six stargazing in the Village control room, she also comes across a mask with the face of a monkey. Number Six removed such a mask from the face of 'Number One' in Fall Out. This means that while the events of the finale episode were hallucinatory, some aspects of them existed physically. This is later reinforced when the comic revisits the underground location of the final episode, encountering the jukebox and the chair.
- Near the end of the comic, a squad of soldiers led by a pair of intelligence agents venture into the underground caverns seen in Fall Out, and uncover a full complement of nuclear missiles, the warheads still usable and deadly, explaining the Village as a covert nuclear arsenal. According to Lee, the idiosyncrasies of the Village were a distraction. "You got so distracted by the surface," Lee tells Thomas, "that you couldn't see beneath the surface. You've got to brush away all that rococo crap and expose the truth!"
The Village Idiot
In Shattered Visage Number Two has authored his memoirs entitled The Village Idiot (after a twenty year internment) which became a runaway bestseller despite the security servicesSecurity agency
A security agency is a governmental organization which conducts intelligence activities for the internal security of a nation. They are the domestic cousins of foreign intelligence agencies...
' attempts to ban it. The Village Idiot is clearly a thinly veiled allusion to ex-MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
agent Peter Wright
Peter Wright
Peter Maurice Wright was an English scientist and former MI5 counterintelligence officer, noted for writing the controversial book Spycatcher, which became an international bestseller with sales of over two million copies...
's book Spycatcher
Spycatcher
Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer , is a book written by Peter Wright, former MI5 officer and Assistant Director, and co-author Paul Greengrass. It was published first in Australia...
. There were several attempts by the British Government to ban the publication of Spycatcher, but was successfully published in a number of other countries. It is also safe to assume that significant elements of Spycatcher were censored, as with The Village Idiot where the secret services decide that "you grudgingly divulge a lesser evil in order to protect the greater one".
Topics removed from the fictional The Village Idiot included;
- Project: Operation Pennyfarthing
- Prisoners of Power
- Protect Other People
- Price of Peace
- all references to The Arch-Angels
- Directive 17 - The status of The Prisoner
The shared acronym of the first four topics: "POP", pops up in several places during the course of the program. It is the code word referenced in rough drafts of the original series - McGoohan saying that if humans couldn't "put it all together", (that is, bring our human morals up to speed with our technological abilities and overcome the animal within), we would "POP" and destroy ourselves. It featured prominently in an early version of the series' closing credits (which can be seen in the early versions of "Arrival
Arrival (The Prisoner)
"Arrival" is the title of the first episode of the British science fiction-allegorical series, The Prisoner. It originally aired in the UK on ITV on 29 September 1967 and was first broadcast in the United States on CBS on 1 June 1968....
" and "The Chimes of Big Ben") and as a lyric included in the POPular, cryptic and obtuse rhyme "POP Goes the Weasel
Pop Goes the Weasel
"Pop! Goes the Weasel" is an English language nursery rhyme and singing game. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 5249.-Lyrics:There are many different versions of the lyrics to the song...
", a much-used musical-motif in the series, and particularly heavily referenced in the closing two episodes "Once Upon a Time" and Fall Out.
Prisoner motifs
- The references to the TV show are also quite prominent in the comic, with reiterated lines of dialogue and scenes reminiscent of various moments of the TV series, including the opening titles. There are also recreations of scenes from the episodes in the form of traced stills integrated into the artwork. Many of these appear in the prologue text piece.
- Many guest-characters from the TV series make cameos. Number Six and Alice pass through a hall with portraits of former Number Twos, including Mary Morris and Derren Nesbitt. The character of Mrs. Butterworth ("Many Happy Returns") also makes an appearance. In two scenes, someone functions as The Butler but is unidentifiable, perhaps due to a lack of clearance from Angelo MuscatAngelo MuscatAngelo Muscat was a character actor.Muscat was born in Malta. He appeared in 14 of the 17 episodes of the sixties cult television series The Prisoner, in which he played the famously mute Butler...
's estate. However, Alice's boat is launched at "Port Muscat".
- Hidden skillfully throughout the four-book collection are dozens of slightly-out-of-focus illustrations of the classic Village bicycle formed by round background elements. Examples are seen in the layout of Drake's office table, the wall poster of the orbiting space shield, and many others.
- In the final episode of the TV series, McKern's Number Two is apparently brought back from the dead, with his thick beard shaven off. After his rebirth in this fashion, he describes himself as "feeling like a new man". In this comic, Six shaving off his beard could be indicating that he is reborn, risen again, to fight the good fight.
- In Fall Out, Number Two commented that he was once a prisoner like Number Six, but did not resist as Number Six did. In this comic, Number Two states that he sympathizes with Number Six and has returned to the Village to help Six escape. While he mocks and beats Number Six, he also urges him to take his freedom and leave the Village.
- In a nod to both the idea of "I am not a number!" and the episode, "A. B. and C.A. B. and C."A. B. and C." is the title of the third episode of the British science fiction-allegorical series, The Prisoner. It originally aired in the UK on ITV on 13 October 1967 and was first broadcast in the United States on CBS on 22 June 1968....
", the four issues were not numbered, but were rather Issue A, B, C, and D.
Danger Man references
- Former secret agent Alice Drake claims that she retired from "British tourism" and has a civilian identity as a travel writer. This recalls Danger Man, the Patrick McGoohan spy series, in which the spy organization masqueraded as a travel agency.
- Thomas and Alice Drake share the same surname as "John Drake", Patrick McGoohan's character from Danger ManDanger ManDanger Man is a British television series that was broadcast between 1960 and 1962, and again between 1964 and 1968. The series featured Patrick McGoohan as secret agent John Drake. Ralph Smart created the program and wrote many of the scripts...
. This may suggest an added level of motive and unspoken familiarity between the protagonists and Number Six. (At the very least, it appears to be a tip-of-the-hat by Motter & Askwith.)
- Some of the aliases and code-numbers Number Six has been known by are listed in this book, including "John White", an alias used by John Drake in Danger Man. The possibility of Drake being the Prisoner has been asserted by George MarksteinGeorge MarksteinGeorge Markstein was a German-born British journalist and subsequent writer of thrillers and teleplays. He was the script editor and co-writer of "Arrival," the first episode of the British cult classic series The Prisoner, and appeared briefly in its title sequence...
(script-editor on both Danger Man and The Prisoner) and denied by McGoohan. Many speculate that this denial is due to McGoohan not owning the rights to Danger Man. Potential "proof" that Drake became the Prisoner can be found in actor/character-crossover between the two series' and the authorized The Prisoner novels, among other places.
Other references
- Thomas has a similar appearance to actor Rupert EverettRupert EverettRupert James Hector Everett is an English actor. He first came to public attention in 1981, when he was cast in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film Another Country as an openly gay student at an English public school, set in the 1930s...
who portrayed Guy BurgessGuy BurgessGuy Francis De Moncy Burgess was a British-born intelligence officer and double agent, who worked for the Soviet Union. He was part of the Cambridge Five spy ring that betrayed Western secrets to the Soviets before and during the Cold War...
in Another Country (1984)
- In the third chapter, a character is mentioned as having been tutored in interrogation by "Mr. SmileyGeorge SmileyGeorge Smiley is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is an intelligence officer working for MI6 , the British overseas intelligence agency...
."
- A funeral scene in the third chapter includes appearances by many other spy/secret agent characters from 60s pop-culture sources, including John SteedJohn SteedJohn Steed is a fictional character and the central protagonist on the popular British series The Avengers and The New Avengers, played by Patrick Macnee and Ralph Fiennes in the movie....
, Emma PeelEmma PeelEmma Peel was a fictional spy played by Diana Rigg in the British 1960s adventure television series The Avengers. She was born Emma Knight, the daughter of an industrialist, Sir John Knight.-Casting:...
, the Sean ConnerySean ConnerySir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
version of James BondJames BondJames Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
, Napoleon SoloNapoleon SoloNapoleon Solo is a fictional character from the 1960s TV spy series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. The series was remarkable for pairing the American Solo, played by Robert Vaughn, and the Russian Illya Kuryakin as two spies who work together for an international espionage organisation at the height of...
, and Illya KuryakinIllya KuryakinIllya Nickovetch Kuryakin is a fictional character from the 1960s TV spy series The Man from U.N.C.L.E..The series was remarkable for pairing an American Napoleon Solo and the Russian Kuryakin as two spies who work together for an international espionage organisation at the height of the Cold War...
.
- Alice Drake's boat is called Vorpal Blade, after the implement mentioned in Lewis CarrollLewis CarrollCharles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
's poem "JabberwockyJabberwocky"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense verse poem written by Lewis Carroll in his 1872 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
". Indeed, Alice's own name is most likely a deliberate connection to Carroll's signature heroineAlice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)Alice is a fictional character in the literary classic, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, And What Alice Found There. She is a young girl from Victorian-era Britain.-Development:...
: The character can be seen buying a copy of Alice's Adventures in WonderlandAlice's Adventures in WonderlandAlice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...
in the opening pages of the story. Moreover, her own journey mirrors the protagonists', as she ventures into The Village, itself referred to as a "Wonderland", both on the back cover of the collected edition, and by Number Two as he describes it to Drake after her run-in with Rover.