John Theydon - Captain Scarlet & The Mysterons

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John Theydon - Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons (Armada, 1967)

Text illustrations: Chris Higham

Blurb:
We The Mysterons, will cause havoc with the world's weather!

London ... torrential rain floods the entire city ..
Florida ... tornado wrecks the state in seconds .. .
North Pole... Arctica is, flooded as the ice cap melts

Spectrum goes into action. And Captain Scarlet is assigned to defend the world against it's unnerving enemy .... The Mysterons!

The fate of the world is in the balance, Will Spectrum fail? Or will the Mysterons succeed in their object — Earth's total destruction

Recognise this scenario? You're rummaging through a bunch of paperbacks on a stall when you suddenly hit on one and *gasp* "I must have that! How much?" It's only when you walk away with your purchase that you double-take, see it for what it is and wonder "why the f*** did i just spend my last £3 on this pile of crap? Bollocks! Why didn't i get the VGC Confessions Of A Travel Courier to never read instead?"

Happily, that ain't the case with the prophetic Captain Scarlet & The Mysterons!

The story begins with a live broadcast from Mount Kenya where the world's top Weather Control scientists are gathered for the launch of four satellites as part of Operation ABGO, a preventative measure against hurricanes and other destructive extremes of weather. Mad genius Dr. Kurt Stahndahl isn't impressed. He has devised the Dahl beam generator and it's a sight more sophisticated than "hurling puffballs into space". After calling everyone "fools!", warning that Operation ABGO will be a disastrous failure and they'll all have to come grovelling to him for help, Stahndahl flounces out of the building and boards his helijet back to Nordland in the Arctic Circle. Unbeknown to him, he has a stowaway, rogue SPECTRUM agent Captain Black, who, according to a baggage handler at London Airport, looks like a walking corpse and now works for the Mysterons. Black waits until the helijet lands before revealing himself, convincing Stahndahl that he's an influential journalist. Black's praise of the Professor is so fulsome that Stahndahl immediately invites him to his secret laboratory beneath the frozen mountains which no-one has ever seen before. The Captain trowels on the flattery ("a remarkable achievement Professor. But then, you are a remarkable man.") until Stahndahl, all excited, decides to give him a demonstration. How about he instigates a snowstorm over the Sahara? Or ... a massive monsoon over London!

Back on Mount Kenya, the scientists have hardly finished congratulating themselves on the successful launch when one of the satellites disintegrates before their eyes. And:

"THIS IS THE VOICE OF THE MYSTERONS. WE KNOW YOU CAN HEAR US, EARTHMEN. WE HAVE VOWED TO BE AVENGED ON YOU FOR YOUR UNPROVOKED ATTACK ON OUR MARS COMPLEX. WITHIN 48 HOURS WE SHALL CAUSE WORLD-WIDE HAVOC BY UPSETTING CLIMATIC CONDITIONS."

The Mysterons. A strange form of beings from outer space whose civilisation is miles more advanced than our own. Formerly peaceful, they're now sworn to destroy the Earth due to the above mentioned "misunderstanding". They have tons of powers beyond our comprehension, the best of them being "retro-metabolism", the ability to recreate matter, human or object, after it has been destroyed.

The only man who can save us is Captain Scarlet, top SPECTRUM agent whose repertoire of funny jokes is even worse than the Six Million Dollar Man's. Like Captain Black, Scarlet was once "mysteronised" but he escaped and is now nearly indestructible.

By chance, Scarlet is on Earth leave in his favourite city - London! - sniffing around his fellow agent, blond bombshell Rhapsody Angel ("while we're off duty, you can call me Steve". "Then you must call me Dianna. Tee hee hee!") when the announcement is made. Evidently Ken Livingstone's legislation has been revoked as when we catch up with them they're feeding the pigeons at Trafalgar Square. Anyway, 'Steve' is chatting her up when this massive black cloud appears over the city ....

The ensuing catastrophe only lasts for five pages and there's no gloating over the bloated corpses of the drowned and trampled, but it's an early highlight, almost a sanitized Night Of The Crabs moment, and shows off Theydon's unfussy writing to good effect.

Prof. Stahndahl is distraught. He has always worked for the benefit of mankind and now he's been tricked into mass murder by some smarmy Mysteron bastard who wants to use his lovely beam generator against the human race! Stahndahl pulls out a gun. Captain Black is unimpressed.

"Shoot, Professor! As I told you before, I do not fear death - but now I will tell you the reason. It is because I am virtually unkillable."

Murdering Stahndahl, Captain Black then detonates the laboratory before subjecting them both to retro-metabolism.

To be continued ...