M-Appeal
The Avengers, Wonder Woman, The Uncanny X-Men and Noddy!
Today I want to ramble on about The Avengers. Not the Marvel Avengers, but the original British tv show Avengers.
When I was seven years old, I accidentally got to see an episode of The Avengers on my parents’ black & white cathode ray tv set, and I was instantly hooked. I begged my parents to let me see it every week, but as it turned out, it was on way past my younger brother’s bedtime.
As they didn’t want my brother to feel left out, the agreement was that we both went to bed at the same time, and I would wait for him to drift into slumber… sometimes helping that process along by faking my own sleepy breathing… after which I would silently slide out of my bed and creep downstairs just in time for those beautifully well-designed opening credits.
As usual with my weird coincidences, I started to write this post and remembered a book that I own back in London, The Avengers by Dave Rogers that I’ve had since 1983, and wishing I had it here in LA. The next day I went to a new book store that’s just opened, a 20 minute walk away. This was my second visit since it opened on December 14th, and what had magically appeared on the bookshelf since then was this…
A pristine copy of that very British publication! The bookstore guy said he’d have used his staff discount to buy it himself if he’d spotted it first. So I feel extremely lucky, especially as it was only ten dollars. I now have one on each side of the Atlantic!
With regard to Diana Rigg taking over from Honor Blackman’s role as Cathy Gale in the show, the quote I was looking for from the book was this…
“Marie Donaldson, a press officer working on the programme, had a brainwave. She realised that the new character had to have man appeal, and as she played around with the phrase in her head she couldn’t help thinking Man appeal, M appeal — Emma Peel. She liked the sound of the name and the producers leapt at it.”
Anyway, going back to my childhood, I had a real appreciation for the fashion designs they created for Mrs Peel. This in turn led to my appreciation of a super-stylish girl in my class who I thought was incredibly cool (for a seven year old). Jacqueline Spearpoint (what a great name) and I became country dancing partners, because dancing round a maypole like pagan worshippers was a bit of a thing for junior schools in 1966… well it was for ours anyway. After this we shared a desk, and I was the only boy who sat next to a girl in class. I could never understand why boys didn’t particularly want to associate with girls at that age, it seemed very odd to me.
At this time my Dad was experimenting with molten lead for some reason, and he thought he could make me a nice brooch for my classmate, by pouring it into one of my Noddy plasticine moulds, dropping a safety pin into it just before it solidified and voila! an instant Noddy brooch! Obviously today’s health and safety standards would baulk at such a thing, but in those days, my brother and I used to amuse ourselves with a milk bottle full of mercury that lived in the shed. Health warnings were still a few years away.
I gave Jacqueline the Noddy brooch, and I’m now really hoping she didn’t get lead poisoning from it, though I don’t remember her pinning it to her chic blue and white Crimplene dress anyway, so I think all is good.
I realize, I’ve now wandered off at an insane tangent, but… hey ho.
What I was originally going to write about was how Mrs Peel had influenced the comic book world of DC’s Wonder Woman and how thrilled I was to discover this while on holiday as a boy of eleven in 1970. This version of Wonder Woman became my favourite, and I collected the following issues with fervor.
You can see by these great photos by Terry O’Neill (correct spelling) just how much the fashion styles of Diana Prince, The New Wonder Woman were inspired by The Avengers.
Wonder Woman--a super-hero no more! As secret agent Diana Prince, she takes on international crime with the help of her new mentor, the mysterious I-Ching.
Above - THIS is one of my all-time favorite comic book covers.
Now, imagine my absolute joy when I got the chance to design the Diana Prince: Wonder Woman Omnibus in 2018, with a fabulous commissioned cover illustration by José Luis García-López and Patricia Mulvihill. For the case beneath the jacket (below) I designed something more graphically simplistic. I couldn’t get the original 1969 Wonder Woman logo to work, so I decided to design a new one with a nod to the 60s. I also used Futura Display, reminiscent of the period, for the rest of the title.
Sales blurb from Amazon: In these stories from the late 1960s, Wonder Woman leaves her super-powers behind to become an ultra-mod, globetrotting secret agent. With a new costume and a new attitude, Diana Prince fights crime like never before! These adventures, from such comics luminaries as Dennis O'Neil, Robert Kanigher, Mike Sekowsky and more, have remained uncollected for years until this oversize omnibus edition!
Above is an interesting American intro for the show, though I think the ‘talented amateur’ description for Mrs Peel was a bit off.
A still from the episode: Never, Never Say Die. Steed meets a dead man. Emma fights a corpse.
Now, back to my childhood again, and this ‘pretending to sleep so my brother didn’t feel he’d missed out’ thing worked incredibly well until one night, for some inexplicable reason, my favourite show was scheduled to be on much later. So once again I went through the charade of pretending to fall asleep, except I really did fall asleep, and awoke to the dreadful realisation the following morning that I’d missed an episode. I was beside myself!
I’ve often wondered why my parents didn’t wake me, but later in life I realised why this one particular episode was on late at night. It was the Hellfire Club episode where Mrs Peel became the Queen of Sin, and then it suddenly all made complete and utter sense, why they didn’t wake a seven year old boy to watch it!
Now, I find myself with another interesting fact. Not only did The Avengers inspire Wonder Woman, but they also inspired The Uncanny X-Men, written by Chris Claremont with art by John Byrne. The panel below shows an almost identical scene from the ‘A Touch of Brimstone’ video clip above.
Citing Wikipedia here: Chris Claremont was inspired to create the Hellfire Club after seeing the episode ‘A Touch of Brimstone’ from the television show The Avengers. Spy duo John Steed and Emma Peel infiltrate a criminal and hedonistic underground society. Emma Frost was specifically inspired by the character of Emma Peel portrayed by actress Diana Rigg. In the episode, Rigg famously dons a provocative corset, collar, and boots and becomes the "Queen of Sin", which was incorporated into the design of Frost.
I took this shot of Chris Claremont chatting to Sheila Cranna, editor of Doctor Who Magazine in 1985, when he visited us at Marvel UK in Bayswater. I also managed to get him to sign my X-Men: Women poster by Carl Potts, along with John Romita Jr., Dan Green, and Ann Nocenti, seen below, who were also visiting us at the time.
It’s also noted that another of the characters, Jason Wyngarde is a reference to the actor Peter Wyngarde, who was the leader of the Hellfire Club in The Avengers, but is best known for playing in another British tv show as Jason King, a bestselling novelist turned sleuth, in two television series that I just about remember: Department S (1969–70) and Jason King (1971–1972). His flamboyant dress sense made him a bit of a style icon in Britain at the time.
Phoenix as the Black Queen by John Byrne.
Emma Frost as the White Queen by Stanley Artgerm Lau.
Mrs Peel departs, and Tara King arrives.
When Diana Rigg left the show, she was a pretty tough act to follow, but Linda Thorson as Tara King, did really well as her replacement.
Tara, Ra-boom-di-ay!
This gave the show the opportunity for a brand new title sequence with a slight change to the theme music.
The Avengers Girl About Town, 1967.
Then, in October of 1976, The New Avengers appeared on our tv screens, featuring Patrick Macnee as Steed once again, Joanna Lumley as Purdey, and Gareth Hunt as Mike Gambit. I naturally rushed out to the newsagent to buy this TV Times Souvenir Extra, which I still own.
It’s interesting to note that I had worked with the Adele Rootstein incarnation of Joanna Lumley, as a mannequin when I was dressing windows as a display artist, in fact it’s ironic that during one of the episodes of The New Avengers she hides in a shop window among mannequins that had been sculpted on her when she was a model, which you can see in this clip.
Joanna Lumley made a brief appearance for a signing at Allders of Croydon when I was working there as a display artist (visual merchandising) in 1978. I took a couple of shots with my handy dandy Nikon FM during my tea break.
The New Avengers. Another fine tv intro with updated theme music.
And then in 1988, we got The Avengers movie… It should have been great…
Those Emma Peel jump suits are just striking and hip. I didn't know that M-Appeal story. Funny.
This was so fantastic to read, I logged in to say it!