#70 (Marvel Comics #10) Featuring: James, I.Q., Tracy, Gordo, Phoebe, Trevor, Mr Milbanks, Coach Mitchell, Doctor Derange, Skullcap. Synopsis: At the local train station, James collects Evan Moore, a new student from America, to take him back to Warfield in the sports car. On the way, they're followed by Skullcap in a van, firing bullets from the bumper. He attacks with grenades - but Evan whacks them back at him with a baseball bat, destroying the van completely and apparently Skullcap with it. Back at Warfield, James is in trouble with Mr Milbanks, who catches him screeching into school; but Evan tells Milbanks about Doctor Derange and Skullcap, whom he claims his father, an F.B.I. agent, has had to deal with on many occasions, and this seems to get the pair of them off the hook. Watching from a distance, Doctor Derange revels in James's isolation, and we learn that it was merely an android version of Skullcap driving the van that exploded, part of a ruse designed to get Evan well established at Warfield. He explains to the real Skullcap that it's the Academy's open day in two days, when the brightest student will be presented to Air Chief Marshal Smithers of the R.A.F., a man with great knowledge of N.A.T.O.'s coded defence strategies. Through Evan, Derange hopes to acquire the information and sell it to S.C.U.M. Review: An unusual story set entirely within Warfield Academy and the surrounding area, bearing several similarities to Hostile Takeover. Uniquely, this story taps into James's own personal insecurities - a road the TV episodes were (with a couple of exceptions) unwilling to go down. Here, with no romantic interest to distract, he's forced to reassess his attitudes about friendship as one by one his gang reject him in favour of the newcomer. The arrival of Evan Moore (read: 'even more') as almost an improved version of James (another popular teen from a family of spies) represents the fact that deep down, James feels inadequate, and isn't nearly as confident in the strength of his friendships as he often makes out. Of course it's eventually revealed that the only way to outperform James in the popularity stakes is to be a hypnotic robot, so all remains well. But for a while he lets his envy get the better of him; and it is that, and not any genuinely unusual behaviour on Evan's part, which begins to make him miserable. Meanwhile, the fact that Trevor grudgingly congratulates an embarrassed James at the end is a small nod to the fact that James is sometimes too harsh on Trevor, even though it took a hypnotised Gordo to tell him that. And a slightly bitter comment to a dehypnotised I.Q. about not having had the chance to test the autogyro is another example of James's insecurity. Although this is nominally a Dr Derange adventure, the mad villain has very little influence on the plot as a whole, the focus remaining on the android, who appears to have a significant degree of sentience in himself. Overall, with high action and intrigue in equal parts, this one could have been very effective as an episode of the TV series - it's a good concept and, though silly, is by no means too silly for James Bond Jr. |
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