Derrick Ferguson Takes Aim At THE AVENGERS:TOO MANY TARGETS

THE AVENGERS: TOO MANY TARGETS

By John Peel and Dave Rogers

Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages

Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (June 15, 1998)

ISBN-10: 0812589092

ISBN-13: 978-0812589092

Mention The Avengers to your average Joe or Jane Punchclock and they’ll most likely reply that you must be talking about the recent blockbuster movie featuring a team of Marvel superheroes. And they’re right. But there’s another team of Avengers that has had just as loyal following as those other Avengers ever since the 1960’s.  The British TV series THE AVENGERS starred Patrick Macnee as John Steed.  Originally he wasn’t the main character. That was Dr. David Keel played by Ian Hendry. THE AVENGERS started out as pretty much a straight up crime drama but that changed once Steed became the main character and was partnered up with a succession of beautiful assistants. Women whose names soon became legendary due to their intelligence, sophistication, style and their ability to handle themselves just as well as Steed in a fight. Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman) Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) and Tara King (Linda Thorson) worked with Steed for a shadowy branch of the British Secret Service (given the name of “The Ministry” in the disastrous 1998 movie) combating enemies that became more bizarre the longer the series ran.

Robotics, time travel, mind control, invisibility, super computers wanting to take over the world, The Hellfire Club (a concept borrowed for Marvel Comics “X-Men” series) mad scientists…THE AVENGERS had all that and more, incorporating elements of science fiction, satire, parody, droll British wit flavored with eccentricity into an entertaining one hour package that ran from 1961 to 1969. There also was “The New Avengers” which ran from 1976 to 1977 that saw John Steed with two new partners played by Joanna Lumley and Gareth Hunt.

We won’t talk about the movie, okay with you?

But what I would like to talk about is THE AVENGERS: TOO MANY TARGETS. Judging from the date I’m assuming it was published to compliment the feature film. One has to wonder why there wasn’t a proper movie tie-in novelization but in this case I’m glad there wasn’t. THE AVENGERS: TOO MANY TARGETS is just fine the way it is.  It’s not a masterpiece and it’s not a book that I insist that you actually have to read but if you’re a long-time fan of the series then you’ll have a good time with this.

Somebody is going around killing agents of The Ministry. Somebody that looks a whole lot like John Steed. And he’s not a fake. Thanks to computerized voice analysis there can be no doubt. It actually is Steed. And considering his knowledge and experience, a rogue Steed is the greatest threat imaginable to British Intelligence. A reluctant Tara King is giving the assignment to eliminate him.

But while this is going on, Steed is being contacted by a retired colleague who gives Steed a special assignment that comes right from The Prime Minister himself: Steed’s superior, codenamed ‘Mother’ has apparently gone rogue and is killing his own agents. Steed is given the assignment to eliminate him.

Now believe it or not, this all ties in with a wild gorilla roaming the countryside being hunted by Cathy Gale and Dr. David Keel’s investigation into a lethal plague rampaging through the African nation of Katawa. All of these diverse threads lead everybody to Knight Industries, owned and run by Mrs. Emma Peel as apparently Knight Industries is the new birthplace of the deadliest foes The Avengers ever faced: The Cybernauts. Before, Steed and Mrs. Peel barely survived their encounters with the murderous robots. Now they have to face a new generation of Cybernauts that are faster, smarter and more powerful than their predecessors. Even with Dr. Keel, Cathy Gale and Tara King on their side, can they once again defeat the insane genius who has given The Cybernauts new life and save the world?

I trust you see the main attraction this book had for me. For the first time, Steed is working with all his former partners on the same case. There are a couple of others that don’t appear here such as the nightclub singer Venus Smith and Dr. Martin King but they only appeared in a handful of episodes each and they're nowhere nearly as well known. A lot of the enjoyment I got out of the story was seeing how Steed’s partners interacted and worked together. Tara King isn’t very happy about Mrs. Peel so obviously enjoying the adventure and working with Steed again. Dr. Keel and Cathy Gale discover that they’re quite the formidable team of brains and brawn while Steed seems to be taking an almost fatherly pride in the way his former partners mesh their talents and skills together.

And I also liked how the book is set in period. There’s a part where Mrs. Peel and Tara are talking and Mrs. Peel makes a reference that it’s been a year since she and Steed’s partnership ended. So apparently Steed and Tara managed to get that spaceship they accidentally flew off in at the end of the final episode back to Earth. Being set in period gives the writers a chance to have fun with the technology, terminology and British eccentricity of the 1960’s. It’s also pretty funny at times, especially the scene where a poor Russian agent is harassed by one Avenger after another, all looking for information on Steed’s whereabouts. It’s also appropriately bizarre in the scenes where Cathy Gale battles a gorilla and where Steed and Mrs. Peel have to fight off Cybernauts disguised as flying stone angels in a graveyard.

So should you read THE AVENGERS:TOO MANY TARGETS? Like I said, if you liked the TV series and you're a fan then I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to. It’s a light, breezy read and the characterizations of Steed, Mrs. Peel and Tara are as I remember them. And even though I’m not familiar with Cathy or Dr. Keel, the writers sold me on them being worthy partners of Steed and just as deserving to be called Avengers. Well-written action scenes and you can’t beat a cyborg Neo-Nazi mad scientist with an army of killer robots as bad guys. It’s a fun read.