COMIC DETAILS
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Comic Description:
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Four Color 1231 Universal
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Grade:
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5.5
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Page Quality:
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OFF-WHITE
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Pedigree:
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File Copy
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Certification #:
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0255867025
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Owner:
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4GEMWORKS
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SET DETAILS
Owner's Description
Danger Man 9-11/1961 File Copy Based on the British TV series "Danger Man" which, at this time, was airing on CBS in the US (the series was revived in the UK in 1964 as "Danger Man" and aired in the US as "Secret Agent" (see Secret Agent (Gold Key, 1966 series)).
Photo Cover: John Drake (photo of Patrick McGoohan)
Pencils & Inks: Tony Tallarico
Table of Contents
0. [Murder on the Midway]
Danger Man
1. Danger Man
Danger Man
2. [Murder on the Midway]
Danger Man
3. Actors or Killers
4. NATO
Danger Man
Some of the early history was covers by Wikipedia.Part of that follows:
Series outline
From the 1st series voice-over:
Every government has its secret service branch. America, CIA; France, Deuxième Bureau; England, MI5. NATO also has its own. A messy job? Well that's when they usually call on me or someone like me. Oh yes, my name is Drake, John Drake.
The line "NATO also has its own" is not always present.
Programme overview
The first series of episodes ran to 24–25 minutes each and portrayed John Drake as working for a Washington, D.C.-based intelligence organization, apparently on behalf of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, whose assignments frequently took him to Africa, Latin America, and the Far East. In episode 9, "The Sanctuary", Drake declares he is an Irish-American.
He sometimes seemed at odds with his superiors about the ethics of the missions. Many of Drake's cases involved aiding democracy in foreign countries and he was also called upon to solve murders and crimes affecting the interests of either the U.S. or NATO or both.
Beginning with the second series, which aired several years after the first, the episode's length was increased to 48–49 minutes and Drake underwent retconning. His nationalty became British, and he was an agent working for a secret British government department, called M9 (analogous to Secret Intelligence Service), though his Mid-Atlantic English accent persists for the first few episodes in production.
Other than the largely nominal change of employer and nationality, Drake's mandate remains the same: "to undertake missions involving national and global security". In keeping with the episodic format of such series in the 1960s, there are no ongoing story arcs and there is no reference made to Drake's NATO adventures in the later M9 episodes.
Pilot episode
The pilot was written by Brian Clemens, who later co-created The Avengers. In an interview Clemens said:[1]
The pilot I wrote was called "View from the Villa" and it was set in Italy, but the production manager set the shoot on location in Portmeirion, which looked like Italy but which was much closer. And obviously the location stuck in Patrick McGoohan's mind, because that's where he shot his television series The Prisoner much later.
The second unit director on the pilot, according to Clemens:[1]
... shot some location and background stuff and sent the dailies back to the editing room at Elstree. Ralph Smart looked at them, hated them, and called up the second unit director and said "Look, these are terrible, you'll never be a film director," and then he fired him. The name of the second unit director? John Schlesinger.
Early history
The series succeeded in Europe, making McGoohan famous. However, when American financing for a second series failed, the program was cancelled.[citation needed] The first season of the series aired on CBS from 5 April to 13 September 1961.[2] A DVD release of the first season by A&E Home Video in 2000, erroneously states on its box that these episodes were never broadcast in the US.
After a two-year hiatus, two things had changed; Danger Man had subsequently been resold all around the world, whilst repeat showings had created a public clamour for new shows. Also, by this time James Bond had become popular, as had ABC's The Avengers. Danger Man's creator, Ralph Smart, re-thought the concept; the second series' (1964) episodes were 49 minutes long and had a new musical theme, "Highwire". Drake gained an English accent and did not clash with his bosses at first. The revived Danger Man was finally broadcast in the U.S., it was now re-titled Secret Agent, and first shown as a CBS summer replacement program, given the theme song "Secret Agent Man", sung by Johnny Rivers, which became a success in its own right. In other parts of the world, the show was titled Destination Danger or John Drake.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Man
Some data courtesy of the Grand Comics Database under a Creative Commons Attribution license. http://www.comics.org/
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode
http://www.comics.org/issue/16659/
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