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The Mark Of The Mysterons: Solo - 1967
 Solo began life as one of the poorer entries from City Magazines, appearing from February 1967, and still in co-operation with Century 21 as they had the British rights to The Man From UNCLE which (presumably) was its central strip. The remainder of each issue was a mix of Disney reprints such as The Scarecrow, Goofy and Uncle Scrooge, US TV shows like Sergeant Bilko and The Adventures of Seaspray, and an attempt at satire in the form of Fatman and Sparrow which spoofed the Batman series. Into this juvenile and light-hearted mix came a slice of misplaced hard reality which must have come as a jolt to the younger impressionable readership.
In hindsight,The Mark Of The Mysterons appears to owe more to The Invaders (which had been on UK TV since the beginning of 1967) than the as yet unseen Captain Scarlet which gave birth to it. The strip is a somewhat strange entry in the realm of stories based on or around the Gerry Anderson series being less of a tie-in and more of a prequel.
Issue 16, dated 3 June 1967, carried the strange flash Emergency - see inside! across the front strip of Disney's lovable Scamp, which led readers to a seemingly factual feature by Alan L. Fennell, Solo Editor. Entitled 'Did This Plane Crash?', the two page spread of pages 14 and 15 carried photos of 'Charlie Delta' (in reality a BOAC VC10, with the markings airbrushed out if too obvious, especially the one showing the plane flaming out of control into the sea) which had alledgedly taken off from New York and gotten into trouble over the Atlantic. Contact was lost and it was feared the plane had crashed. But the plane landed safely without further apparent incident at London a couple of hours later. Fennell ended the article with a plea for readers to be vigilant for other incidents like this - shown on a third page - and to write to a journalist heading the team he had put in charge of the investigation - John Marsh - at the Century 21 Publishing address in Fleet Street.
 If stunned children reading the feature had time to recover from this, the following week things got worse. Hostile Agency Affecting Earth declared the next strangely placed feature, which related Alan L. Fennell - editor and now apparently managing director of Solo - had authorised the purchase of a £4 million computer to investigate these events. TV Century 21 and Lady Penelope were evidently doing very well, thank you. The evidence so far pointed to - The Mysterons! Though what or who the actual Mysterons were remained unanswered.
You are now a Solo Investigator... the duly press-ganged readership of under-tens were told in conclusion, •Listen - Watch - Report... Now! The smell of fear-soiled undies must have been as frightening as the purported threat...
Issue 18, dated 17 June 1967, upped the stress-factors another notch: Was This Air Crash Caused By The Mysterons? asked a colour flash on the front page. If it was - We Are Alone - as the Government had rejected the evidence Fennell's bank busting purchase had presented, leaving Solo and its now traumatised readership to take up the battle. The title of the comic, at first synomynous with the main character of the Man from UNCLE strip it carried, now took on a somewhat different meaning. But wait... for the first time photos of puppets from Thunderbirds appeared, if eagle-eyed readers had not already spotted the crash on the front cover was the Zero X from the climax of the Thunderbirds Are Go! film. Could it be this was not a real threat... ? The first of the Solo Mysteron Files also appeared, relating the story of more unusual incidents (and this time models shots from Thunderbirds and TV21) and that of North Sea Oil Rig Northern Explorer, continuing the melodramatic nature of previous reports. The full story would follow...
 And follow it did. Issue 19, dated 24 June 1967, saw a wholly revamped comic appearing. The masthead of Solo now appeared against a background of a soft focus ring with the sub-title Anti Mysteron Edition. Painted covers replaced the rotation of Disney strips with the first continuing the saga of the oil rig with the heading 'Northern Explorer Sinks! - Three Weeks Later It Reappears' (see pages 12-13). If you had the courage to read the preceeding 'factual' articles then the story appeared to be a dramatisation of those events. This pattern would continue throughout the run of the strip, entitled The Mark Of The Mysterons and starting in this issue, with the drawn stories being 'previewed' by reports in the newly dubbed Spectrum News which appeared before the strip on page 11. MYSTERONS - Who Are They? Where Do They Come From? screamed its headlines - and readers wanting answers to their nightmares were told by John Marsh "I don't know". But in the following weeks he would report his findings in hope of discovering the truth. Braver readers, in response to earlier features. sent in their reports which appeared on page 14 - dubbed the Anti-Mysteron Organisation or AMO page - with their names and addresses printed in reverse to protect their identities.
New strips, such as Tomorrow West - a man from the future trapped in the past - changed the direction of the magazine in one fell swoop. Gone were the more kiddy orientated strips, though the Disney profile was still high with A Tiger Walks and That Darn Cat, both adaptations of recent films. Also making its debut was Project SWORD, as a three page b/w strip that promoted Century 21s new range of toys through a rather mundane space opera. It would reappear as a text story series in TV Century 21 and its own annual, with a completely revised story format, the following year.
 By now the jig was up and future features would use blatant photos from Stingray, Thunderbirds and the hitherto unscreened Captain Scarlet - obviously raided from TV Century 21 - as well stock images of various disasters to illustrate the patterns of destruction being caused by the Mysterons.
A clue to the authorship of the strip lay in the name dropping of one 'Dick O'Neill' in one of the issue 18 feature as 'technical advisor'. Richard O'Neill was a freelance writer who worked on TV Century 21, and scripted two of the original Captain Scarlet mini-albums. He would also write for Look-In and Countdown & TV Action in the 1970s.
 Former Dan Dare artist Don Harley gave The Mark Of The Mysterons a clear style that was well matched to the dry and initially underplayed scripts. Harley had already contributed to TV Century 21 and would be better remembered by Anderson fans as the main artist on Thunderbirds in Countdown in the early seventies.
The Mark Of The Mysterons itself was presented in almost documentary style at first, with few speech bubbles and most exposition in the first person by John Marsh (right). A photo of Marsh (in reality, Century 21 Publishing designer John Ayres, who worked under art editor Dennis Hooper) was incorporated into the strip's masthead. This approach gave it a similarly factual feel along the lines of historical strips that appeared in educational titles like Look And Learn. If the sub heading 'Based on Gerry Anderson's forthcoming TV Series Captain Scarlet' (appearing occasionally in Spectrum News from issue 20) hadn't calmed readers into now realising this was another pre-publicity build-up and not a true threat from space as previously suggested, issue 23 tried to even the balance and a small disclaimer 'This feature is fiction - Any resemblance to real people, places or events is entirely coincedental'. appeared under the strip. One wonders how many distressed children and their angered parents had written in to complain to warrant that...
The Mark Of The Mysterons story guide
 Story One
Writer: Richard O'Neill (?).
Artist: Don Harley. b/w centrespread.
Part 1 - Issue 19, dated 24 June 1967
Spectrum News Headline: Danger - The Mysterons Are Here
After the loss of North Sea Oil Rig Northern Explorer in a storm, air freighter pilot Captain MacFie spots the rig moving across the ocean towards the shipping lanes.
Part 2 - Issue 20, dated 01 July 1967
Spectrum News Headline: We Are The Mysterons - Radio Ham Picks Up Mysteron Broadcast
Solo reporter John Marsh joins forces with Captain MacFie and they fly by helicopter to investigate the Northern Explorer. Its controls locked by a strange force, Marsh is forced to destroy the rig by smashing fuel storage tanks and firing a flare gun to ignite the spillage when it threatens to collide with a freighter.
Notes:
• The opening story is strangely underplayed, more like an artistic dramatisation of real events than a adventure strip, though this was possibly the desired effect. Unfortunately this has the effect of making the strip somewhat uninvolving at this point.
• Curiously, all the captions for the first instalment are numbered.
• The cover art of the Northern Explorer for issue 19 was by Eric Eden.
 Story Two
Writer: Richard O'Neill (?).
Artist: Don Harley. b/w centrespread.
Part 1 - Issue 21, dated 08 July 1967
Spectrum News Headline: The Storm Is Gathering
John Marsh visits radio ham Dean Cash who has heard the Mysterons on his set, and the two try to communicate with them. Cash's radio set explodes, so Marsh tries to convice a nearby radio station to help. When he is refused, he convices Cash to help him break in at midnight when the station is shut down and use the equipment anyway. En route, a tanker veers out of a side road and Marsh and Cash barely escape in time before the collision. As the fire brigade put out the blaze, a police officer tells Marsh there was no-one driving the tanker...
Part 2 - Issue 22, dated 15 July 1967
Spectrum News Headline: Danger - The Mysterons Are Here
Cash asks Marsh if he is going on. Scared but determined, Marsh believes he must and the two men break into the radio station. But once inside, Cash knocks Marsh down a flight of stairs - the whole story was a ruse to lure him into a Mysteron trap! The two men fight and in desperation, Marsh kicks Cash against a generator, killing him. Alone again, Marsh returns to London to file his latest report...
Notes:
• The second story has more of a strip feel to it and we are presented with a all too brief but twisting tale that sets the tone of the strip for the duration of its run.
• This is the first story to feature a 'human' Mysteron whereas before it seemed their powers were limited to mechanical devices.
• Perhaps in line with the younger readership, we never learn how these human Mysterons come about but it can be implied the originals were killed or destroyed like Northern Explorer.
• The use of a generator is a nice touch, involving the Mysteron weakness of electricity without signposting it.
• The Mysteron use of self-detonation - Cash's radio - is also apparent.
• The cover art for both parts of this story was by Eric Eden.
Story Three
Writer: Richard O'Neill (?).
Artist: Don Harley. b/w centrespread.
 Part 1 - Issue 23, dated 22 July 1967
Spectrum News Headline: Mysteron Photographed - Major Breakthrough in the Silent War
At home in Hertfordshire on night, John Marsh is disturbed by an intruder. It turns out to be friend and fellow reporter Pi Ming of the Pekin People's News, who Marsh had been trying to contact about a disaster at a dam under construction. Pi Ming tells Marsh of a frightening occurance which has been kept under cover by his government.... A landslip smashed some of the trucks. No lives were lost, and new trucks arrived to replace them. But a routine check revealed one of the smashed trucks had reappeared! When the guard reports, Assistant Commissar Chung sees the truck start to move off apparently driverless and believing it is being stolen opens fire, causing the truck to explode...
Part 2 - Issue 24, dated 29 July 1967
Spectrum News Headline: Iceburg Crash in Indian Ocean
At the construction quarters, the Commissar orders every truck to be checked but a call from a look-out post reports more of the vehicles are driving towards the dam! A battle ensues between the Commissar's armed men and the seemingly intelligent driverless trucks, with one breaking through the line of men. The Commissar fires futilely at the truck and barely escapes with his life as it hurtles over the cliff into the dam, destroying it.
Notes:
 • The Mysteron threat becomes global - if that wasn't already apparent in the Spectrum News section - with events in another country reported by a colleague.
• A somewhat routine first part gives way to a macabre battle where Mysteron trucks take on a life of their own. One can see why the disclaimer 'This feature is a fiction... ' appeared with part one as by this time younger readers must have been becoming distressed at the thought of inanimate objects moving by themselves... a trip in the family car must have been a nightmare for some!
Story Four
Writer: Richard O'Neill (?).
Artist: Don Harley. b/w centrespread.
Part 1 - Issue 25, dated 05 August 1967
Spectrum News Headline: Mysteron Attack Plan Moves To Phase Two
John Marsh is sorting through back numbers of daily newspapers for unusual reports and notices strange events taking plce in the army. Contacting Major Watson, Marsh resorts to some blackmail to get himself and photographer Jim Anderson into one of the top secret army territories on the pretense of a feature. Bluffing their way into an exercise mock attack on a rocket base, they see the guns open fire on 'enemy' tanks but they are firing real shells, not blanks...
Part 2 - Issue 26, dated 12 August 1967
Spectrum News Headline: Solo Offices Raided - Reporter Arrested
Luckily the young inexperienced gunners aim is way out, and Marsh and Anderson are able to stop them before lives are lost. A helicopter lands and Major Watson storms out. Marsh tries to explain but Watson acts strangely and then pulls a gun on them. Anderson exclaims that Watson looks 'different' through his camera viewfinder and March uses the distraction to jump Watson. Another explosion throws Marsh off-balance and Watson makes a break for the helicopter. Seeing a grenade, Marsh lobs it into the helicopter, destroying it and killing Watson. Another Mysteron has been destroyed... but how many more are there?
 Notes:
• The military targets beloved of the Captain Scarlet series make their debut here, though again somewhat underplayed and the plan to replace blanks with live ammo is never really made clear - was it so the Mysterons could reconstruct the destroyed tanks and men?
• Again we have an allusion to the TV series, with Mysterons not photographing in the same way as normal people.
• Photos replace the cover illustrations for both parts of this story, with the destruction of the island from the Stingray episode 'Emergency Marineville' (also used for the 'Stop Press' in TV21 issue ??) for issue 25, and the RTL2 on fire from the Thunderbirds episode 'The Cham-Cham' for issue 26 (see above).
• A quarter page advert for Solo appeared in issue 133 of TV Century 21, dated 5 August 2067 (1967), reading 'Beware the Mysterons! Only Solo can save you.'
Story Five
Writer: Richard O'Neill (?).
Artist: Tom Kerr. b/w centrespread.
Part 1 - Issue 27, dated 19 August 1967
Spectrum News Headline: Biggest Mysteron Success Yet
Submarine HMS Vital has run aground near St. Mala in the South Pacific after a gyro-compass went haywire. Marsh flies out to investigate but as his sea-plane lands nearby he sees the crew evacuating - the nuclear reactor is going haywire too and might explode. Unknown to Marsh, the first lieutenant is a Mysteron and has been instructed to make sure the reporter is destroyed with the sub. With orders to destroy the sea-plane and pilot, Number One dives overboard as Marsh and the Captain try to stop the reactor...
 Part 2 - Issue 28, dated 26 August 1967
Spectrum News Headline: Warn Your Friends! Fight The Mysterons - WAR IS PREPARING
Marsh discovers a powerful magnetic field generator has been placed by the reactor. Impulsively, he smashes it which returns the reactor and navigation equipment to normal. Meanwhile, Number One has reached the sea-plane and hi-jacked it. But the pilot realises he has forgotten his safety belt and a sharp bank throws the man out in the sea to his death. The sub saved and pulled of its grounding at high tide, Marsh departs.
Notes:
• Tom Kerr's art distracts from the grim story by being significantly less realistic than Don Harley's clear and graphic style. More used to comedic illustration (Kerr was already illustrating Sergeant Bilko in Solo, and would go on to do the first two Monkees annuals, and Crowther In Trouble and Doctor On The Go in Look-In) somehow he doesn't quite pull off the drama of the situation.
• The cover of issue 27 sees a final return to an illustrated cover, with a colour depiction of the grounded submarine by Eric Eden.
• The cover of issue 28 depicts art editor Dennis Hooper as one of the victims of the Mysterons, with the large red flash 'Assassinated 21 August 1967' (right)! Boy, we wonder who he had annoyed in the art department...
 Story Six
Writer: Richard O'Neill (?).
Artist: Don Harley. b/w centrespread.
Part 1 - Issue 29, dated 2 September 1967
Spectrum News Headline: Trans-World Hypnosis Bid - TV Station Takeover
Pop music sensation 'The Ravers' have played at five venues over the past two months, all of which have been destroyed straight after their appearance. After finding out where 'The Ravers' are due to play next from Solo pop reporter Dave Laker, John Marsh travels to the Southampton Theatre. The band refuse to talk to him so Marsh approaches their manager and finds he has been looking after 'The Ravers' for two months - the same time as the explosions started. Marsh's suspicions are correct - the manager is a Mysteron - and he has new instructions to destroy the theatre tonight, along with the reporter...
Part 2 - Issue 30, dated 9 September 1967
Spectrum News Headline: Atomic Station Explodes
Distracted by listening to 'The Ravers' playing, Marsh is brought back to his senses by a door slamming and he relises the manager has escaped. A car chase ensues with the manager crashing. Pulling the dying man from the wreck, Marsh is told he has only minutes before the theatre explodes. Marsh rushes back and, realising that warning the packed theatre may only result in more chaos and possibly death, tries in vain to find the bomb. There is only one place the manager could have planted it unseen and that is under the stage! With seconds to spare he gets the bomb outside to the deserted car park. With a captive audience, he tells the Raver fans of the Mysteron threat in the hope they will undrstand and pass the message on...
Notes:
• The final story returns to more familiar territory in the Home Counties but it makes an unsatisfying conclusion, suggesting the strip was aborted in favour of a merger with TV Tornado and a Mysteron strip more in line with the imminent television series. Next week... The Mysterons themselves promised, perhaps, a showdown between John Marsh and his enemies - but it was never to be...
• The cover of issue 29 has a colour photo of the Trans American T.V. Network, from a scene cut from the film Thunderbirds Are Go!.
Issue 31, dated 16 September 1967
Spectrum News Headline: Sub Freezes In Pacific
Notes:
• No actual Mark Of The Mysterons strip, but a final Spectrum News with two 'News In Brief' stories, A Tribute To John Marsh, and a message from the Editor.
 Issue 31 of Solo bore a cover of distorted photos of different people - one suspects, City Magazine or Century 21 employees - with the heading Victims Of The Mysterons. The question How Long Can Marsh Survive? was posed, and the answer was already answered by the absense of The Mark Of The Mysterons in favour of The Mysterons, set at some unspecified period in the future and beginning with a Martian Expedition Vehicle from Earth attacking the Mysteron Complex on Mars. 'Will His Name Be Added To The List?' continued the cover... Well, we never find out as, a message from the editors told us in the final Spectrum News, Solo had finally gained official recognition from the authorities. As mentioned 'last week' (actually, it was in issue 26) Secret Service agents had raided the offices and taken the files. Never would we find out, as potentially promised in Spectrum News in the same way as the previous stories, about the Trans-World Hypnosis Bid or the exploding Atomic Station or the mystery ice in the 90º temperature of the Pacific.
'Official recognition by authorities' may have finally been gained, but Solo failed to find a readership even after a revamp and bringing in elements of its most successful publication TV Century 21. One can see where The Mark Of The Mysterons was trying to head with regard to drawing attention to a new and up-and-coming series - something TV Century 21 had got down to a fine art. The Angels were already appearing in Lady Penelope, and tantalising news snippets on the front page of TV Century 21 covered Captain Black's ill-fated expedition to Mars weeks before the series appeared. But one senses, with Solo having such a lightweight dolly mixture of strips to start with, that this was more of a last chance ditch to save an ailing publication than any planned strategy, no matter how innovative the approach was. There is no real attempt to explain why the Mysterons, a hundred years before the events in Captain Scarlet, were attacking Earth, although this could be why after 12 parts the strip suddenly vanished - with the merger with TV Tornado - to be replaced with The History Of... The Mysterons - How It All Began. But that is another story all together.
"No-one who has given his life for humanity in this fight has died in vain. We will remember them."
The Gerry Anderson Complete Comic History would like to thank:
Angus Allan
Howard Elson
Bob Reed
and 'Tigra'
- for their help with this feature.
Version 1.3 - 01.05.06
Any comments or notes about any of the strips, please contact technodelic@blueyonder.co.uk.
All text © The Gerry Anderson Complete Comic History, and its respective writers, and may not be reproduced without permission.
All images © their respective copyright holders
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