Joe 90 strip guide - part two

Story One
Writer: Unknown. Artist: Michael Strand. 1 and a half pages, b/w.

Part 1: Issue 1, week ending 27 September 1969
Professor McClaine has taken Joe to see the spraying of an experimental new insecticide at an oasis in the Libyan Desert. Then a group of Tuareg warriors shoot down the plane and rush the compound. Joe and Mac are caught out in the open but Joe brings a warrior down with a lighted torch. In a bunker, Mac, Joe and the two scientists watch as the Tuaregs use explosives to wreck the complex before leaving. Their only hope of finding out who has done this lies with the warrior who Joe captured. He claims to follow 'He Who Croaks'... the Frog...

Part 2: Issue 2, week ending 04 October 1969

Back in London, Mac tells Sam Loover about the incident. He recorded the brain pattern of the Tuareg, and gives it to Joe. Disguised as a Tuareg, Joe 90 returns to Libya, and is ambushed by warriors in strange reptilian costumes. He is brought before a giant frog, who addresses him...

Part 3: Issue 3, week ending 11 October 1969
Joe realises the frog is a large bronze statue, and pleads innocence. But his radio is found, and he is accused of being a spy. On the orders of 'He Who Croaks', Joe is taken to 'the persecution chamber', which no man has lasted 15 minutes in. Inside, he finds a dark pit, and a pair of eyes stare out from it at him...

Part 4: Issue 4, week ending 18 October 1969
As Joe skirts the edge of the pit, a giant komodo dragon lizard rears up from it. Joe dazes the creature with a kick to the head, and binds its muzzle with his cloak. He pushes the button to tell the guards he is ready to talk and, thinking Joe is defeated, they rush in. Joe is ready for them and knocks them to the ground. Racing up the passage, he confronts 'He Who Croaks' in the main chamber...

Part 5: Issue 5, week ending 25 October 1969
The frog suddenly fires a disintegrator beam but Joe avoids it and gets behind the statue. He is unprepared though, when the back of it opens, and a masked figure fires amonia gas at him. By the time he recovers, the assailant has escaped. In the statue, Joe finds equipment that leads him to the Libyan desert and the tuareg warriors. At their camp, he finds 'the Frog' is in fact a dwarf...

Part 6: Issue 6, week ending 01 November 1969
Joe hides among the Tuareg ranks and finds 'the Frog' has armed them with laser guns and miniature missile rifles for an attack on the World Agricultural Board's main irrigation plant. The Frog plans to use a concentrated poison called PX5 but Joe calls out in defiance and tackles him, taking the phial. The Tuaregs cannot believe their 'chosen one' is afraid of a boy, and turn on him.

Notes:
• The first of three curiously animal-orientated stories ('Frog', 'Leech', bird bombs and 'cobra men'!) is intriguing but somewhat unsatisfying. Perhaps because it tries to go beyond the format of the series into new territory, it just does not have the feel of a Joe 90 story.


Story Two
Writer: Unknown. Artist: Michael Strand. 1 and a half pages, b/w.

Part 1: Issue 7, week ending 08 November 1969

A new top secret military strike tank 'The Leech' is being tested in the mountains of Northern India. The crew suddenly spot two birds, which home in on it and destroy it! Sam sends Joe to Borhabad, where his cover is to replace a top stuntman for a movie being made in the area. But Joe has not reckoned with Buck Hanson, another stuntman jealous of Joe's role...

Part 2: Issue 8, week ending 15 November 1969
Hanson plants a spiked ball under Joe's saddle for a scene, and despite his brain pattern skills, Joe is thrown into the blazing pagoda. He rolls over the nearby gorge into the river, and Hanson and the director drive down the mountain track to rescue him. But two of the 'birds' have seen them, and are ordered to home in and destroy...

Part 3: Issue 9, week ending 22 November 1969
Hanson and the director reach Joe as he manages to hold on to a rock to stop him being swept away. The 'birds' home in, and destroy the jeep. The mention of 'birds' brings Joe's real mission to mind, and he finds an artificial wing in the wreckage. Now he must find the base the 'birds' came from...

Part 4: Issue 10, week ending 29 November 1969
Joe's next stunt scene gives him the chance he needs - a fight between horse-mounted warriors in the mountains. But Joe is being watched from the hidden base, and two more 'electro-missiles' are launched against him. He dives into a cave, but is unprepared when the 'birds' hover and fire an electrical force at him...

Part 5: Issue 11, week ending 06 December 1969
Stunned, Joe is captured and straped into a computer chair which reveals his true identity. The oriental agents are ordered to throw him down a chute into 'the bubbling pit' - a pool of molten lava...

Part 6: Issue 12, week ending 13 December 1969

Joe manages to wedge himself at the end of the natural chute and pull himself up to another rock passage, back into the base. On a monitor, he sees hundreds of the 'birds' being readied for an attack on an unknown target...

Part 7: Issue 13, week ending 20 December 1969
The 'birds' are launched, and Joe leaps out and surprises the two agents. The target is the Delper Irrigation Scheme, and destruction of the dam will flood the region for years. Joe forces the agents to set the birds on a return course to destroy their base.

Notes:
• A much better story, and truer to the feel of the series.
• Although not clearly stated or seen in use during the story, the 'Leech' appears so named as it has giant sucker pads on its tracks. One can only ponder exactly how effective this would be in practice!


Story Three
Writer: Unknown. Artist: Michael Strand. 1 and a half pages, b/w.

Part 1: Issue 14, week ending 27 December 1969
When off-duty, even W.I.N.'s most special agent enjoyed the excitement of the fair...

As Joe sharp-shoots in an air rifle range and wins a prize, thousands of miles away in Dagra, capital city of the African state of Pandria, another rifle kills diplomat Brandon heading for a government meeting. A harpoon fired into the main government building tells of the assassin, and a message headed by a cobra snake warns the President all of them will die unless they leave Pandria at once. A warden on patrol in the massive game reserve beyond the city limits comes across what he thinks are two poachers, but they overpower him. Sam Loover calls on Mac and Joe with a mission, as it appears there may be a link - the missing warden had scrawled the mark of a cobra in the dust by his jeep...

Part 2: Issue 15, week ending 03 January 1970
Joe is parachuted into the game reserve by plane, as Sam journeys on to Dagra. Using his new skills, Joe captures a zebra, breaks it in, and uses it to ride to a remote area of the park. Finding the cobra mark, and following tracks, Joe is unfortunate to encounter a herd of buffalo, who charge him. He jumps from the zebra's back into the safety of tree branches but his glasses fall off - to be grabbed by a monkey...

Part 3: Issue 16, week ending 10 January 1970
Without his glasses, Joe has no skills but uses his own knowledge to swing to the ground and follow the monkey. Something startles it, and seizing the chance, Joe hurls a stone at it. The monkey drops the glasses, and Joe is able to catch them, then locates the source of the noise. Hooded men have gathered in a clearing, and they have the game warden prisoner. Their leader wears cobra markings - and tells the men that the leaders in Dagra have ignored their warnings, so they will attack at dawn. Joe contacts Sam, and inches his way behind the men to free the warden - but then he is discovered...

Part 4: Issue 17, week ending 17 January 1970

Joe twists his legs around the armed rearguard, and knocks him to the ground. With the other men in pursuit, Joe and the warden make for the river, and use a tree trunk to escape. The cobra men follow in dinghies, and realising they cannot outpaddle them, Joe makes for the riverbank. Three small grenades are used to anger nearby hippos, and they savage the dinghies as they pass. Government troops arrive, led by Sam, and the cobramen are rounded up. But the leader tries to escape, only to be shot by Joe, and he is revealed to be Bradman, ex-member of the Pandrian Senate, who was thrown out for rebelling.

Notes:
• It comes almost as a shock to see Joe seemingly shoot the Cobra leader down in cold blood, but in the last frame it is revealed he used a drug-dart.
• Oops - the recap for the final part refers to the African state as Paddria.


Story Four
Writer: Unknown.
Artist: Michael Strand. 1 and a half pages, b/w.

Part 1: Issue 18, week ending 24 January 1970
A fleet of heavy duty lorries approached the top security naval complex on the shores of the Rochov Sea...
An undercover WIN agent on the scene makes a report on this, and Shane Weston calls in Mac and Joe. Something top secret has been moved out of the complex, and Joe's mission is to find out what. With the brain pattern of sea commando Gerry Bamber, Joe is parachuted into the area. Stowing away on one of the truck transports, Joe gains access to the naval base, and sees something unbelieveable...

Part 2: Issue 19, week ending 31 January 1970
A massive submarine carrier is in the dock, dwarfing even the truck. Joe risks a satellite call to Shane Weston and Sam Loover at WIN Headquarters to inform them. There is an alert, and Joe is forced to cut short the call. He jumps on top of a vehicle driving on board the sub, in order to gain access to it. On board, he hopes he can find out what the mystery cargo is...

Part 3: Issue 20, week ending 07 February 1970
Now on course two hundred feet below the Atlantic, the mammoth submarine heads at incredible speed to a secret rendezvous. Joe finds the cargo comprises of Polaris missiles, missile pads, and deep sea anchors, before he is discovered. He has to bluff with the submarine commander that he wanted to join the navy. A crewman reports that all sonic detectors are negative. But as the order is given to take Joe away, he calls out to the commander that he can help them...

Part 4: Issue 21, week ending 14 February 1970
The commander decides to hear the advice, and Joe tells them that at a depth of three hundred and seventy-five feet, the sub is in the middle of a cold water layer. If they dive to five hundred feet, the sonic systems will be freed. As the success of the mission is all important, the commander follows this, and Joe is able to gain his trust when the advice proves correct. But the lieutenant, Gleb, does not trust Joe and keeps an eye on him. As the commander explains the plan to anchor missile pads to the sea bed around Great Britain, Joe continues to impress with his knowledge. The sub approaches its first rendezvous, and the first Polaris is set up...

Part 5: Issue 22, week ending 21 February 1970
The fourth and final Polaris is anchored to the sea-bed, and the commander announces their mission is ready. But Joe tells him otherwise, as he has reset the missile gyros to aim them at the sub's homeland. Fighting off any opposition, Joe threatens to fire the missiles, and the commander is forced to surrender. The sub surfaces, and a communication buoy sends a signal to bring naval patrols in. With the missiles retrieved and deactivated, Britain is safe once again.

Notes:
• The final part of this story was promoted on the cover, with an illustration by Alan Willow


Story Five
Writer: Unknown. Artist: Michael Strand. 1 and a half pages, b/w.

Part 1: Issue 23, week ending 28 February 1970
It has been snowing in Dorset, and Joe makes the most of it with a motorised bob-sleigh Mac has invented. Meanwhile on the other side of the world in the Australian outback, aborigine witch-doctor Kangu calls on the 'storm gods', and a whirlwind blows up out of nowhere to wreak destruction on sheep farms. WIN agent Karlson is watching from cover, and radios in a message to Headquarters but is then captured by aborigines. Kangu orders the sacrifice of Karlson to the storm gods, and is tied to a rock to die when the sun rises. Karlson's report brings Sam Loover to enlist the services of Joe 90 to investigate...

Part 2: Issue 24, week ending 07 March 1970

With the brain pattern of a Bushman, Joe is flown to Australia and takes a helicopter to the heart of the interior outback. Two miles from the weather station, Joe spots something and lands to investigate. This is where the aborigines have Karlson tied to a rock, and their leader Kangu calls upon the storm gods to sacrifice him. Out of nowhere a swirling dust clous envelopes Karlson, who has vanished when the cloud dies down! Joe is suspicious, and under cover of night, finds tracks where Karlson was. But then he is found by Kangu and the aborigines...

Part 3: Issue 25, week ending 14 March 1970
Joe evades capture long enough to secure something in his jacket, but come the next day, he is tied to the rock like Karlson. Kangu calls up the storm gods, and Joe finds himself surrounded by the 'cloud' - which conceals a hover vehicle of some kind. To the aborigines, it seems as if Joe has been sacrificed but the reality is blades which cut him free, and a suction device which pulls him into the vehicle. Joe is amazed to find his captors have taken him to the weather station, where he is strapped in 'the Truth Machine'...

Part 4: Issue 26, week ending 21 March 1970

His hands strapped to armrests, Joe cannot reach inside his jacket. But when 'the Chief' calls for all men to the control room, help comes from an unexpected source. Karlson, the missing WIN agent, has escaped from his cell and frees Joe, who has to feign innocence to keep his cover. The leader now has a working weather machine, and plans to blackmail Australia's authorities into paying a ransom or be destroyed by freak weather. Karlson would have been brainwashed to 'clear' the station, giving the outlaws sufficient time to disappear. Joe has a flash bomb, and uses it against the men, switches off the machine, and calls in the authorities. Karlson is left to wrap things up as Sam secretly piks up Joe by helicopter.

Notes:
• Oops - a typo in part 2 refers to the aborigine tribes as aborine.
• Being set in Australia, the cylindrical helmets the criminals have recall the one worn by famous outlaw Ned Kelly (right).
• From issue 26, TV21 & Joe 90 reduced in size again.


Story Six (aka The Big Blow-Up!)
Writer: Unknown. Artist: Michael Strand. 1 and a half pages, b/w.

Part 1: Issue 27, week ending 28 March 1970
With the approach of the World Cup series, soccer interest was at fever pitch when visiting Bengora - a top South American team - flew into Britain...
Before the cheering crowds, as the Bengora team and ace striker Penge pose for photos, their waiting coach explodes! At their Dorset cottage, Mac confiscates Joe's football when he accidentally smashes a window while practicing outside. The Bengoran incident leads Sam Loover to call upon the services of Joe 90 again, and he is given the brain pattern of a world-ranking striker to play for the Fenwick team. On the pitch, he may pick up more clues - but unknown to them, the explosion was a decoy, to lead suspicion away from Bengoran saboteurs...

Part 2: Issue 28, week ending 04 April 1970

Joe arrives at the football ground with Sam and Mac, and has a look around first. He disturbs two men lurking in the football supply room, which leads Joe to suspect their plan. There are no further incidents until the big match on Saturday, when Joe plays magnificently and scores a goal. But his kick seems to have burst the ball, and it is replaced. The Bengoran goalie clears the football towards the visitors box, where the Bengoran ambassador and embassy staff sit. Joe realises what the plan is, and kicks another football at it - and the collision explodes the concealed bomb within it. The assassination attempt, by an opposing Bengoran faction, has been foiled.

Notes:
• It seems a little odd, after so many attempts to keep Joe's identity as an agent a secret, that he would be used in such a publically visible event in this way.
• This story saw the introduction of a new, and regretably bland, final masthead for the strip.
• Considering how popular they were at the time, it would seem Bengora and Penge were inspired by Brazil and their top striker Pele.


Story Seven
Writer: Unknown.
Artist: Michael Strand. 1 and a half pages, b/w.

Part 1: Issue 29, week ending 11 April 1970
Besides the Rat Trap, the basement laboratory beneath the McClaine's cottage housed a complex of other equipment. But Mac was always working on something new...
A high frequency video screen allows Mac to switch into any of WIN's world-wide headquarters. Testing it, Mac tunes into the New York Air Display - via a radio satellite - where the Air Devils display team fly their bi-planes. But that night, a top military jet fighter, type four-ninety, is stolen from its display. Searches fail to recover it, so Joe is assigned to join the Air Devils for when the British Military Air Show opens - to make sure another theft does not happen...

Part 2: Issue 30, week ending 18 April 1970

Joe is given a specially equipped bi-plane to use in the air show, and flies it from an underground hangar at WIN Headquarters. At the grounds of the display, the international Air Devils team arrives, and witness Joe's low level approach. But Joe's eye is on the new British VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) 'Rapier' fighter - a likely target for the thieves. The Air Devils leader, Greeg, briefs the team for a mock air battle using blank ammunition, but in the aerial dog-fight itself, Joe finds himself a target for real bullets...

Part 3: Issue 31, week ending 25 April 1970
Joe identifies his attacker as the French pilot Labonne, and uses a special smoke screen on his bi-plane to fake his crash in a nearby forest before stunned spectators. Joe goes into hiding nearby, making it seem he was killed, and the police pick up Labonne, who is charged with the death. Bringing Sam up to speed on his radio, Joe plans to find out who is really behind the thefts that night...

Part 4: Issue 32, week ending 02 May 1970

Joe follows the two men into the airbase, where they stun a guard with gas. Joe realises Labonne was not to blame, but the real culprits have framed him in order to steal the new Rapier plane. The spies, Greeg and Capelli, take off in the plane, and Joe pursues in another fighter. Alerting Sam and the Air Force, Joe follows the Rapier to the Scottish highlands where it lands at a pre-arranged rendezvous. Using missiles, Joe destroys the gang's helicopter and means of escape, allowing them to be captured.

Notes:
• The final part of this story was promoted on the cover, with an illustration by Alan Willow, part sharing the limelight with Mr Spock of Star Trek, as a new story for that strip started (see below).
• Alan Willow comments on the cover, 'I am sure the plane is my work, I think the 'Spock' is mine too, but my memory doesn't go back 36 years... sometimes it doesn't even go back to last week! Looking at it I am pretty sure I did it probably working closely from a photographic reference which would account for the detail and style.'


Story Eight
Writer: Unknown. Artist: Michael Strand. 1 and a half pages, b/w.

Part 1: Issue 33, week ending 09 May 1970
Canada - and on the fringe of a vast, forested region stretching from Great Slave lake to Wilson Bay, was situated the International Agricultural Research Centre, designed to probe the effects of chemicals on crops. As a top-secret establishment, the centre's security was all important. But one night...
Professor Igor Strang and his passenger drive up to the main barrier to be stopped as no-one may leave after dark without a special permit. Strang uses a laser gun to shoot his way out - he has turned traitor and defector - and minutes later, the centre explodes! Strang has escaped with the formula of a top-secret defoliation chemical, aided by an enemy agent smuggled in with a party of visiting technicians. Sam Loover and Joe are at a conference at Ottawa, and fly to the wreck of the centre to investigate. As there is only one road in five hundred miles of forest, spotter planes soon find Strang's car, lying on its side in a ravine, so Sam and Joe drive out to investigate. But when they get there and find no bodies, Joe saves Sam's life when the booby-trapped car explodes. It seems Strang and his accomplice have got away, unless Joe 90 can find them...



Part 2: Issue 34, week ending 16 May 1970
Joe believes the two men have headed west for the Pacific Coast, which is a wilderness but could be crossed if the enemy agent were a trained woodsman and lumberjack. Joe is flown back to England to get the brain pattern of a leading authority on foresting, and returns a day later with Sam, equipped for the task. Joes hunch proves right as they find a felled tree crossing a gorge, but as they make their way over it, a heli-cutter - a helicopter specially equipped with a blade for felling trees - appears. The pilot makes a cutting run at the tree bridge, determined to kill them...

Part 3: Issue 35, week ending 23 May 1970
The heli-cutter is nearly through slicing their tree bridge, and Joe prepares Sam to jump. Swinging his axe to the side of the heli-cutter, the two hang on as the pilot tries to force them off by flying through the tree-tops. Sam and Joe jump for their lives, and a miniature laser pistol brings the heli-cutter down. Badly injured in the crash, the dying pilot reveals nothing but has a map indicating the Yellowknife River - site of a massive logging camp, which Joe believes Strang may be heading for...

Part 4: Issue 36, week ending 30 May 1970

Joe and Sam reach the logging camp but even though there are hundreds of men there, their task may be made easier by Strang's inexperience giving him away. Joe's hunch is right, and the camp foreman tells them where to find the scientist. Sam tries to corner Strang but his enemy agent accomplice is nearby, and throws an axe at him. Joe shouts a warning an attacks the agent, giving Strang time to make an escape bid. He heads off down the river in special craft disguised as a log. Joe hurls his axe to mark the craft, and leaps over the floating logs in pursuit. But then the logs start to jam and pile up, and Strang's craft is smashed. Joe uses his logging skills to rescue Strang, and he and the enemy agent are handed over to the police.

Notes:
• In part 1, when Joe saves Sam's life, it seems he does so as 'himself' as he is not wearing his glasses.
• The final part enjoys a full two pages for its conclusion.

With the gradual decline and lapse in licensing of the Gerry Anderson material, which first saw Captain Scarlet and Zero X end with the first series of TV21, Joe 90 was next to finish. And from issue 37, the comic became just TV21.

With no annual for Joe 90 apparent - either in its television or comic form - the last mission for WIN's Most Special Agent was in the Thunderbirds annual 1971 - a last fling Anderson-fest, and bookend to the decade. In The Thin Red Wire, part illustrated by TV21 & Joe 90 cover artist Alan Willow, Joe learns of a plan to blow up an atomic research plant where a foreign delegation will be visiting, and tries to defuse the trigger with the knowledge of a bomb disposal expert. On more than one occasion, Joe is referred to as being ten years old, taking this beyond the end of the television series in which he celebrates that birthday.

While probably written sometime during the TV21 & Joe 90 run, it was never intended as a finale. Which was just as well, as by the time the annual appeared, there were already plans to keep the Anderson flag flying with a new comic called Countdown...

On to Part Three of this series.

The Gerry Anderson Complete Comic History would like to thank:
Alan Willow
Graham Bleathman
John Peter Britton
and www.abc.net.au
- for their help with this feature.

Version 1.2 - 01.09.05


Any comments or notes about any of the strips, please contact technodelic@blueyonder.co.uk.

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