Monday, January 20, 2014

Beware Frank Bellamy's Winged Avenger

Marvelous Monday Comics

In The Avengers episode "Winged Avenger," someone is killing ruthless industrialists.  Government agents Emma Peel and John Steed find their clawed corpses in locked, upper-story offices.


At first, Emma Peel doesn't notice this comic lying among the papers knocked off the desk of one victim.


But when another ends up dead, on the grounds of his estate, she remembers one panel from the comic, and Steed agrees on the striking similarity.


This leads Emma Peel and John Steed to the offices of Winged Avengers Enterprises, where they find a man dressed up in the Winged Avenger costume, poised to savage beautiful women with his deadly claws.  But even if the killer wore the costume, how did he climb up the sheer walls of office buildings?  And who might have used the costume to murder the heartless businessmen?  The artist who is gradually taking over every aspect of the comic book's production?  The writer who is growing more and more frustrated with his partner?  Or the model, who sometimes leaves the office at the end of the day, so comfortable in the costume that he's forgotten he's wearing it?


"Winged Avenger" features lots of comic book imagery, drawn by Frank Bellamy, a British artist who died too young.  He may be most remembered by fans of the comics version of Gerry Anderson's Sci-Fi puppet TV show "Thunderbirds."  Die-hard Monty Python's Flying Circus fans can also find his artwork in Terry Jones and Michael Palin's children's book Bert Fegg's Nasty Book For Boys & Girls, which satirized British annuals of the period, and recycled Monty Python scripts.  That is, if you can find a copy.

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries
Emma Peel & Daleks

Related Internet Links
Watch "Winged Avenger"
Frank Bellamy at Wikipedia

1 comment:

  1. Thw Winged Avenger i do beleive it was a sort of parody of Batman

    ReplyDelete