It was inevitable then that I would have to get a copy of Titan's Original Art Edition large format book which collects Kirby's unpublished Prisoner premiere- and the alternative version by Kane and Englehart.
It's a massive, unwieldy gorgeous thing. I've seen some art from the comic in The Jack Kirby Collector and elsewhere but this book presents the comic in black and white with a beautiful colour version of its signature Kirby double-page spread.
The bonus material states that Tomb of Dracula's Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan were the original team pegged to adapt the late Sixties tv enigma for the mid-70s House of Ideas. The hi-tech surveillance world of espionage in Patrick McGoohan's elusive, paranoid masterpiece chimes with the worlds of Captain America, SHIELD and perhaps the sci-fi prison camps of Apokolips itself. Indeed, Kirby already loosely adapted The Prisoner with Smilin' Stan for a late Sixties sequence of the Fantastic Four. The people of Latveria live in the enforced jollity of a Bavarian-style bierkeller festival, monitored electronically in a village patrolled by android watchdogs.
It's very interesting too to compare the approaches of the two teams featured in the book. Kirby uses the title sequence of the series as a flashback, then Number Six tours the village with Number Two, who reminds me a little of the satanic Warden Frye from In the Days of the Mob. The comic ends with typical Kirby bravura: "The saga of an individual's stubborn attempts to wrest freedom from subtle but oppressive power" was intended to continue in issue two's " Kill Me If You Can". I have a sense that Jack identified with McGoohan's steely cipher in his own attempts to wrest artistic freedom in the comics industry.
Englehart and Kane start with the opening title narrative ( Number Six's passionate resignation and his funeral abduction ) and lets us see Rover in the final scenes; Kirby omits the roaring, abstract balloon-monster. Englehart's Prisoner barks about the quaint doll's village and pronounces " I'll take your challenge!" with a defiance that reminds me of Mr. Miracle, the Silver Surfer and Coyote, who all acted as Stainless Steve's proxies for self-determination. Englehart also incorporates the premise that Number Two's superiors want Six's priceless information and would have continued with The Chimes of Big Ben.
The Kane pages are airily stylish and kinetic but Kirby just has the edge for me, with his rendition of the surreal, dream-like qualities of Portmeirion.
Aside from an ITV anniversary screening of The Girl Who Was Death, I hadn't seen The Prisoner until Channel 4 arrived in the early 80s. More recently, True Entertainment ran the series and of course, Big Finish have produced an audio "re-imagining" written by BF Supremo, Nick Briggs. I listened to the first box set four flats ago, in 2016 and bought box two on ebay a month or so ago.
The first episode I Met A Man Today is a reworking of Many Happy Returns, the tv episode that is almost dialogue-free for half of its entirety. Here, Number Six escapes the Village and develops a tender relationship with author Kate Butterworth. However, secret service personnel in London deliver him straight back to his imprisonment.
Project Six is a loose adaptation of A, B and C. It's an eerie, unsettling ordeal by thought transference and lucid dreaming where somehow Kate has become a purring, menacing Number Two.
Hammer into Anvil is even more gruelling as, while it also reworks an original episode, Patrick Crgill's Number Two is nowhere as frighteningly sadistic as the violent psychopath in this play.
Finally, Living In Harmony is a total departure from the parody Western of the Sixties. Actually, it seems like a pastiche of Gerry Anderson's UFO with a mission to the Village's own moonbase and a very groovy remix of BF's own Prisoner theme ( BF is very good at creating memorable themes!)
Number Six's relationships with women is much more of a feature in this set than I remembered and Harmony features the return of Number Nine ( or does it?) who has an appealing Caribbean accent that you rarely tend to hear in BF productions. Also, Project Six introduces the idea of Six actually being Number One, which we see in the delirious Fall Out. I always liked that theory as it's just a matter of punctuation:
"Who is Number One?
"You are Number Six."
"YOU ARE, Number Six"
I enjoyed this set quite a lot; it was a refreshing change from Doctor Who and Mark Elstob's impression of Pat McGoohan is a delight, especially his extended, feline "Whaaaaat?" I don't know if Briggs' exploration of identity and cloning will continue so I've lined up The Tenth Doctor Chronicles, Lady Christina and UNIT:Cyber-Reality, featuring Jacobi's Master. Coming up soon, the McGann Doctor's second Time War tour of duty. I'm also re-reading Astro City and the Dark Horse Conan reprints and I've finally found my unread summer Star Trek paperbacks, so the segue from Gold Key to Marvel Trek comics could be imminent, as we approach the Tattie Holidays.
Take care.
DC
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