The Prisoner,
Peter Milligan, Colin Lorimer, Joana Lafluente, Simon Bowland,
Titan Comics
Patrick McGoohan’s mind-twisting The Prisoner is pretty much the definition of cult television, a show that was as fascinating and perplexing as it could be confusing and exasperating (and yet always compelling to watch). There’s nothing quite like it (we shall ignore the lamentable modern attempt in TV-land). It was a regular repeat on TV when I was a kid in the 70s, and it still crops up today, is still often discussed by both fans and academics, referenced endlessly in articles and debates, it has permeated the culture. To this day I often take my leave of colleagues with a “be seeing you” and the little salute, although I am not sure most of them know what I am alluding to. But they’ve never been chased along a Welsh beach by a giant inflatable ball roaring away…
Trying to do a modern take on a classic, especially a super-weird classic, is pretty difficult – even the presence of Ian McKellen couldn’t rescue the modern television version (yeah, I know, I just said we’d ignore that, sorry!). But the fact Peter Milligan is writing this take for Titan gave me some confidence that it would be done right, with respect for the original but not a pale imitation or parody, because Peter’s too experienced a scribe for that, and I was glad to see Colin Lorimer joining him as artist.
This is a contemporary tale – Peter and Colin are using the myth of The Village, but it is a modern setting, the post-9/11 world of fractured alliances and counter-counter intelligences and where anything and anyone may not be as they seem. We follow Breen, an MI5 agent on the run – actually on the run from page one, leaping through a window to escape pursuers from his own organisation. It looks like a stereotypical superspy/action moment, the protagonist leaping through shattering glass from an upper storey window to land, deal with his pursuers violently and flee. Except he has been caught with his pants down, literally, having to pull them up while berating himself for being caught off guard so easily, and it’s a lovely touch showing Peter and Colin are going to take some of the well-worn tropes of the superspy genre but also play with them, knowing how ridiculous some of them are in reality. It’s a good sign…
Breen is wanted as a traitor, and this isn’t just the security services sweeping covertly for an agent gone bad, his face is plastered on the media as a wanted man. He needs to get out of town fast, adopting disguises, travelling across counties, looking over his shoulder, watching for possible tails and other spies. Along the way we get flashbacks to a mission gone wrong, a colleague he became involved with in the field being captured while he escaped, of orders given once home, orders he can’t stomach, a man who signed up for Queen and Country but is now jaded and sees it is all short-term political gains, not really about security of the realm. And now he is being hunted by his own people…
Or is he? Is he really a traitor, and is the mysterious Village – a myth to most in security services – likely to sweep him up to interrogate or use? Or has his treachery and escape run been carefully manufactued by MI5 to be the perfect bait to tempt the Village to try to capture Breen, the ideal way to infilitrate this organisation with no affiliations to any nation? Or could Breen be playing both sides with his own agenda? You see how convoluted this is, even only one issue in? This is The Prisoner though, so it should be twisted and convoluted and the truth should always be shimmering like a mirage.
I’m not going to get too deep into more of the plot for fear of spoilers. However it cracks along at a damned good pace, right from that opening page dramatic/comedy escape, and Colin takes care to give us some more delgihtfully odd-looking, almsot surreal images, such as a man, resplendent in chequeboard suit, playing chess by himself over the sink in a lavatory of King’s Cross station (hardly the oddest thing that’s happened around that area though, I’d wager). All very in keeping with the visual oddities of the original series. And, without giving too much away, there are a couple of moments that fans of the original TV series will find familiar and be pleased with (I could almost hear the series’ music at one particular reveal, it is so ingrained in my mind).
Playing on the classic series and acknowledging it (one character refers to The Village as not a myth, and a place only one man has ever escaped from, I think we all know which blazer-wearing chap he is talking about), but very modern, this first issue did what a first issue should, got me hooked and intrigued to see where it goes next. I think it will be a very interesting and twisted ride…
Be seeing you…
This review was originally penned for the Forbidden Planet Blog