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Steed and Ms. King in TV Comic: Story Fourteen

Detail...

Issues: 963 to 969, May 30th to July 11th 1970

Part One - Issue 963, May 30th 1970:
WITH a police escort, an ambulance races madly through the night from Heathrow Airport to a famous London hospital - aboard is a British Secret Service agent, seriously injured.

Written by unknown, drawn by John Canning.

Mother sends Steed and Tara on a new mission in TV Comic #963An ambulance with a police escort charges through London. On board, is a secret agent who has been seriously injured. Mother briefs Steed on the situation – the agent is David Rothwell and he was found badly injured on the Yorkshire Moors. He says he will meet Steed at the hospital. When they get there, the Doctor tells Mother that the injuries of the agent seem to have been caused by a sword. Mother suspects that something strange is happening on the moors and asks Steed and Tara to find out exactly what.

Part Two - Issue 964, June 6th 1970:
DAVID ROTHWELL, a British Secret Service agent working for Mother , has been found on a desolate stretch of moorland, badly injured.  He is too ill to talk, but his injuries indicate that he has been wounded by a sword - John Steed and Tara King have been sent to Yorkshire to investigate.

Written by unknown, drawn by John Canning.

Part Three - Issue 965, June 13th 1970:
DAVID ROTHWELL, a British Secret Service agent working for Mother , has been found on a desolate stretch of moorland, badly injured.  He is too ill to talk, but his injuries indicate that he has been wounded by a sword - John Steed and Tara King have been sent to Yorkshire to investigate a strange old character, Tobias the hermit, who had discovered the injured agent...

Written by unknown, drawn by unknown.

Tobias the hermit is telling Steed that he has seen a Zeppelin airship come out of the night sky. Tara asks if it wasn’t just a low cloud, but he insists he saw it illuminated in the moonlight. He saw something fall from it and leads the duo to the copse where he found the injured agent. They look around and find evidence such as broken branches which suggests that somebody had indeed fallen from a great height into the trees. Steed suggests that as nobody else has reported seeing the airship it must have come from somewhere very near. They look at the map and see that the only obvious place is the old naval dockyard that has been deserted for years.

Part Four - Issue 966, June 20th 1970:
AN old hermit tells John Steed and Tara King a fantastic story of how he saw David Rothwell, a British Secret Service agent, fall from a German zeppelin.  Steed decides to check a disused naval dockyard, the only place where such an airship could be concealed...

Written by unknown, drawn by John Canning.

Steed and Tara are captured by 'German' soldiers in TV Comic #966Steed and Tara head off for the dockyard. Once there they are watched from the shadows by what look to be World War One German troops. The gates clang shut behind them and they are greeted by a guard of honour. The troops say that they will escort them to his imperial highness, Kaiser Bill. Steed tells them that the war they’re fighting ended fifty-two years ago. As they turn the corner they see the massive Zeppelin. In its shadow two men are practising their fencing. One of them introduces himself to Steed as Wilhelm Sigwald – the Kaiser of Crime.

Part Five - Issue 967, June 27th 1970:
TRYING to find out what happened to a British Secret Service agent, Steed and Tara King visit a disused naval dockyard, where they are captured by men dressed in uniforms of the old imperial German Army.  Steed and Tara are taken before the leader, who calls himself "Kaiser of Crime", and possesses a huge Zeppelin such as was used in the First World War.

Written by unknown, drawn by John Canning.

Sigwald tells Steed and Tara their arrival is most opportune as he is about to fly on his great mission. They climb aboard the Zeppelin as Sigwald is telling Steed and Tara that it is the result of years of work. He is delighted that they, the famous Avengers, will be there to witness his hour of triumph. The ship moves out of the dock into the air and heads for The Great Staffordshire Reservoir. He plans to threaten to drop a germ-bomb in it to poison the water supplies of central England. Tara tells him that the RAF will shoot him out of the sky, but he points out to her that the germ-bomb will still fall into the reservoir. He intends to ask for fifty million pounds as a ransom from the government and nothing can stop him.

Part Six - Issue 968, July 4th 1970:
JOHN STEED and Tara King have been captured and taken aboard a Zeppelin by the Kaiser of Crime, who intends to hold Britain to ransom by threatening that unless he is paid fifty million pounds he will drop a germ-bomb into a reservoir.  The Zeppelin is on course for its target.

Written by unknown, drawn by John Canning.

The Kaiser tells Steed that he actually has no germ-bomb, but the government will not know that and will pay up. As they are on a collision course with a storm they take the airship up higher. Steed and Tara begin to plan the Kaiser’s downfall. Steed thinks that the villain’s own sense of self-importance will prove his undoing, and he plans to challenge him to a duel. The Kaiser comes back and begins the preparations to send the duo to their death at the end of a wooden plank that leads into thin air, just as he had tried to do with David Rothwell. Steed slaps him, saying that he is too much of a coward to fight himself. The Kaiser rises to Steed’s bait and, drawing his sword, challenges him to a duel.

Part Seven - Issue 969, July 11th 1970:
Steed challenges the Kaiser of Crime to a duel in TV Comic #969 JOHN STEED and Tara King have been captured and taken aboard an airship by the Kaiser of Crime, and arch-villain, who intends to hold Britain to ransom.  In a desperate bid to foil the Kaiser's plans, Steed challenges him to a duel.

Written by unknown, drawn by John Canning.

Steed says he will fight as he is and waves his brolly at the Kaiser. The villain thinks Steed a fool for not choosing a sword, but the agent surprises him by knocking his sword from his hand with his bowler and then pins him down with the sword-stick he pulls from the brolly. Steed dumps the villains into the reservoir and, after he and Tara reach dry land, he destroys the airship.


Back to Tara King era TV Comic Index (11-20) on to story number fifteen