You might think that by the time we reach 1968's Joe 90, the connective tissue between TV series, its spin-off media, and how these elements connect to past Anderson worlds would prove too labyrinthian to navigate. Captain Scarlet had elevated the shared Anderson universe chiefly found scattered throughout comics, annuals and novels to mightily impressive feats of carefully considered construction, while the canonicity of the TV series alone proves well-kept. How could Joe 90 hope to vault over those achievements? 

Much of the same scriptwriting team from Captain Scarlet continued with Joe 90, spearheaded by script editor Tony Barwick, as many of the older guard of Century 21 Productions had either left by this time or were focussing on developing the company's cinematic efforts. As such, the TV canon of Joe 90 bears similarities to Captain Scarlet in how helpfully well-built it is; but the spin-off media is intriguingly separate to what had come before.

Most Special Canon

With its notable absence of onscreen confirmation of dates, Joe 90 exists in something of a pocket timeline away from the unified futuristic worlds of Captain Scarlet, Thunderbirds or Stingray. The Unorthodox Shepard is perhaps the closest the series comes in committing to a date (the early 2010s), but Joe 90 is mostly content to stand alone. The series' format avoids inviting too much convolution in the canonical delivery of its characters and storylines. We have a far smaller cast than that of Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet, and a premise which, when pushed past its amusing ridiculousness, is relatively simple; young agent utilises special glasses to fight enemy agents.

Compared to the semi-serialised format of the preceding Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, which often featured two or even three-part storylines, Joe 90 exists in an episodic format. However, that's not to say the series is devoid of a subtly impressive canon that requires viewing the series in a certain order to achieve the intended narrative impact.

The very concept of the World Intelligence Network utilising the services of a nine-year-old boy has come to haunt the series' reputation; but it also haunts Joe's father, Professor McClaine. Pilot episode Most Special Agent showcases Mac's anxieties in Joe's recruitment, eventually but uneasily quelled by friend and W.I.N. agent Sam Loover. In a later episode, those anxieties rear their heads in the most extreme way imaginable. Double Agent recalls both the events of this debut episode and Business Holiday, in which Sam and W.I.N. chief Shane Weston sneakily acquire Joe's services despite he and Mac doing their best to outwit the pair by enjoying well-earned holiday.

During the events of Double Agent, Joe unwittingly acquires the brain patterns of a traitor, and in turn acts out the enemy operative's anti-W.I.N. actions. Things come to ahead when Mac loudly suspects that Joe is acting under orders from W.I.N. that have been kept hidden from Mac. His exclamation of "You've done it before!" directly recalls Sam and Shane's duplicitous events of Business Holiday, but also permitting Mac's anxieties to erupt from Most Special Agent.

These anxieties prove ill-founded when the truth behind the brain patterns is revealed, but the clashing of personalities between Mac, Sam and Shane as to why Joe would disobey orders reads like a brilliantly effective dramatic culmination of paranoias and resentment felt by the grown-ups in using Joe's special services. Sam in turn claims that Joe's actions are a result of Mac deliberately fowling a mission to prove what a foolhardy idea it is for W.I.N. to have recruited Joe in the first place. Joe 90's careful canon then is deployed for maximum emotional drama!

Outside of this modest joining of episodes, Joe 90 maintains a pretty unimpeded canon thanks to its episodic nature. Helped by this is the fact that Joe 90 is the first Supermarionation series not to feature a recurring villain. Instead, episodes feature a rogues gallery of international enemy operatives all fighting a futuristically-shaped Cold War, the portrayal of which is very much taken from real-world geopolitical anxieties of the late 1960s. Perhaps this was the reason Joe 90 is accepted as taking place in a much earlier timeline to reflect relatively modern day troubles? 

Most Special Spin-off Media

As we've previously explored, it regularly became the task of the tie-in comics and annuals to explicitly elaborate on just how exactly Gerry and Sylvia's 21st century heroes cohabitated the same timeline. By the time Joe 90 and its accompanying tie-in publications debuted, the inclusion of that shared Anderson universe is alarmingly non-existent. 

Compared to the opening shot of The Mysterons very much confirming the year in which Captain Scarlet is set (2068), Joe 90 is purposefully vague on details when the series takes place. That striking absence of crucial world-building intel feeds into the character biographies of the annuals, which proactively avoid mentioning years when characters are born, despite otherwise detailing the days and months. Why miss those details out?

The guiding editorial principle at work in these annuals seems to be the idea that Joe 90 exists outside of the shared futuristic Anderson universe. No one source appears to agree when exactly the series takes place, but we can agree that it exists in a much earlier timeframe. The annuals understandably appear to stick with the supposed date of 1998 supplied by the scriptwriter's guide. The 1968 Joe 90 annual describes the World Intelligence Network forming in 1975, implying a near 20-year duration of operations by the time the events of Joe 90 occur.

Amusingly, there are connections to the wider shared Anderson universe popularized by TV Century 21. The front cover of issue #165 from March 1968, nearly half a year prior to Joe 90's TV debut, references the World Intelligence Network, then an unknown entity to readers. Were there ambitions to drip-feed elements of Joe 90's elements to readers of the comic as TV21 had done throughout 1967 in the run-up to Captain Scarlet's debut? If so, were they discarded when the decision was made to gift Joe 90 his own comic book in the form of Joe 90: Top Secret, rather than integrate a Joe 90 strip into TV21? 

Joe 90's comic adventures existing in his very own comic meant that there was no integration of the World Intelligence Network into the many-limbed behemoth of rescue, patrol and security outfits which populated the pages of TV Century 21. How would the espionage operatives of the W.I.N. rubbed shoulders against the other espionage operatives of the Universal Secret Service, anyway? 

The 1969 Joe 90 annual muddies the continuity waters further, thanks to a certain hot shot reporter named Spencer Howard. Not only is Spencer Howard the name of one of TV21's most intrepid in-universe journalists (TV21 was a legitimate newspaper within its own fictional universe!), it was the combined penname of the very real Chris Spencer and Howard Elson, who worked on the editorial staff of TV21, Lady Penelope, Joe 90: Top Secret and other Anderson comics. The fictional Spencer was responsible for many of the paper's best scoops, including an expose of the inner workings of Cloudbase from the 1968 Captain Scarlet Annual. Now, he returns with a similarly in-depth expose on the workings for the World Intelligence Network.

Surely by design, exactly how the timelines converge here is avoided at all costs. Any acknowledgement of dates would undoubtedly be too tricky to navigate! Still, the presence of both these features and the implication of these two timelines stretching between the late 1990s to the late 2060s at least implies that Spencer Howard boasts a journalistic career whose lengthily commitment to uncovering some of the 21st century's closely guarded secrets should be applauded!

A Standalone Saga

The combined effectiveness of Joe 90's episodic TV series and modest offerings of sub-canon spin-off media results in there being little qualms in how much of the series' worldbuilding ties together. The lack of disunity throughout Joe 90's media may have a more unfortunate reason; so little media likely reflects the success Joe 90 experienced, which in turn reflected the dwindling appeal of the Supermarionation empire in the late 1960s. 

At the time of its release, Joe 90 failed to capture popular imagination as Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds had done. With Century 21 Productions' fledging efforts into movies and live action with the likes of Thunderbird 6, Doppelganger and UFO, Joe 90's lukewarm reception perhaps barely registered. Joe 90 therefore remains one of the most tightly controlled canons of the classic Supermarionation era. If the series had been a runaway hit, how much more entangled would its multimedia canon have become?

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