Convoluted canons are go! Throughout all of Gerry Anderson's television creations and their accompanying array of extended media, vast tapestries of events, characterisations and worldbuilding are established for each respective series. With so much material from so many different sources, it's not surprising that they don't always align - but why should it be surprising? Why is it that so many of these events refuse to coalesce into a satisfying whole? Does it lessen the appeal of each series?

In this series of articles, we're investigating the convoluted canons of several of Gerry and Sylvia's creations, continuing with Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons!

An Indestructible Timeline

An interplanetary war triggered by accident, reflecting humanity's worst gun-toting tendencies and provoking the slow-moving yet frighteningly powerful outrage of alien menaces with unpredictable capabilities demands a firm grip on continuity. Fortunately, Captain Scarlet boasts one of the most tightly delivered approaches to a series-wide canon within the Supermarionation works of the 1960s. 

All of the classic Century 21 television series demand that you start from the beginning. Each first episode is the first 'mission' of each respective hero organisation from each series. However, Captain Scarlet is the only series whose debut episode's consequences ripple throughout the series. Spectrum's investigations on Mars, their subsequent destruction of the Mysteron complex, the Mysterons' freakish response, the deaths and revivals of Captain Black and Captain Scarlet; all of these electrifying events inform the rest of the series, in contrast to the relatively episodic nature of the likes of Thunderbirds or Supercar.

A tangible sense of escalation swells throughout the TV series when viewed in chronological order. Throughout the earlier episodes, the Mysterons spread their antagonistic wings by targeting individuals (The Mysterons, Winged Assassin) before moving onto larger threats, such as entire cities (Big Ben Strikes Again) and personalised threats against Spectrum itself (White as Snow). Captain Scarlet's first 'arc', if we may call it that, can loosely be capped off with Manhunt, in which Spectrum's sole proactive effort to trace and regain the Mysteronised Captain Black reads like a response to the fallout of his alignment with the Mysterons from the events of the first episode.

With the Lunarville trilogy, the Mysterons' ambitions reach their apex in their glacial antagonism against the Earth. In the scattered events of Lunarville 7, Carter 101 and Dangerous Rendezvous (none of which indicate their trilogy nature by their names), the Mysterons' attempts to ensnare the Moon in their grasp yields an opportunity for Spectrum to acquire Mysteron technology that enables them to make contact on their Martian base in the hopes of ending the war.

In terms of maintaining a solid canon, however, the Mysterons' inconsistent capabilities would appear to infuriate rather than terrify. Why bother with replica agents if they're able to control inanimate objects from Mars? However, we may syphon this off as adding to their unknowable allure.

Conversely, Spectrum conjure up their own growing wins against the Mysterons, whether through sheer chance of discovering their weaknesses (Operation Time, Spectrum Strikes Back) or proactively beating the Mysterons at their own trickster games (Special Assignment, Treble Cross). Spectrum's efforts retaliating against the Mysterons reach something of a peak with the loose two-parter of Noose of Ice and Flight 104, which detail efforts made to determine how Spectrum will journey back to Mars.

However, this neatly delivered canon of logically progressive and satisfyingly dramatic events aren't entirely fool proof. Despite Spectrum's discovery that electricity and x-rays are key weaknesses to the Mysterons, the eventual presence of the Mysteron Gun and the Mysteron Detector throughout the series is uneven. The Mysteron Detector goes onto enjoy a long and varied usage, but the Mysteron Gun is never seen again following its debut in Spectrum Strikes Back.

More controversial are the numerous mentions of July 10th as a key date for many events within Captain Scarlet occurring. Treble Cross, Winged Assassin and Flight to Atlantica all supposedly occur on this date. Can this be negotiated as definitive canon? Amusingly, July 10th was the birthdate of series script editor Tony Barwick, hence it's inclusion!

Even with these slight narrative mishaps, Captain Scarlet's onscreen canon can boast an indestructibility almost as sure-fire as the man himself. Escalating events and significant victories on either side inject the science fiction series with a tangibly genuine sense of warfare, in which victories are hard-earned and impact future instalments of the ongoing saga. What an unfortunate tangle then Captain Scarlet becomes when we attempt to integrate its far-reaching spin-off media, which fans lap up with its character backstories, but in doing so, greatly stumbles the established order of the TV canon.

Spectrum's Spin-offs

The most pressing concern with trying to bring every piece of Captain Scarlet media under one experience is how Captain Scarlet sits within the supposed wider shared canon of Supermarionation that's so prevalent throughout the 60s' comics, annuals and more. Not a problem unique for Spectrum, but one that's vastly more pronounced than other Supermarionation heroes and villains. Character backstories from the 1968 Captain Scarlet annual reveal that many key members of Spectrum spent various professional careers throughout the World Space Patrol (Captain Grey, Captain Black), World Aquanaut Security Patrol, Federal Agents Bureau and World Army/Air Force. Nothing explicitly damaging here for the wider canon, but things do get stickier to untangle.

This annual also declares that Spectrum's operations began precisely on September 28th, 2065, clashing with the events declared in Flight to Atlantica, in which the ever-present July 10th date is given as the date of Spectrum's genesis.

Accepting that Captain Scarlet exists alongside the other Century 21 puppet heroes means we have to accept that Mars isn't the eerily barren Martian landscape as suggested in the TV series. Going by TV Century 21 literature, Mars has long been inhabited by humans for the best part of 50 years. As if in response to this weirdly nagging inconsistent portrayal of Mars, the Mysteron Complex and the Martian Rock Snakes from Thunderbirds Are Go exist in a conveniently close restricted area of the planet.

The Mysterons themselves enjoy a vastly expanded portrayal than their mysteriously restricted TV counterparts. In terms of their overall identity, the TV series portrays the Mysterons as a collective conscious, whereas throughout the 1960s comics, they're shown to have strands of individuality and a hierarchy of command. In both the Mysterons' solo adventures in TV Tornado and in the Captain Scarlet strip itself within TV Century 21, we bear witness to the Mysteron Controller, a vast mechanical brain supposedly dictating many moves the Mysterons make. It's a delectably intriguing idea that taps into the vaguely defined backstory that the Mysterons waging war against Spectrum are in fact their computerised remains, simply reacting as their programming instructs them to.

Back on Earth, further troubles remain with the World President - specifically, which World President. Unnamed in the TV series itself, TV Century 21 named Captain Scarlet's World President as James T. Younger. Weirdly, TV Century 21 already had a World President prior to Spectrum's inclusion in the comic! For some time, the comic struggled to resolve this, resulting in two simultaneous World Presidents making appearances in various strips. Different strips would eventually coalesce and portray the World President as Younger.  

Despite the TV series' proclamation that the Mysterons never make the same threat twice, if we're prepared to absorb all of Captain Scarlet's stories from the TV series, comics, annuals, storybooks, and beyond, then the World President, Colonel White, Cloudbase, London and Unity City all receive multiple threats made against them. Speaking of Unity City, the world capital is, quite appropriately, the very first threat the Mysterons make in the pages of TV Century 21. As thrillingly hyperactive debut for Captain Scarlet in comic strip form it may be, it unfortunately clashes with events depicted in the TV episode Treble Cross, in which the world capital is named as Futura City.

Elsewhere, prolific science fiction author John Theydon similarly played fast and loose with Captain Scarlet's established canon. Throughout his trilogy of Spectrum Files novels released between 1967 and 1968, Theydon portrays all Mysteron agents as having the same gaunt, pallid expression as Captain Black, indicating their replicated status.

For all of these strangely lopsided inconsistencies, we have to embrace the spin-off media if we want to accept the notion that the War of Nerves actually has an ending. Unlike the TV series, a conclusion to Spectrum and the Mysterons' war is found in the pages of TV Century 21... and another obscure publication, which, in true spin-off media style, convolutes things further! 

In Captain Scarlet's penultimate TV21 story, the War of Nerves ends in a weary stalemate with Spectrum succeeding in launching a series of satellites in orbit around Mars that prevent their retrometabolism powers from reaching the Earth. Their powers clipped, the Mysterons are shown to vacate Mars and depart for destinations unknown. Amusingly, in the later pages of the Letts TV21 Diary, it's stated that the War of Nerves actually continued well into the late 2070s and that a peace deal was eventually achieved sometime in 2077; a sombrely low-key closing chapter to a decade of interplanetary conflict.

Indestructible Inconsistencies?

It's safe to say that TV21 script editor Angus Allan (who's closely linked with writing the earlier Captain Scarlet comics), Tony Barwick and John Theydon weren't meticulously cross-referencing each others' scripts. Captain Scarlet's overall canon between its TV series and spin-off media therefore becomes an elaborately hazardous beast to attempt to tame. The more strands of storytelling you include, the less it all makes sense!

However, is that the same as saying that Captain Scarlet's wider canon is no less enjoyable for all of its contradictions? All of these contradictory avenues of the War of Nerves paint an eye-opening insight into the editorial operations of Century 21 Productions' vast entertainment empire, particularly in how syphoned off TV writers and comic writers were from each other. If nothing else, Captain Scarlet offers a voluminous and unpredictable array of storytelling efforts for you to piece together your preferred indestructible canon.

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