Thundergeek59

Good morrow all, and be you right advis'd,

More entertainments for thee are devis'd.

Like the Blue/attendant scene, we enter another scene that's but a line and a moment in the episode and with which I've taken enormous liberty. Line flowed into line and became paragraph and, before I knew it, scene.

Destiny and Fawn's identification of Scarlet's body sets up the next scene and yet it raises so many more questions than it answers. Exactly how did Scarlet return to humanity? What are the ramifications of this very clearly (White even emphasises "this Captain Scarlet" in the next scene) second Scarlet now assuming the life of the first? Why is it Destiny that identifies him? (I bet there's a sound, behind the scenes reason to do with VA availability that answers that one!)

Of course, we happily hand wave so much of this with 'it's kids' telly,' but still, given the opportunity to explore what was surely some sort of enormous psychological, physical - maybe even spiritual - struggle against the Mysterons, I couldn't resist.

Certainly my boldest deviation from the script yet but, as ever, with nought but love for Andersons and Shakespeare alike as I ask: what if the latter, not the former, did our hero create?

ACT V

SCENE I. Prospect ruins.

Enter three Mysterons, carrying SCARLET’s body.

First Mysteron

Sightless feel we best appearing,

Second Mysteron

Show we now to aid your hearing.

Third Mysteron

Or belike to grow your fearing.

First Mysteron

Fifty perch full fatal distance,

If as man is your subsistence.

Second Mysteron

But for Mysteron this tumble,

Is indeed a distance humble.

Matter easily reversing,

Spent we eons long rehearsing

Third Mysteron

From this man our gift withdrawn,

Captain Scarlet ne’er reborn.

First Mysteron

Use to us he no more serves,

Second Mysteron

In this our righteous war of nerves.

Third Mysteron

On this stage no more a sayer,

ALL

Now we seek another player.

Body burn and copy vanish.

Scarlet now we do you banish.

Martian secrets we retain,

These must ne’er be mankind's gain.

A cry. SCARLET rises.

SCARLET

This wicked magic is not yet refin’d,

Still much to learn you have of Earthly kind.

Misguided and offensive, I concede,

Was Black's assault upon your home indeed.

But worser still revenge, no compromise,

That we resist, in this find no surprise.

This stagèd traffic now we could reduce,

In cordial agreement of a truce.

Or else if truly ‘tis for war you ask,

Then straight do I now know good Scarlet's task.

Half-Mysteron, half-human, though confirm’d,

My loyalty to Earth is reaffirm’d.

First Mysteron

Will of his is bravely fighting,

Mysteron hold o’erwriting!

Second Mysteron

Though you think that you are risen,

Life in Death your constant prison!

Third Mysteron

Let him not his body waken,

Else our secrets will be taken!

SCARLET

A body Mysteron with human mind,

Is sure a weapon you had not divin’d.

Unto this body I confer my name,

As champion of Earth shall earn my fame.

All

Greatest love from greatest hate,

Away, away! We’ll be avenged.

Exit Mysterons. SCARLET falls upon the ground in sleep.

Enter FAWN - the doctor - and DESTINY above within a whirling engine. They descend.

FAWN

Though Fawn in hue no fawning nature mine,

What shall we find methinks I can divine.

Now Destiny, advise, full horror sight,

Belike we’ll see when find we fall’n knight.

And such a sight not made for maiden fair,

Tis better you returneth to the air.

DESTINY

Good doctor, pray, do hold this chivalrie,

Far bleaker sights doth wingèd pilot raise,

Blood drawn in peaceful study of thy art,

Is equal none to blood ripp’d from man’s heart.

FAWN

Cold Destiny, then look upon our friend,

Deny to me that this your heart doth rend.

DESTINY

Assurèdly this Captain Scarlet is.

SCARLET stirs.

Good Doctor, mark, a breath, a start, there's life!

FAWN

Though humbly, goodly rais’d this Doctor be,

Tis said abroad, of physiks of this orb,

Am I, your Doctor Fawn, the noted best.

Yet physik, study, book and practice mine,

Cannot the sight that we do see divine.

DESTINY

No gashing, maiming, wounding, tearing here,

And signs of life, his breath and pulse withal.

As if created -

FAWN

- indestructible!

What if...Based on this prompt by @acta-est-fabula-plaudite and with much discussion with @edutainer2022

~

This year was somehow the hardest one yet.

None of them had been easy, of course, but this time…

Lucy sighed and turned over, ghosting her hand over where her husband should be asleep. The bed was cold and empty without him.

She turned over and lay back, staring at the ceiling. Sounds drifted up to her. Her four boys, busy in the kitchen preparing breakfast no doubt.

Today was hard on them all, but as usual her oldest had rallied them around to make her life easier. She’d wait to be called, them giving her time to get it together.

Many thanks to @janetm74 for the discussion!

***

The room was blue. Scott loved blue, so the room was a perfect combination of sky azure, deep navy, and baby-blue in a sofisticated juxtaposition of textures and clean shapes. Picture perfect. Probably ordered from a posh catalogue. Pristine.

His childhood room on the farm was a multilayered chaos of memorabilia, sports trophies, crayon scribbles of multiple brothers over the years, posters and schematics of planes, models of various crafts, Mom's pictures, Dad's pictures in space uniform. His room at Yale was much the same, plus the assorted university merch and academic awards. His locker on Base - no different, but pictures of his brothers in arms side by side with those of his brothers. This room on the island his father bought while Scott was... in a different place... had nothing of his in it. Which was all too true - there was supposed to be no room for him on this remote island his father bought and equipped for a project too big for plain words. Scott was dead.

This room was hastily mail ordered from a name brand interior design agency with only one point of input - Scott liked blue. Now he'll spend the rest of his life here, in the room that wasn't his own. His father hid him from the world, ashamed, no doubt, of the broken, haunted shell that was once Great Jeff Tracy's pride and joy, his eldest son. No pride or joy he was anymore. Nothing to show off to the many important people in high places Dad needed to impress to a-ok and finance a project like this.

He could barely walk unassisted, spooked by the crash of the waves, let alone could fly a plane. So he couldn't leave. Ever. This room wasn't home, which was just as well. It was as good a prison cell as any. He'd been to worse.

Saw this at a thrift store yesterday, thought the Thunderfam might appreciate.

Anon, from shrift we do return,

Next scene of this did duly earn.

A Sunday double bill today as Scene 2 is super short, but get ready for heartbreak: it's the big showdown atop the London Prospect as, once more and with full respect to authors all, we ask what our belovèd show would be if by Shakespeare, not Andersons, were writ.

SCENE II. Cloudbase.

Enter CHORUS and WHITE with Hovering Engine above.

CHORUS

Entreat we to imagination thine,

Yet more of Spectrum's armoury divine,

An iron engine, hov'ring, whirling free,

Within the clouds where it all things can see.

Exit CHORUS.

WHITE

What ho! Yon whirling engine A-four-two,

To London's Prospect bend your hov'ring course.

Good Angels, A-four-two and Captain Blue:

This Scarlet-breastèd robin nears the gin,

Soon risen full atop this Prospect high,

Then to no refuge may foul Scarlet fly.

Exeunt.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. London Prospect.

Enter CHORUS

CHORUS

Reaching aloft into the London night,

A lofty Prospect, fifty perch in height.

A second Babel for this metal age,

Is now this tragic tale's final stage.

Some storeys fifty near the Heavens call,

To Hell belike doth Scarlet's story fall.

The erstwhile hero now begins to rise,

Beware: the Myst'rons ready a surprise!

Exit CHORUS. Enter PRESIDENT YOUNGER and SCARLET.

PRESIDENT

And art thou brainsick, Scarlet captor mine?

Atop this Prospect no place else to fly.

Wherefore do you not unto Spectrum yield?

Erelong our sands run through time's hourglass?

Enter BLUE, mounted on a Pursuant Engine.

BLUE

Around the spire this Prospect's road doth whirl,

Upon Venetian glass I fix my gaze,

Blue's former friend our leader hath hostag'd,

And liberty of his I must assure.

Pray I, Pursuant Engine, do endure.

Enter Hovering Engine above.

Report, yon hov'ring engine A-four-two,

Your present latitude to Captain Blue.

Hovering Engine

Anon yon Prospect will I intercept,

Do but a moment whirling engine give.

Enter BLACK, above.

BLACK

Dead on Mars the Earthmen reckon'd,

Black to darker purpose beckon'd,

Mysterons did I assail,

In this vi'lence, did I fail.

Mars was where they stopp’d my breath,

Sealed in fate that exceeds death.

Not to Heaven nor to Hell,

Can death my sable soul compel.

Never sleeping, never feasting,

Blackened heart, no longer beating.

Black my name and black my fate,

Testament of Martian hate.

Martians now as humans martial,

Captain Black is tasked to marshall.

Captain Scarlet, ally past,

Fate makes us new-allied fast.

Captain Scarlet, heed my call,

More Mysterons are here withal.

Orders mine now orders yours,

Their design now is your cause.

Whirling engine A-four-two,

Now serveth me and guardeth you.

Captain, captive, both up lift,

Right anon, salvation’s gift.

Change of plan you must now shrive:

We need the President alive!

SCARLET

Orders these will Scarlet follow.

Exit BLACK. Enter DESTINY.

DESTINY

Our quarry doth his land bark now forsake,

The President at sword point doth he take,

To Prospect’s walls doth Scarlet drag his charge,

Brave Blue, dispatch, erelong a horror large!

BLUE

Anon this Blue arrives: green Spectrum is.

High hov’ring, whirling engine A-four-two,

Predicament of ours you know full well.

Anon you do arrive, fiend Scarlet strike,

And mark, the President be sure to miss.

This done our leader safely do uplift,

All this if Captain Blue be not more swift.

Exit BLUE.

Hovering Engine

Uplift our leader, Spectrum now is green!

Enter BLUE with Icarite Wings.

BLUE

In bowels of Engine Pursuant doth find,

A Spectrum Captain miracles yet more.

Shift alchemy and artifice in stance,

And Engine Pursuant lies dormant now.

With purpose, energies are now renewed,

Behold: on wings of Icarus I rise,

Not bird, nor wax, but iron artifice!

Now floating, nearing engine A-four-two,

In prospect Blue’s and Prospect tower’s seen,

I shall my sword put up whil’st you attack,

For you the Prospect doth as mantlet serve,

The fiend you’ll find on occidental wall.

Good A-four-two? My missives heareth you?

Hovering Engine

[Aside]

Lift up, lift up, the President,

For Black, not Blue, is my intent.

Icarus flew near the sun,

Now Captain Blue flies near this gun!

Hovering Engine attacks.

BLUE

Alack! Good Destiny! Foul treachery!

This hov’ring imp with lead saluteth me.

Now friend is foe so foe make friend must I,

Oh friendly foes, oh foesome friends withal!

While Captain Scarlet I do try to reach,

Yon whirling engine silence, I beseech.

DESTINY

Our spectrum green, to red transform’d and what

Was red invert to green, one constant hue,

in man or sky; is thee, good Captain Blue.

BLUE and SCARLET fight. Hovering Engine attacks.

BLUE

Attack! Attack!

DESTINY

Spectrum is Green!

Hovering Engine and DESTINY fight. Hovering Engine falls.

Hovering Engine

As a devil, Angel striking,

This her mark with arrows spiking.

Captain Black, I fail you.

This last act from A-four-two:

Desperation, charge the stanchion,

Sack this Presidential mansion!

Alarum. Exit Hovering Engine. The sound of calamity.

BLUE

No longer fortune favour’d, Scarlet fiend,

Put up thy sword and mercy I’ll show thee.

With icarite wings can I save you both.

Good captain, Scarlet, comrade, old friend, Paul!

PRESIDENT

In reason spoke, put up thy blade, we fall!

BLUE

Enough, tis done. We tarry far too long,

Tis you, or I, thou Martian foul erelong!

They fight. SCARLET falls.

SCARLET

Treachery! By old friend wounded,

Thus this living death's concluded,

Dying once was pain most sick’ning,

Yet once more my blood is thick’ning.

Myst’ron convert die this person?

Or revert to human version?

Pond’ring Heaven, is’t pre-emptive?

But seek I an end redemptive.

Godly can I my fate reckon,

Or belike black hell doth beckon?

Deep the fall from Prospect keeper,

Hell is yet a prospect deeper.

Scarlet goodly life did follow,

Ere becoming Martian hollow.

Or is fate far worse intending,

Life and death o’er me contending?

Why these portent visions call,

I know not why as down I fall.

Just messing around with this one, I wanted to draw some of the other brothers for once and this screenshot was a good excuse

John is actually so much fun to draw wtf

Also me:

And but a gram gives cities torchlight glow, / The self same dose whole cities can raze low.

is a lovely way to describe why the nuclear device in Macy's transporter is so...

Ah, dammit.

Act 2, Scene 1 of The Mysterons later as Scarlet absconds with the President. I want to assure my followers I'm now up to Fawn and Destiny identifying Scarlet's body with a few extra surprises planned. If I don't move on I will spoil them. I must - and will - at least finish The Mysterons first, but so help me some lines for Big Ben Strikes Again and Manhunt are already forming.

Can you imagine Manhunt's opening scene totally twisting the night porter into a learnèd, high-speaking prologue?

Now gather round, tis 'time, and pray you sit,

Next scene of Captain Scarlet hath I writ!

This really has taken on a life of its own and all my free time, and I regret neither. Today, we retell Captain Brown's attempt on the President's life, but less 2068 and more 1598 as we ask, with due reverence to both: what if Shakespeare, not the Andersons, did our indestructible hero create?

I've struggled the most with this scene as the original is so reliant on the soundtrack and setting - a lot of the dialogue is actually quite humdrum and expositionary without the glorious sights of MSVs, Angels and helicopters! So, I added a bit of a naughty exchange here in what's played as a horribly tense moment in the original (Brown's cigarette case triggering the metal detector) and then rapidly followed it up with Brown confirming he's a Mysteron. Likewise, I couldn't work out whether to have Brown or a Chorus announce his explosion.

At the moment, the joke stays and Brown closes the scene. I ask you to make the final call on how well it works ahead of reposting the whole thing when it's finished.

SCENE III. New York. A street.

Enter BROWN, PRESIDENT YOUNGER with WHITE, Angels and Spectrum officers above.

WHITE

Good Captain Brown, the Angels fly above,

They espy you, your chariot and charge.

BROWN

Mark that, 'tis true, our Spectrum now is Green.

Exit WHITE.

PRESIDENT

No thing 'twould seem hath Spectrum left to chance.

BROWN

My leader, nay. All caution did we take.

Pray mark through yonder window Spectrum guards,

On ev'ry roof along our plotted way.

A whirling engine shadows us withal,

And Angels swift the country round do skirr.

Exeunt Spectrum officers and Angels.

PRESIDENT

For such a band of maidens fair and wise,

A name more apt a man cannot devise.

So stand I much impressed, good Captain Brown.

And yet my mind misgives, there's no repose,

Aye, better will I feel when we arrive.

We fight a foe we do not comprehend.

Enter Spectrum officers.

FIRST OFFICER

So please you step this way, my President.

PRESIDENT

What sorcery is this, good Captain Brown?

BROWN

Our artificers cunning means devis'd,

To search for hidden weapons we forbid.

'Tis well, 'tis manifest, you bear no sword.

Alarum. Officers draw.

FIRST OFFICER 

What vileness here with stealth concealèd be?

A pistol, poignard, dagger or a sword?

Full soft and slow, not fast of hand, reveal,

Whate'er's beneath your tunic forg'd of steel.

BROWN draws.

BROWN

Stand not amazed, dear friends, I mean no ill,

Mark that, you do but look upon my pipe.

[Aside]

But a spark before the fire!

PRESIDENT

But for a moment did my mind misgive.

They descend.

BROWN

All's well, good sir, 'tis done, we do arrive.

PRESIDENT

Thus far our fortunes keep an onward course.

Behold, dear Brown, our home for some time yet.

My hope it is in chess you have some skill.

BROWN

'Tis often said I do play well, my lord.

PRESIDENT

But soft, in yonder wall what is't I see?

BROWN

Fear not, 'tis but an eye alchemical,

An eye that looks upon our ev'ry move.

PRESIDENT

Right well I see in Spectrum's careful hands,

That there remains no thing for me to fear.

Good Captain, do you mark my words? I said

That Spectrum holds my safety in regard.

O, Captain Brown? O Captain, art thou well?

BROWN

Drop this mask this Mysteron can,

Thou art now a doomèd man,

Smoke and flame and blast so fleeting,

President, thus ends our meeting!

Alarum. BROWN dies. Exit PRESIDENT. Enter DESTINY.

DESTINY

To Cloudbase must I bring my words of dread,

Our fortress falls, our President lies dead!

that’s tin-tin/kayo. we’re allowed to compare them, ‘cause they’re both miss kyrano. i know i said i’d do gordon next, but somehow i ended up doing kayo instead. messing up the order and everything but still. so! here’s the comparison of 1965 puppet face to 2015 CGI face.

sooo. similarities first: dark hair, green eyes, drawn-on eyebrows. her 60s nose seems a little more turned-up, but the overall shape of her face is the same. maybe a bit more cheekbones-y in the 60s. the mouth is pretty much the same, too. girl got nice lips. the differences are most obvious in their skintones. in the 60s, it’s stated, at least in supplementary material, that miss kyrano is of malaysian descent, her father, kyrano, is malaysian. she’s described as being ‘euroasian’, a modern girl - whether or not that’s meant to mean that she’s white-asian mixed race, i don’t know. in 2015, miss kyrano has a much darker skintone, and her actual ethnicity is a bit ambiguous. she could be indian too, like brains, (’tanusha’ is an indian name) she may still be malaysian, or mixed, we’re just not sure. other notable differences: the hair. she now has an ‘action-girl ponytail’, a no-nonsense pulled back hairstyle missing her 60s box fringe (or bangs, if that’s what you call it), probably for ease of animation as well. without the fringe, she does look more mature, but the ponytail does swish about a little, and that’s pretty cute.

time for outfits! first, her civvies.

please excuse the crappyness of the images, i don’t have access to HQ images :( but we can see the overall look here. there’s a little bit of co-ordination in her outfit - blue hairband to match her t-shirt and the metal(?) part of her communicator. her t-shirt and her communicator both have that pattern of dots and triangles, which adds a nice bit of detail to an otherwise very plain and functional outfit. she wears those dark green kim possible-type cargo pants, so she’s ready to kick your ass. it’s clear this version of miss kyrano is a lot less fashion-concerned than her 60s counterpart. this might be because the creators have told us she grew up with the tracy brothers, and is probably a bit over tomboy-ish in order to fit in with them better, and seems not to have had a lot of feminine influence? well, she must have had grandma, but that lady is no style icon.

now, her IR uniform. i assume that this blue number from the 60s counts as the female version of an IR uniform. she doesn’t have a sash, but she’s got that belt with its own little unique symbol on it. i figure the designers for 2015 did look at this when they set about creating kayo’s new uniform, as she still doesn’t have a sash, but does have a belt across her hips. two, even! with regards to how the suit is specialised, well. she seems a bit of a fighter pilot, but her outfit is skin-tight, since she’s a hand-to-hand fighter, she probably doesn’t need all bulky fabrics weighing her down. her look is pretty sci-fi. she also doesn’t wear the same sort of shades of blue that the tracy brothers do, hers its darker, greener, and she’s got black to accent it. altogether more ‘shadowy’, which fits in better with her thunderbird craft and her ‘covert’ role. and speaking of thunderbird crafts, here is her IR badge:

I wanted to do something a little softer for them! One of my favorite Kayos I've drawn!