The Prisoner: Shattered Visage

Originally published in serial comics form in the late 1980s, this collected volume makes for an attractive but pedestrian sequel to the cult classic 1960s TV show The Prisoner. The surreal program featured a secret agent who quit his job and wound up in a place called the Village, where he was known as Number Six and was constantly interrogated by the sinister Number Two. Set in England 20 years after the final episode of the televised series, the comic follows a new protagonist, a spy named Alice Drake, as she quits her job and aims to sail around the world. A network of competing spies, including her ex-husband, force her to crash at the Village, where she meets the original characters. Alice makes for a strong hero as she matches wits with Number Six and later Number Two. However, she gets pushed aside later in the narrative in favor of a byzantine set of spy clichés that aim to get at the secret of the Village. Callbacks to crackling dialogue from the TV show fall flat on the page, and the coloring distracts from Motter’s moody linework. Add in the waving away of the show’s finale in order to justify this version’s alternate conclusion, and the result is a failed attempt to craft a sequel to a story that did not need one. [em](Mar.) [/em]