Customer Reviews

The Prisoner: Shattered Visage

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found this graphic novel challenging, and a bit dizzying in places. The plot IS hard to follow, even for people who loved the original series, because so little is explained, and so much shown (I guess with the authors' assumption you will automatically understand.) I can honestly say I actively studied the illustrations more than any book I own, but many questions remain. There are implications that the young girl (agent?) may be #6's daughter, as the book "Drake's Voyage" appears in the bookstore window. Fans of the series should notice how many times the Village "Bicycle", symbol of the danger of advancing technology without the morals to control it, appears over and over in the background of most of the comic panels, hidden in the shape of posters, lamps, and other items. Also obviously left out or poorly planned is the complete abandonment of the Village, with the Prisoner in it, after the hodge-podge of the Fallout episode. (Even if you accept the book's assertion that 6 cracked and retreated into madness at the end.)

Flawed? Yes. But it carries it off with such style, you are more than willing to attribute it's shortcomings to your own lack of insight. And isn't that how the Village would view you?

Be seeing you!

What a fantastic follow up to the series! This accurately portrayed Patrick McGoohan as he would have been at the time of this release, which was riding a kind of Prisoner re-appreciation wave. The plot is hard to follow because like the series IT'S SUPPOSED TO MAKE YOU THINK PEOPLE! I found the art to be almost a comic form of Nagel-ism which seemed to adorn the 80's everywhere, and somehow it captured perfectly the "mod" feel of the series. Non-realistic depictions of things used to bug me about comic book art until I began to appreciate Comic book ART and realized how brilliant this all is. The series was never designed to definitively answer the questions it posed because it was supposed to make you THINK, so to one reviewer, yes - if you have trouble thinking then this is a waste of your time. I was initially skeptical myself that anyone OTHER than McGoohan and crew could capture the spirit of the show well enough to feel as if it carried it forward after the apocalyptic and allegorical ending of the series - and yet I was pleasantly surprised! Look closely at each frame and note the figures in them and what they are doing. Read all the dialogue - nothing in this is meaningless. Stop and keep asking yourself "Who are these people? What do they do? What is really going on?" I would agree that this is probablly not a good place to start for people who are just exploring The Prisoner for the first time...but why would they start here at all? What is freedom, and are any of us actually free?
be seeing you.

Twenty years after it ended, the classic 1960s TV series The Prisoner got what is perhaps the closest thing it will ever get to a proper, authorized sequel. It got in the form of Shattered Visage, a graphic novel that collected the four part comic book mini-series published by DC Comics, signed off on by not just the company that owns the series (ITC) but by Patrick McGoohan himself. But given the reputation of the original TV series, how well does Shattered Visage hold up?

Shattered Visage is a sequel to the original TV series and thus features both characters and elements from it. Both Patrick McGoohan Number Six and the Leo McKern version of Number Two appear, and clearly are the same characters played by McGoohan and McKern in both characterizations and in the artwork. Both are men changed by their experiences in the Village and the subsequent twenty years that followed. By meeting them again, we learn not only their fates at the end of the TV series (and with it are given something of an explanation for the oddness that was the series finale Fall Out) but also see a final confrontation between them and see how they tie into the Village's eventual fate. Together they make for an interesting character study and are believable future versions of the TV characters.

The story uses various elements from the TV series, some better then others. The Village itself has long since been abandoned and is in a state of decay when we first arrive at it and thus retains all of its menace from the TV series, if in a different form so to speak. All the familiar hallmarks are still there though: Number Two's office inside the green dome, the marble busts that house security equipment in them, and even the mysterious balloon like security device Rover. Some of the artwork heavily echoes (and at times actually are) iconic images from the TV series itself (especially from the opening credits) Some of the elements aren't quite as well used or even unnecessary such as the mentioning and later cameo appearance of Mrs. Buttersworth (from the episode Many Happy Returns) or the cameo appearance of the mute, diminutive butler (whose never seen clearly) which really distract from the main part of the story. For the most part though, the re-used elements from the TV series are put to fine use and gives this sequel an air of authenticity all its own.

Shattered Visage though, it could be argued, really revolves around a new cast of characters. In particular the story revolves around the estranged married couple of Alice and Thomas Drake. Alice is a former British intelligence agent who, after leaving her husband behind at his job and putting their daughter Meagan in a boarding school, goes off on what she plans to be a computer guided record breaking around the world sailing journey and instead finds herself in the Village. Thomas, on the other hand, still works for British intelligence and has recently finished editing the memoir of Number Two and has begun his own investigations into the Village. Thomas works on this not only for his superiors Ross and the Colonel (who may or may not be the character Colonel J from the TV series) but with the mysterious American operative Lee who heavily echoes Joe Don Baker's character from the BBC thriller mini-series Edge Of Darkness that was aired a few years before Shattered Visage was written though more in characterization then physical appearance. Together they add to the mythology of The Prisoner and offer a new way of exploring it.

Above all, it is the story itself that makes Shattered Visage so compelling. While it is a sequel to the 1960s TV series, it does so while being set in the late-1980s. The story therefore ties in heavily with the late Cold War and the events of the time. Examples include the controversy surrounding Number Two's memoir (based on the controversy surrounding the book Spycatcher, which written by a former MI5 agent, that the British government tried to ban publication of), mentioning of the SDI "Star Wars" defense system and the political climate of the time. There's also references to other pieces of spy fiction as well including a reference to a "Mr. Smiley" (aka George Smiley from various John le Carre novels) as well as appearance's in the artwork of characters such as John Steed and Emma Peel in one sequence. These elements help to ground the story in the "here and now" of when it was written which is both a good thing and a bad thing as it does date the story a bit. Perhaps this is unavoidable, though if you know your stuff it shouldn't be much of an issue.

But it is how the story ties into, and of course acts as a sequel to the TV series, that's more important. Various elements have been previously mentioned throughout the review such as the return of characters, settings and echoes of the iconic pieces from the series. Yet Shattered Visage is much more then just that. It offers its own explanations and theories about the Village, what it was and what it really hid. It also, as previously mentioned, explores the fates of both Number Six and Leo McKern's Number Two and offers up a compelling explanation for the final episode Fall Out, itself perhaps the most controversial finale of any TV series and the source of much speculation over the years. Yet despite doing all this, some things are still left unanswered right up to the twist in the final pages. It is only when these elements are combined with the late-1980s setting the result is a true sequel to the series.

With the passing of many of those who were in the original TV series, and given the lukewarm at best response the recent re-imagined mini-series has received, Shattered Visage is the closest we will ever get to a proper sequel to The Prisoner and it is a fitting one. With its fine use of characters and elements from the original TV series while, all the while, infusing the story with new characters and elements. It helps to explain some things, yet leaves the big questions unanswered and it does all that while be just as entertaining yet thought-provoking as the TV series it was spawned from. What more can you ask of it?

A comic book 'sequel' to Patrick McGoohan's 1960's cult series "The Prisoner", released by DC Comics in the late 80's. The paperback collected edition is about 200 pages in length. Recommended to those already familiar with "The Prisoner"(in other words, newcomers to the show might be a bit lost).

This comic has awful art, an amazingly incoprehensable storyline (even for The Prisoner) and a last chapter that will leave you saying "I didn't understand one page of that." Awful stuff!

Probably the closest we'll ever get to a Prisoner sequel, SHATTERED VISAGE is all the more disappointing as it could have explored literally any storyline and expanded on any character, yet did so very little.

A revisitation of the Village and Numbers Six and Two (appearing in the favorite Leo McKern incarnation), SHATTERED VISAGE is likely to leave the casual fan entirely befuddled and even the hardcore enthusiast scratching their head. As obtuse as the final series episode, FALL OUT, and poorly illustrated, SHATTERED VISAGE satisfies only in that it faithfully maintains the clever wordplay of the series in its dialogue, but this is little compensation for the lack of a cohesive story.

Many Prisoner fans enjoy the mystery of the series' finale, forever exploring possible meanings behind its intriguing images, but a successful sequel must answer at least some existing questions before asking others. Therefore, SHATTERED VISAGE fails in nearly every department. Only the most devoted completist need bother - and even then, this title is likely to simply take up space on your shelf.

This graphic novel (ie fancy comic book)tells the sequel to the British cult TV Show "The Prisiner". It is set many years later in The Village and introduces new characters as well as the classic No. 6 (played by Patrick McGoohan in the TV show). Though this series lacks the original quirks of the TV series, it has the suspense and cat-and-mouse games of the series, perhaps more. It is somewhat difficult to follow and requires slow reading or re-readings to truly appeciate the story, especilly of you are unfamilar with the show. It is a gripping story that is difficult to put down.