Desert Drama (comic story)

Desert Drama was the title attributed to the climax of an otherwise untitled Thunderbirds comic printed in Lady Penelope across 1966 and 1967.

The story featured the return of Jimmy Bondson, the titular British Secret Service agent in The Man from MI.5, the only episode of the television series to feature the Daleks. It was also a continuation of the story arc involving Mr Steelman's quest for revenge against Lady Penelope, which had started in the Doctor Who universe crossover Mr. Steelman.

Desert Drama was also notable for being the final Thunderbirds story released concurrently with The Daleks in the sister magazine TV Century 21; the final part of The Road to Conflict was published on the same day as this story's concluding instalment.

Summary
to be added

Characters

 * Penelope Creighton-Ward
 * Parker
 * Mr Steelman
 * Jimmy Bondson
 * Digby Short
 * Mr Andershill
 * Colonel Thomas
 * Paul Carson
 * Stevens
 * Prison officer
 * Security guard

Worldbuilding

 * Lady Penelope has recently been in Australia.
 * Lady Penelope receives a letter from Century 21 Film Productions, who Parker thinks make "super pictures".
 * Mr Steelman crafts a robot mouse to help him escape prison and he later becomes a camera operator on Lady Penelope's film to enact his vengeance.
 * Lady Penelope briefly excuses herself from the lunch with the film producer by claiming to telephone a friend about a charity fete.
 * The British Secret Service ask Lady Penelope to take the film role as they suspect her co-star Paul Carson of passing top secret information to Bereznik agents.
 * Carson makes it a rule to not attend any of the preliminary script discussions, which Lady Penelope finds insulting.
 * Carson stays in the London Hilton Hotel.
 * Imlac, Stevens, Spencer, a maid and a detective are all characters in the film.
 * All the scripts are typed by Film Print Limited, which has a boss known to be a Bereznik spy. Secret messages are given to Carson through the underlining of certain words.
 * The World Government research plant in the Borrego Desert has developed an aerial car which Bereznik want to get their hands on.
 * Lady Penelope has an atomiser spray containing an instant knock-out substance which she uses to incapacitate the guard dogs at the research plant and, inadvertently, Parker.
 * Lady Penelope travels from London Airport to Los Angeles and back in a Fireflash.
 * Lady Penelope considers her work as a secret agent to be less strenuous than acting.

Story notes

 * Paul Carson's outfit in this story is almost identical to the Spectrum uniform worn by Captain Scarlet. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons was still almost a year away from its premiere broadcast at the time Desert Drama was published so the similarity would have gone unnoticed by contemporary readers.

Continuity

 * Mr Steelman is being held in the Moorland Prison of Cradley three months after being defeated by Lady Penelope and Parker. (COMIC: The Great Silver Robbery!)
 * Lady Penelope recalls that Jimmy Bondson is a secret agent she helped out in Monte Carlo. (TV: The Man from MI.5)