Spectrum News Flash: Scarlet in Pursuit of Mysteron Agent (comic story)

Spectrum News Flash: Scarlet in Pursuit of Mysteron Agent was the Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons comic printed in a special one-off edition of TV Century 21 published in 2014 as part of Network Distrubuting's Supermarionation boxset.

The story featured as one of its primary settings Unity City, a location first introduced in The Daleks story Duel of the Daleks, thus constituting a crossover with the Doctor Who universe.

Summary
Captain Scarlet holds Mysteron agent Tansi Trefoil at gunpoint atop a tower housing the ceremonial flame for the Unity City Games. He demands Trefoil give herself up but she refuses, declaring that the Mysterons will be avenged and promptly jumping off the tower to her doom. In doing so she lets go of a metahypergolic capsule, which acts as a highly volatile explosive when exposed to naked flame, but Scarlet manages to swoop in on his jetpack and catch the capsule, preventing the destruction of the entire Games arena. As Scarlet lays on a lower platform still on fire (but ultimately unharmed owing to his indestructible nature) he asks Captain Blue if they were able to retrieve Trefoil's remains, to which he responds in the positive.

Later, after the Spectrum agents have returned to Cloudbase, the Mysterons announce a new threat to "stop the one who cannot die". Colonel White and Captain Scarlet discuss the meaning of the threat; White determines Scarlet himself is the intended target but Scarlet cautions him against being so certain and notes that the Mysterons have fooled them before. Meanwhile, a Mysteron reconstruction specialist examines Trefoil's body, cherishing the rare opportunity he has to study a Mysteron agent. However, the scientist is too engrossed in his work to notice Trefoil's revival and is attacked by her when he turns around. Back in the control room, White and Lieutenant Green notice something is wrong due to the unauthorised access of files from the Cloudbase medical centre computer and, soon afterwards, the now-injured scientist comes over the intercom to announce a red alert and that Trefoil is loose somewhere on Cloudbase.

Captains Magenta and Ochre spring into action, while Scarlet's sixth sense leads himself and Blue to the aircraft hangars where they discover an SPJ on the ramp despite no take-off having been authorised. Quickly figuring out Trefoil is attempting to escape, Scarlet makes a desperate leap towards the runway and manages to haul himself onto the ramp, but at that same moment the SPJ's main engines engage, catching Scarlet in the white-hot blast!

Characters

 * Captain Scarlet
 * Captain Blue
 * Colonel White
 * Lieutenant Green
 * Captain Magenta
 * Captain Ochre
 * Tansi Trefoil
 * Mysteron reconstruction specialist

Worldbuilding

 * News of Tansi Trefoil's demise and subsequent escape from Cloudbase is presented in a spectracolour video-sat report.
 * Trefoil was an athlete prior to her Mysteronisation.
 * The tower housing the ceremonial flame is two hundred metres tall.
 * The scientist notes no decomposition in the samples he examines and has the beginning of a thought about cellular activity prior to being attacked.

Story notes

 * This marked the first Doctor Who universe story to crossover with Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons since the Doctor Who Magazine comic Party Animals in 1991 which featured a cameo appearance from Captain Scarlet himself.

Continuity

 * The "maximum alert" status which Cloudbase was placed on following Tansi Trefoil's revival was reported on the front page of TV 21. (PROSE: Mysteron Alert!)
 * Captain Scarlet would later fail to report back to Cloudbase during his pursuit of Trefoil, prompting concerns that he might have reverted to Mysteron control. (PROSE: Zodiac Death Sentence!)