Back in the day my favorite G.I. Joe was the Man of Action (MOA) and my favorite two Adventure Team sets were Secret Agent and Secret Mission to Spy Island. It was not a leap that the MOA's first ATC outing was going to be a cold war era espionage tale.
When I first saw the pencils for this page I was a little worried about what I pictured as being a whole lot of black ink. Then colorist Jesse Wittenrich turned in one of the best-looking pages in the entire run.
The cool AT logo cuff links were Rod's idea.
I couldn't resist have the MOA ape the famous "Bond, James Bond" intro.
The name John Steele comes from the 1970's European Action Team's MOA counterpart.
Another Bond nod is the "Universal Imports" lettering on the DC-3. In several of the novels and occasionally in the films Bond used the bogus company "Universal Exports" as a cover.
In the script I described the diplomat as somewhat resembling Dr. Stephen Strange and his wife as looking like she dressed from Audrey Hepburn's closet.
The tuexedo wearing Man of Action was recreated by the Collector's Club for the 2013 Secret Mission to Dragon Island set.
I couldn’t do an ode to 60's and 70's spy films without working Matt Helm and Derek Flint in there somewhere.
