Mister 8

We COBRAS had a ton of fun with the Costumed Adventurer Month last month (or was it the month before?), and so have been planning another team-up behind the scenes. This week at all of the COBRAS sites (a handy list of which is available in the footer of this very website), we’ll be looking at spies versus dangerous Cold War era technology — killer cybernauts, fembots, super computers, and more!

For our first Man v. Machine post here at Mister 8, I wanted to look at one of my all-time favorite cartoons. Johnny Quest may not have been a spy show, strictly speaking, but it’s definitely a product of the Cold War spy era. Writers Timothy and Kevin Burke hit the nail on the head when they describe the series in their book, Saturday Morning Fever: Growing up with Cartoon Culture:

For us, the original Quest episodes, which began appearing in prime time in 1964, are as perfect a distillation of their time as the early James Bond films, a luscious cocktail of technophilia, blithe masculinity, and charmingly innocent cold war ethnocentrism. Like James Bond, the Quest team lived off of a regular diet of evil Oriental masterminds, vaguely East Bloc no-goodniks, various supersecret gadgets, and manly derring-do, though they didn’t indulge in women, martinis, or caviar.

Particularly Bond-like is the bodyguard Roger T. “Race” Bannon, an agent from Intelligence One sent to protect the scientist Dr. Benton Quest and his inventions, lest they fall into enemy hands. In fact, according to Quest creator and artist Doug Wildey, Joe Barbera wanted to specifically draw on the James Bond series to set the tone of the series:

The Barbera influence was felt there because he had gone to see a movie called Dr. No and wanted to get in stuff like “007″-- numbers. Which we included, by the way, in the first Jonny Quest. It was called “Jonny Quest File 037″ or something. We dropped that later; it didn’t work. But that was his father’s code name as he worked for the government as a scientist and that kind of thing. That influence was felt.

Dr. Benton’s son Jonny, his friend Hadji, and the family dog Bandit were the real heroes of the show, which premiered in prime time (following the success of The Flintstones), but quickly transitioned to Saturday morning. If Jonny Quest indeed counts as an espionage show, I’m sorely tempted to call the theme song, by Hoyt Curtin, the greatest spy theme of all time (sorry, John Barry!). Often playing the Dr. No role for the series (appearing four times in the original series and returning for updates and movies) was the villainous Dr. Zin….

Because this is the Man v. Machine roundtable, we want to feature Dr. Zin’s most popular appearance, and certainly one of the best episodes of Jonny Quest: The Robot Spy. In the episode, Zin sends a new invention to spy on Quest headquarters, an invention that is one of the most recognizable robot characters ever on a Saturday morning cartoon show. Without further ado, The Robot Spy:

Jonny Quest was a high quality television show from a time when Hanna Barbera held high standards for the quality of their animation. If you’re interested in seeing other episodes (and I hope you are), Amazon carries The Complete First Season (quite inexpensively too, if you’re willing to take a used copy).

A memorable show is sure to spawn imitators and homages, and Jonny Quest led to one of the best: The Venture Brothers, soon to enter a fourth season on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. In a second season episode called Fallen Arches, the robot spy makes an appearance as an invention of Dr. Rusty Venture, in a quite humorous send-up of comics, Quest, and Cool Hand Luke. Track it down!

We continue our look at secret agents taking on nefarious world-threatening technology today with a look at some powerful robots. But first, if you want to see what the other COBRAS have been discussing, Tanner @ Double-O-Section has just posted a great run down.

Peel and Steed encounter a Cybernaut

Today, we’ll be looking at something that inevitably the other COBRAS will be covering as well — the trenchcoat- and trilby-wearing metal automatons known as the Cybernauts! The bots made their first appearance in the October 1965 episode of The Avengers that was later the first one to be broadcast in the United States (in March 1966). The episode has proved to be popular on both sides of the pond, and many media critics cite it as an episode important to the thematic growth of the series.

James Chapman in Saints and avengers: British adventure series of the 1960s (2002) suggests that the episode presents an about-face to earlier views of technology seen on the program, and stemmed from growing fears of a society ruled by technology:

While resistance to progress is dangerous, so too is progress itself if it remains unchecked. Whereas earlier Avengers episodes had advocated investment in science and technology as the key to securing the nation’s future, the series now suggested that in the wrong hands they could be used for diabolical ends. Again, The Avengers can be seen as responding to contemporary concerns, particularly the ideas expressed by academics such as Theodore Roszak that technocracy (the organisation of society based on principles laid down by technical experts) could all too easily lead to a form of totalitarianism. The danger of technocracy taken to the extreme became a prominent theme of the ‘classic’ period of The Avengers.

Jeffrey S. Miller, writing in his Something completely different: British television and American culture (2000) builds on David Buxton’s view that The Cybernauts, and similarly themed episodes, reflected a British class struggle that was mostly lost on Americans:

Of those narrative conventions coming out of the Bond movies and other secret agent shows, none was more important, as “The Cybernauts” would indicate, than the menace of technology. David Buxton argues that The Avengers represents a discourse on the place of technology in accommodating modernity to the traditional British class structure. A danger when used by a nouveau riche class (including scientist / entrepreneurs such as Armstrong) without regard to a traditional elite, technology is equally problematic when used by aristocrats to defend the old order against the rising welfare state. The middle ground, he argues, is technology in the service of consumption and fashion, a middle ground American audiences already found themselves occupying, thanks to Bond, UNCLE, Drake, and other secret agents….The narrative deployment of technology as the tool of evil, familiar to American audiences not only through previous secret agent movies and television programs, but through their own fears of nuclear holocaust, became the central motif of Avengers plots, superseding the Cold War even in many episodes in which Cold War concerns were directly referenced.

Norbert Wiener

The use of the portmanteau term “cybernaut” appears to have originated with this episode, though later it was used by scientists in descriptions of potential robot-manned space flights, and more recently has come to mean anyone who explores digital space — the internet, virtual realities, MMORPGs, etc. The word draws its meaning from Norbert Wiener’s use of “cybernetics,” or technological mechanisms, in his 1950 book The Human Use of Human Beings : Cybernetics and Society. Wiener would later go on to be a major influence on those who pioneered the field of robotics, but, fittingly, worried about the effect that robots might have on society — not because they’d go evil and run amok, but because they’d put people out of jobs. As he wrote in The Human Use of Human Beings, “The automatic machine, whatever we think of any feelings it may have or may not have, is the precise economic equivalent of slave labor.” Wiener set forth ethical guidelines and ideas in his work that he hoped would guide inventors and developers of the future.

But what do mad scientists care of ethics? In their world, cybernauts are the economic equvalent of hitmen-for hire, as John Steed and Emma Peel soon discover. While investigating the murders of businessmen set to bid on a new kind of integrated circuit, the pair find themselves searching for someone who can walk through walls, crack down doors, and break necks with a single blow. Eventually, the trail leads to crazed wheelchair-bound inventor Dr. Armstrong, who is using the faceless steel strongbots to eliminate his competition (Wiener was right — early in the episode, Armstrong brags to Steed that he has no need for employees besides the cybernauts). To give you a taste, here’s a tension-filled clip from the finale of the episode (note the casual glance Emma gives as the cybernauts beat up on their creator):

Steed and Peel faced off against the Cybernauts again in a later episode, in which the mad scientist role was played by Hammer horror films veteran Peter Cushing. In the sequel, Cushing plays the brother of Dr. Armstrong, and uses a new wave of cybernauts to take revenge on Peel and Steed for his brother’s death:

But that wasn’t the end of the Cybernauts. They returned again, in an episode of The New Avengers, where Steed, Purdey and Gambit fight the robots sent on behalf of a former double agent, Kane, who blames them for his disfigurement. Kane teams up with the man who originally developed the cybernauts for Armstrong, and in the conclusion winds up becoming half cybernaut himself — a cyborgernaut, if you will:

The last of the cybernauts? Not hardly, though this marked their last time on television. John Peel and Dave Rogers revived the killer robots for his The Avengers: Too Many Targets, which found Steed teaming up with all of his former partners to take down a new cybernaut threat.  In the book that, in his Spy Television, fellow COBRAS agent Wes Britton calls, “One of the most interesting literary incarnations of any secret agent venture,” The Avengers, all of them, are in Africa investigating the murder of two agents when judo punches start to resound with a familiar clang. Here’s a taste:

Steed stared down at the broken robot. “It’s familiar, wouldn’t you say?”

“Very,” Emma admitted, chilled. “It looks like a Cybernaut. But it can’t be.”

On his knee, Steed poked at the exposed circuits with the ferrule of his umbrella. “A new generation of Cybernauts,” he agreed. “Ones that look like people we know--and act like them. These are sophisticated, Mrs. Peel. Very sophisticated.”

Emma thought back to their previous two encounters with the Cybernauts. They had been cold, emotionless robots, built by the crippled Dr. Armstrong. Powerful, silent, and programmable, they had twice been turned against her and Steed. The first time had been by Amrstrong, and the second time by the late inventor’s brother, Paul Beresford. But Armstrong had died, killed accidentally by one of his own creations.

“How can they be?” she objected. “Armstrong was killed.” She didn’t like where Steed’s thoughts seemed to be heading.

“So were the Cybernauts,” Steed said softly. “But machines can’t die.”

The question I’ll leave you with is this: are the cybernauts badguys? Or are they just a reflection of the evil desires of their creators? Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the opposite — a cybernaut created by the forces of good.

Fiction, especially spy fiction, is rife with robots created by evil geniuses bent on world domination and/or destruction. Sometimes those robots are destroyed by superhero secret agents, but sometimes they miraculously develop a moral consciousness, turn on their creators, and choose to do good. Let’s take a look at a pair of those today!

The first is truly a “cybernaut,” a human-looking (specifically Dick Gauthier-looking) bot named Hymie, invented by Dr. Ratton and dispatched by KAOS to kill Maxwell Smart (of Get Smart, naturally). In the end, when Hymie’s creator calls him a monster, he short circuits and is able to overcome his programming and save the day:

Hymie became a full-fledged member of CONTROL, though he was sure to say that his first preference is IBM, which he thought would be a, “nice way to meet some intelligent machines.” I’m wondering if, since the Avengers episode that seems to have coined the term “cybernaut,” hadn’t aired in the U.S. yet, if the episode where Hymie first appears was the first time American audiences heard the word. I also wonder if the writers of Get Smart used the term independently of the Avengers?

(For anyone interested, Dick Gauthier sells autographed pictures of himself as Hymie, for a relatively inexpensive price, as far as celebrity autographs goes.)

Our next good guy robot is not from a secret agent television show, but, like Jonny Quest, exists in a world predicated on Cold War tensions. Even beating out the Pixar movies, which I adore, this is my favorite animated film of all time: The Iron Giant.

Based on a novel by Ted Hughes, The Iron Giant was directed by Brad Bird, who later went on to make The Incredibles and Ratatouille. The film features a giant metal man who crash lands off the coast of Maine, and the young boy who teaches him about the important things in life: love, fun, Superman. A four-story tall robot is hard to hide, and so rumors begin to spread about the Giant. Those rumors are investigated by the U.S. Army, specifically Kent Mansley, who comes to see the Giant as a threat to the American way. Mansley, though the villain of the piece, does have a semi-valid point: the Iron Giant is a weapon, though with Hogarth’s help, he learns to suppress his violent programming.

If you haven’t seen this film, go out and find it. Playing the voice of the Giant is by far Vin Diesel’s best performance, and I still prefer this over Bird’s Pixar films. If you have seen it, perhaps you’ll enjoy revisiting the climax of the film:

Two questions to think about today:

1. Isn’t a robot that breaks programming, by it’s very nature, defective?

2. Is it wrong (speaking hypothetically) to build robots that do bad, or morally ambigious things, to give them self-awareness to realize this, and yet to not allow them to break their programming?

***

A few additional notes:

NOTE #1:

I play pub trivia every week with my wife and other students in my program. Our trivia czar is a swell guy, and each week, the winning team gets to choose a category for one of the rounds of the next week’s trivia. My team had won the week before, and so last night, we answered questions in a category of my choosing, “60s spy TV shows.” We aced the round. How would you have done?

1. Who was Maxwell Smart’s partner on Get Smart?
2. How many seconds does Jim Phelps have before the tape self-destructs?
3. What is the cover career of Alexander Scott and Kelly Robinson?
4. Why is KAOS located in Delaware?
5. If you referred to yourself as a Steedophile, you would be a fan of what show?

Bonus: For whom was Artimus Gordon a sidekick and master of disguise?

Unfortunately, we lost all of our points on a wager in the final round, so we didn’t get to pick the category for the following week. Maybe next time!

NOTE #2:

The next Man v. Machine post may be a little late, because I’m having a birthday party tomorrow night! Expect our week-long look at spies and technology to extend into the weekend, and perhaps even spill over into next week….

In a virtual version of that game we all used to play in grade school, where we strove to be the last person clapping after a round of applause, I’m one-upping Tanner@Double O Section’s tardiness with my own finale to Man v. Machine…week.

We’ve been talking extensively about robots so far, so let’s switch gears today and take a look at computers. I was originally going to cover a bevy of espionage films today to build my ideas around, but why bother? Why bother when a shining example has been provided by one of the greatest films, espionage, sci-fi, period, of all time: Jean Luc Godard’s Alphaville.

Alphaville Poster, Art by Armstrong Sabian

Brief recap: In the futuristic titular city, journalist / secret agent Lemmy Caution arrives on a secret mission from the outlands — to capture Professor Von Braun, the creator of super computer Alpha 60, and to use his knowledge to take down the dictatorial machine. In Alphaville, Caution encounters automaton after automaton, people ruled by the cold logic of a computer that has outlawed love and poetry. In Alphaville, logic is order, and those who act illogically pay the price with their lives. Caution falls in love with Natasha, Von Braun’s daughter, and his ability to have emotions, to act illogically, serves as a monkeywrench in the orderly machine that is Alphaville.

If you haven’t seen it, stop reading now, and do yourself a favor. It’s one of a number of full-length movies recently uploaded to Google Video, so go watch it.

There exists a myriad films about amoral computers driving out the experience of humanity with logical function — within the genre of espionage, I’d also thought of discussing The Billion Dollar Brain and The Prisoner episode The General (luckily for you, our pal David @ PTK recently reviewed Billion Dollar Brain, The General, and Alphaville). Perhaps the most well known of these computers-gone-bad is HAL 9000 from the Kubrick/Clarke film 2001: A Space Odyssey, and his oft-quoted line, “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Dave.”

But as with our previous discussions on robots, I question whether the actual evil might lie with the creators of HAL.

Luciano Floridi and J.W. Sanders addressed the idea of computers perpetrating evil deeds in their 2001 essay, “Artificial Evil and the Foundation of Computer Ethics” by creating a new nomenclature for…well, evil. They start by defining the nebulous term with the help of Kekes — evil is an action that “causes serious and morally unjustified harm” — and identify two traditionally acknowledged forms of evil: Moral Evil (ME), that which results from human autonomy and responsibility, and Natural Evil (NE), which comes from the natural world (i.e. earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters). These terms, they offer, are not enough to describe modern occurrences of evil:

More and more often, especially in advanced societies, people are confronted by visible and salient evils that are neither simply natural nor immediately moral: an innocent dies because the ambulance was delayed by the traffic; a computer-based monitor ‘reboots’ in the middle of surgery because its software is not fully compatible with other programs also in use, with the result that the patient is at increased risk during the reboot period. The examples could easily be multiplied. What kind of evils are these? ‘Bad luck’ and ‘technical incident’ are simply admissions of ignorance.

To this end, Floridi and Sanders offer a new term: Artificial Evil (AE). They address the question above as well — are not the evil actions of the man-made system the fault of the men who made them?:

…This leads precisely to the main objection against the presence of AE, namely that any AE is really just ME under a different name. Human creators are morally accountable for whatever evil may be caused by their artificial agents, as mere means or intermediaries of human activities (indirect responsibility)….In the same way as a divine creator can be blamed for NE, so a human creator can be blamed for AE.

Some technologies, they argue, exist as artificial and autonomous agents: (remember this was written in 2001) webbots, expert systems, software viruses, robots. These agents are nomologically independent from their human creators, and therefore their ability to initiate evil actions is also independent from their human creators.

Today’s questions:

1. Do you think there is truth to Floridi and Sanders’ claims?
2. If so, what can be done?
3. Do we see these autonomous agents, capable of enacting artificial evil, in current society, even if not on the scale of a city-running, dictatorial super-computer?

Food for thought!

Want to teach a computer the difference between good and evil? Or between Batman and James Bond? Try out this cool program, that in recent years has been turned into a toy…a toy bent on world domination!

In honor of Father’s Day, a question: Does anyone really believe that this was James Bond’s nephew?

James Bond better watch out, or else his…nephew…will grow up singing songs like Austin Powers:

P.S. I love you, Susanna Hoffs.

Danger: Diabolik! bootleg

Ennio Morricone is perhaps best known, unfairly, for his spaghetti western scores, especially those to movies directed by Sergio Leone.  As Morricone has been quick to point out, these scores represent only a minute fraction of his actual film work.

One of the many films that Morricone scored in the 60s was directed by Mario Bava, the fantastic, perhaps ultimate Eurospy film, Danger: Diabolik! It’s a rich, lush score that reflects the era in which it was created, and features one of the best theme songs ever heard in a fim: Deep Deep Down.

e|---------------|
B|---------------|
G|---------------|
D|-5p4---5p4---4-|
A|-----5-----5---|
E|---------------|

[See full tablature]

Unfortunately, the original master tapes for the score were destroyed in a Cinecittà warehouse fire, and the only copy floating around is a bootleg someone made from their laserdisc. I created this tablature from the English version, and I believe both the English and Italian versions were sung by someone named Christy.

Everyone seems to be crazy for a performance making the YouTube rounds by Mike Patton (of Faith No More and Fantomas), with some even saying they were moved to tears by it. I’m not a fan — it’s too over the top to be truly sincere, with Patton’s crazy eye-mugging, and it aspires to sincerity too much to really be fun.

I’ll tell you who really does a great cover of this song:  Kriminal Hammond Inferno.

So…I drew this for our fourth place winner, James Stormer. I promised to scan all of the sketches here, but mailed off the prizes to our first through third place contestants last week without remembering to do so. In any case, here’s the sketch that, along with a few other prizes, will be in the mail to Mr. Stormer tomorrow afternoon:

Nick Fury for James Stormer

Agents of Atlas by Evan "Doc" Shaner

ITEM! Remember how I told you that Agents of Atlas was the best book Marvel was currently putting out, and how you didn’t believe me? Well, you should take my word for it, because you’re missing out on a secret agent super gorilla in a disco lounge suit.

But I know we’re in the midst of a financial crisis. Why should you gamble your hard-earned buck on this comic? Well, luckily for you, Marvel has three Agents of Atlas stories available for free at their website!

ITEM! Danger: Diabolik! fan / comics legend Stephen Bissette kindly linked to our post about Ennio Morricone’s “Deep Deep Down” yesterday. More importantly, this linkage came in the midst of a massive post about the theme, the film, and fumetti, with the highlight being Steve’s commentary for the Paramount DVD (above), and the notes he made to prepare for that commentary.

ITEM! In case you’re interested in other European espionage comics, agent David @ Permission to Kill has just uncovered a treasure trove of Fantomas, Espia 13, and James Bond…

ITEM! The following advertisement for a new Sadistik fumetti & comic, with an accompanying animated web series, as well as a documentary to debut at this year’s San Diego Comicon was emailed to me last week by the folks at Comic Fix:

ITEM! And we might as well share this video by the Charles E. Hall Band for the song Beware: Sadistik!

ITEM! And lastly, because I feel like it, and because we all love Diabolik here at Mister8 HQ, a little homage from the Beastie Boys:

This is sort of another follow-up post to our look at Ennio Morricone’s “Deep Deep Down” from Danger! Diabolik earlier in the week, continuing to spotlight musicians who have Italo-espionage influence in their music.

First, in the comments section of our last post, Nick of DVDTrash pointed out another Diabolik themed video, this one made semi-official by the acting presence of John Philip Law and direction from Mario Bava’s son, Lamberto Bava. Nick writes at his site:

Lamberto Bava has directed a music video for Italian pop group Tiromancino very much in the style of Diabolik, so much so that Diabolik himself John Philip Law is in the video with a small cameo. Also stars Dan McVicar as Diabolik and the lovely Claudia Gerini as Eva Kant.

Next, our new pal Simon from the band Kriminal Hammond Inferno emailed to tell us about his other band, The Lunar Tikis. He writes:

The Lunar Tiki’s began as instrumental surf trio (Luc on drums, Flupke on bass, Roland on guitar) in 2003. When Simon came in 2004 with his Hammond organ, the band slightly changed their direction and covered more 60’s music, including some spy themes like “Man from UNCLE,” “The Persuaders,” “High Wire” (from Danger Man) and “The Money Spyder” (James Taylor Quartet) but also 60’s classics like “She’s Not There” and “Green Onions.”

In 2006, they became “Leo & the Lunar Tiki’s” with a young girl singer, Léonor. They stopped with spy music then.

You can learn more about the Lunar Tikis at their website.

Simon sent along some MP3s from the Lunar Tikis’ early days as an instrumental band. Enjoy!

The Man From UNCLE

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The Money Spyder

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

High Wire / Danger Man:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The Persuaders:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Simon was kind enough to tell us the chord progression to the last of these songs, and so we’ll soon be featuring the tablature to the Persuaders here at Mister 8!

But that’s not all. Simon also tells us more about his other band, Kriminal Hammond Inferno:

In 2006 Simon had the opportunity to make a side project with Kriminal Hammond Inferno with Daniel Wang on drums, and they included Lunar Tiki’s cover songs plus 2 new scores from Danger:Diabolik , “The Bubble Theme” and “Deep Deep Down.” They played in 2007 in Italy and Belgium with as guest Sarah Bogart for those 2 songs and performed in 2007-2008 in UK , Netherlands and Belgium .

Here is the group, with singer Sarah Bogart, singing the other theme from Danger: Diabolik!:

And here’s the end of a concert in Rome where they do a different version of “Deep Deep Down,” this time with some Italian lyrics (also includes a rocking version of Green Onions):