Review by Frank Plowright
George Evans had occasionally masqueraded as Al Williamson in drawing Secret Agent Corrigan strips in the late 1970s, his work seen in Volume Five, and in 1980 took over both the writing and drawing of the strip for a sixteen year run. It would prove the longest of the strip’s history. Sadly, this is the only collection of his strips to make the luxurious Library of American Comics hardcover format, covering 1980 to 1982.
Before the first strip Mark Squirek offers an introductory appreciation of what Evans was able to bring to the feature, and Evans hits the ground running, immediately appreciating the type of adventure Corrigan needs. By the time Evans inherited the strip the cool hero mixed with a slight element of the fantastic had surely fed into 1960s TV shows such as Mission Impossible, and such presentations had upped the game. Evans’ first story concerns a terrorist holding a city to ransom with a new chemical formula able to make water burn.
There are a few teething problems, not with the art, which has the same polish Williamson provided, but Evans not used to writing oversells the plot. It has the necessary impetus, but readers are likely to figure the culprit, while the dialogue is clunky, particularly when featuring the combative Agent Bicks. Evans does have a surprise in store, though.
For his next story Evans takes the bold step of using two weeks of continuity to set up his mystery without seeing Corrigan, focusing instead on two young boys and a stolen bicycle. It’s a technique he’d use again. This is a better plot, the escalation is clever and if by today’s standards a French agent is a little too mannered that’s only a small part of events.
Thereafter Evans takes his lead from Goodwin’s earlier work via ensuring every case is very different from the last while varying the locations. A stopover to rescue a heiress takes place in what stands in for rural Afghanistan, with connections to Corrigan later framed for stealing money, and between them is a story about a possible UFO. It’s with that story that Evans comes alive as a writer, perpetuating a good mystery that’s also visually interesting and then topping it with a clever epilogue ending showing events from a different viewpoint. By this time the dialogue is more natural, the plotting becomes ever smarter, and Evans has introduced Anina Kreemar who’ll appear regularly as foil, complication and eventually love interest for Corrigan. He’s also far more likely than Goodwin to absent Corrigan from events and instead focus on what others are up to. A story about Corrigan investigating the death of a colleague is almost entirely represented by the villains.
Evans draws Corrigan with slightly shorter hair than Williamson did, is less likely to use shading, and his villains can be less sophisticated, but his is otherwise a very similar graphic style maximising the impact of the assorted people and locations. The glamour is retained, and there’s never a dull looking strip.
After a slightly sub-par start, Evans rapidly comes to terms with the needs of Corrigan’s adventures and if some of the humour is now of its time (and the English dialogue toward the end is atrocious), the strips retain their mystery and elegance.
