Double O Section

May 20, 2010

Battle Of The Spies At Mister 8

I'm sorry that I'm only getting around to mentioning this as the first round of voting wraps up, but there are still more rounds to come. Armstrong at fellow COBRAS blog Mister 8 has been running a really fun "May Madness" bracket where readers vote on the winner in a number of spy-vs-spy pairings. Match-ups so far have included James Bond vs. Tara Chace (I voted for Tara and thought she was an underdog, but a Tweet from Greg Rucka apparently turned the tide), Jason Bourne vs. Cate Archer (not being a gamer, the choice for Bourne was an easy one for me), Steed and Mrs. Peel vs. OSS 117 (obviously I have a lot of fondness for OSS 117, but it can't come close to the love I have for The Avengers!), the men from U.N.C.L.E vs. the Get Smart crew (a tougher one, but I ultimately went with Solo and Kuryakin), Nick Fury vs. the I Spy guys (Nick Fury was an easy choice for me, but I Spy is currently winning), John Drake vs. George Smiley (a really tough choice, but I had to go with the Secret Agent Man), Jim Phelps' Impossible Missions Force against CTU's Jack Bauer (IMF, obviously!), and, finally, Harry Palmer vs. Jack Ryan (sorry, Jack, but there's no contest). You can still cast your own votes in some of these contests, and be sure to check back frequently over the coming weeks to vote in the various play-offs. I hope Armstrong does this again next year, because I'd love to see how some of the other Eurospy heroes fared against one another. (Joe Walker vs. Jerry Cotton! OSS 117 vs. 077! The Tiger vs. Coplan! Etc.)

4 comments:

Rebecca said...: Not related, but in case you didn't notice, the Nikita trailer from CW's upfront presentation today is on YouTube.; 8:26 PM
MSWallack said...: I couldn't take the contest too seriously when I realized that a Cate Archer (from a video game) was included and Quiller was not!; 10:09 AM
Tanner said...: Thanks, Rebecca! I hadn't seen it. I'll do a post about that.

MSWallack, I think any kind of event like that is going to be going to be pretty subjective, and obviously it's hard to choose which spies to use. But that's why I hope there will be another! As I said, I'd like to see all those Eurospies duke it out, and it would also be cool to see some more of the ITC heroes in the mix. Or James West and Artemus Gordon. Or Sidney Bristow. Or Lee Stetson. Or Sterling Archer. Or Modesty Blaise. Or David Callan. (Callan vs. Sandbaggers would be a very tough race!) Or, as you say, Quiller! There are so many spies to choose from.

As I mentioned, I don't really know video games, but I like Armstrong's eclectic selection from across a wide range of media. Maybe there should be a write-in round where you can make that kind of suggestion!; 10:34 AM
Armstrong Sabian said...: I did my darnedest to try to cover all eras and all media, from the 60s onward, from books to games to movies to comics. I made a huge list of secret agents, on which all of these but Sterling Archer and Lee Stetson appeared. It was a tricky process to narrow down to 16 from there, but if I'd added another round, I think the tournament would have been too cumbersome.

I know that folks have favorites whom I had to leave off, as do I. I had to make a call on including Drake v. The Prisoner, I left out Matt Helm, Modesty Blaise, Derek Flint, Yuki 7, and the complete bibliography of Graham Greene. I would have loved to include Chuck Barris on a fictional spies list.

I do hope to revisit this concept next year. So I'm thankful for ideas.

(I didn't wind up letting Johnny Fedora into the contest either. Him, Stetson...maybe I have a thing against spies named after hats.); 2:15 PM