Mr. Steelman (comic story)

Mr. Steelman
Main character(s):	Lady Penelope
Companion(s):	Parker
Featuring:	Roger
Main enemy:	Mr Steelman
Main setting:	Great Britain, 2065 Naples, 2065 Pompeii, 2065
Key crew
Publisher:	City Magazines
Editor:	Alan Fennell
Writer:	Alan Fennell
Artist:	Eric Eden
Release details
Printed in:	TV21 1-11
Release date:	23 January - 3 April 1965
Format:	11 parts - 22 pages
Thunderbirds crossover stories
Next →	On the Trail of the Kaplan's Killer...

Mr. Steelman was the very first Lady Penelope comic printed in TV Century 21 in 1965.

The story crossed over with the Doctor Who universe by marking the reappearance of the Dunwell Atomic Research Station, which had debuted in the Dalek short story Fireball Surrenders!.

Summary

to be added

Characters

• Penelope Creighton-Ward
• Parker
• Roger Lyon
• Mr Steelman
• Luigi
• Gardoni

Worldbuilding

• Parker is a burglar supreme and a master of his illegal trade.
• Lady Penelope offers Parker some tea.
• Parker has seen photographs of Penelope in the glossies when casing jobs.
• Penelope has enough evidence to keep Parker in jail for twenty years and suggests he drive himself to the nearest police station if he is not willing to work for her.
• Lady Penelope's car is a Rolls-Royce and completely bullet-proof, as are the windows of Creighton-Ward Mansion.
• The Luthvian embassy holds plans for a new hydromic device capable of destroying the whole world. They plant a bomb in the safe to kill anyone attempting to steal them.
• The blueprints can only be disposed of by bombarding them with radioactive Uranium G21 particles.
• Penelope describes Steelman as an evil and ruthless criminal with the single ambition to rule Earth.
• Penelope keeps her yacht Seabird I hidden in Smugglers Cove.
• Parker suggests lion taming or alligator wrestling as examples of quieter lives than the one led by Penelope. Penelope reminisces that one captain did leave to join the circus because he wanted to be shot out of a cannon.
• Steelman's base in is the midde of Vesuvius and is accessible from Pompeii.
• Penelope's lipstick unleashes a deadly gas which she is able to use when Steelman grants her a last wish before her execution.
• Penelope thinks archaeologists will have fun uncovering the ruins of Pompeii again.

Story notes

• This story depicted the first meeting of Penelope Creighton-Ward and Parker. The duo was seen together in almost all of their appearances in the Thunderbirds television series.
• Like most of TV Century 21's The Daleks comic stories from the same era, this comic serial was not given a title in the pages of TV Century 21 during its original printing; the title instead comes from later reference sources.

Continuity

• TV 21 reported on Roger Lyon's kidnapping by Mr Steelman. (PROSE: Titan Declares War!)
• Scientists at the Naples Laboratory of Seismographic Studies predicted the impending eruption of Vesuvius. (COMIC: Power Play)