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"Captain Scarlet" was the codename of an indestructible agent named Paul Metcalf (COMIC: Traitor Black Gives In!) or Grant Matthews. (PROSE: The Indestructible Man) He belonged to SPECTRUM (COMIC: Traitor Black Gives In!) or PRISM, (PROSE: The Indestructible Man) which by varying accounts was founded in either the 2060s (COMIC: SPECTRUM, PROSE: The Indestructible Man, et al.) or the 2080s. (PROSE: 'Jinx Ship' Blasts Off For Mars, et al.)
According to another account, Captain Scarlet was fictional and the eponymous character of Captain Scarlet. (TV: Death in Heaven)
Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]
Early life[[edit] | [edit source]]
According to Message is Clear, Grant Matthews was born in 2033 or 2034 in Winchester, England. His father was a civil aviation pilot and his mother was a journalist. As a child he was adventurous and neither especially intelligent nor unintelligent.
He earned a commission in UNIT for his precocity and willingness to learn. He was accepted into captain's training for PRISM, and he passed on his third attempt.
Neville Verdana commented that Matthews was an unexceptional agent but gained a reputation, particularly among the female CHERUB pilots, due to his exceptional good looks and his scarlet uniform. (PROSE: The Indestructible Man)
The Mysteron War[[edit] | [edit source]]
Early battles[[edit] | [edit source]]
In Pete Tracker's article about Spectrum, published on the front page of TV 21 on 23 September 2067, "Scarlet" was mentioned in a list of personnel. (PROSE: SPECTRUM is Green)
In 2068, six months into humanity's war with the aliens later codenamed "Myloki", (PROSE: The Indestructible Man) these Mysterons "made" Scarlet indestructible. (COMIC: Traitor Black Gives In!) On a routine mission transporting UN ballistics coordinator Pietr Ostrovsky from a Texas airfield to a ballistics conference in Kennedy City, Matthews was attacked by a Myloki atmosphere craft. Both men were killed, but the Myloki left a duplicate of Matthews in the desert to be recovered by PRISM. This duplicate then planted a bomb on the roof of the conference centre, but Captain Adam Nelson found him and shot him off the roof. Matthews fell 300 metres into a busy freeway but survived.
The aliens had replaced him with an indestructible duplicate. Since this duplicate was exactly like the original in image, memories, and personality, the Second Doctor believed he was really a Myloki-human hybrid; the only other human duplicated by the Myloki, Karl Taylor, was more like an animated corpse.
Colonel LeBlanc had the xeno-psychologists unblock the Myloki conditioning, and Matthews continued as an agent for PRISM. (PROSE: The Indestructible Man)
In August 2088, Kylie Walker of Action 21 reported that Captain Scarlet was missing and presumed dead following a "spectacular mid-air crash". Eyewitnesses saw Scarlet's jet deliberately turn into one of Spectrum's own Angel aircraft just seconds before the crash, leaving no chance of survivors. (PROSE: Captain Scarlet in Death Crash!) Soon after, however, he was confirmed to be alive. (PROSE: Zero X: Four Crew Missing)
In July 2089, Walker stated that Spectrum wanted help to locate Scarlet, who was being held prisoner by the Mysterons beneath the South Pacific. (PROSE: Send For Stingray!)
A brief reprieve[[edit] | [edit source]]
In 2068, after weeks of investigation, Captain Scarlet managed to track down Lim-Po, the Mysteron who was controlling Chinese agents. However, Lim-Po circled around and was about to attack Scarlet with a knife until Captain Black shot Lim-Po with a rifle. Scarlet questioned why Black chose to save him, asking if the Mysterons had finished with him, though Black claimed he spoke in riddles. Scarlet proceeded to take Black to Cloudbase so Doctor Fawn could run some tests of him, all of which ultimately indicated that Black was once again fit for active service. In a meeting with Colonel White and Captain Blue, Scarlet said it was the time for them to take the initiative and destroy the Mysteron City with an electrode cannon mounted on a spaceship, a mission so dangerous only he should be aboard. This plan was approved and Scarlet attended the testing of the weapon at Fort Johnson and later took off from Helsinki. Upon reaching Mars, the Mysterons claimed their power was dying and asked Scarlet to spare them so they could die quietly but he refused, noting he "must make certain" as Earth had been tricked by them in the past.
Six months past with no sign of Mysteron activity, prompting World President T.J. Younger to disband Spectrum at the final celebration of humanity's victory in the Mysteron War. Metcalf and Svenson, formely Scarlet and Blue respectively, chose to stick together and join the World Space Patrol, where Commander Zero had promised them a new XL craft. They met with Zero in Space City before attending the organisation's training school. They passed far quicker than their classmates, in only a month, were promoted to Colonels and granted command of Fireball XL19. Their first trip was to Sector 58 and the Galaxy Andromeda and was set to last a year.
Sometime later, it became clear that the Mysterons' defeat had been a ruse and that they posed an imminent threat to Earth. Spectrum was reformed, leading to Steve Zodiac and Robert the Robot being sent to speedily retrieve Metcalf and Svenson in the experimental time-space ship T-S. With Scarlet determining that the only place to deal with the Mysterons was their own city, he, Blue and Zodiac flew directly to Mars in the T-S. Scarlet opted to complete the rest of the journey to the Mysteron City alone by Space Bug once there. He confronted the Mysterons, telling them to hold their fire as he could not be destroyed. The Mysterons attempted to claim the same of themselves, but Scarlet stated their indestructibility depended on their retrometabolism ray and assured them that he would be willing to die with them if it meant securing Earth's safety. Conceding the defeat, the Mysterons agreed to Scarlet's demand to release their power over Earth's cities while he left Mars with his people. As he departed, the Mysterons warned him not to come back and they threatened they would be prepared next time too. Back on Cloudbase, the Mysterons reiterated their position that they would continue to seek vengeance while Scarlet mulled over the fact that wrecking their city could never work again. (COMIC: Traitor Black Gives In!)
Further struggles[[edit] | [edit source]]
In late 2069, the Mysteron agent Tansi Trefoil attempted to destroy the Unity City games but was foiled by Scarlet. She later escaped from Cloudbase and, on 4 October, it was reported that Spectrum forces all around the world were continuing to search without success for Scarlet, who had failed to contact Cloudbase following his disappearance while pursuing Trefoil. She was the first Mysteron agent known to have retro-metabolised after the failure of their mission, spawning fears that he might have also reverted to Mysteron control. (PROSE: Zodiac Death Sentence!)
Matthews ultimately ended the war by destroying the Myloki base – a human space station believed lost by Adam Taylor in an earlier attack – with a 20 megaton nuclear bomb. Matthews was later recovered from the radioactive crater by Hal Bishop. (PROSE: The Indestructible Man)
Later life[[edit] | [edit source]]
When Neville Verdana's book Message is Clear was released in 2070 and the public became aware of the origin of Matthews's powers, he became widely feared and hated. He survived multiple assassination attempts and tried committing suicide at least once.
Captain Matthews eventually grew to hate his immortality. John Sharon compared him to the legend of the Wandering Jew. He finally sought the aid of Buck Sharon and withdrew to Sharon Island. As he aged he retained the physical appearance of a 30-year-old.
In 2096 the "Myloki" returned and sent Karl Taylor to retrieve Matthews so they could sever their ties with his reality. The Second Doctor tracked him down on Sharon Island and convinced him to go and try to find some happiness. (PROSE: The Indestructible Man)
Undated events[[edit] | [edit source]]
Captain Scarlet visited Maruthea for Bonjaxx's birthday party. As the Seventh Doctor walked past him, he was sitting next to the Hulk. (COMIC: Party Animals)
As fiction[[edit] | [edit source]]
According to some accounts, Captain Scarlet was a fictional character from the TV series Captain Scarlet. (TV: Death in Heaven) The Tenth Doctor once noted that Captain Scarlet was the only person who was indestructible, but quickly added that he didn't think he was real. (PROSE: The Pirate Loop)
When Captain Palmer introduced himself, Claire Aldwych said she didn't care if he was Captain Scarlet. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) Rhys Williams (AUDIO: The Dead Line) and later Johnson referred to Jack Harkness as Captain Scarlet. (TV: Children of Earth)
Bernice Summerfield referred to the Doctor's Agent Scarlet antidote as Captain Scarlet. (PROSE: Eternity Weeps)
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
Captain Scarlet was the principal character of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, a TV series created by Sylvia and Gerry Anderson and produced by Century 21 Productions.
- In The Indestructible Man, the name "Grant Matthews" was assembled from Scarlet's voice actor, Francis Matthews, and his likeness to Cary Grant.
- The "About the Authors" section of Short Trips: Christmas Around the World refers to writer William Potter as "putting words into the mouths of", among others, Captain Scarlet. This is in reference to New Captain Scarlet, a magazine published by GE Fabbri between October 2005 and February 2006.
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
Category:21st century individuals
Category:Spectrum personnel
Category:Biologically modified humans
Category:Fictional characters from the real world
Category:Immortals
Category:Individuals who have been to Maruthea
Category:Human military personnel