JOCK SAUNDERS

Jock Saunders is an agent with British Intelligence.

More specifically, he is one of the very select operatives working during the Second World War directly under the command of spymaster Sir James Mitchell. That leader, codename Carnation, commands a group of agents who remain largely unnamed to those outside the organization and are known as the Men of Flowers (occasionally Men of the Flowers) as each member was given a flower name as his codename. For Saunders, that designation is Jasmine. He is given the codenumber of 23 - what that number implies, if anything, is not known.

Saunders is depicted a bit differently in the two adventures we have seen of him. In the first he is a rugged looking man with short buzz-cut blond hair and clean shaven. In the second, he seems more of a middle-aged man though still in impressive shape; he enjoys a full head of blond hair and is always sporting a bushy handlebar mustache with carefully cultivated upturns on the side. I am sure this changing of appearance tells us something important about the man and/or his method of operation going about his work but what that something is escapes me and is probably not important. What is important is that he is a dedicated field agent willing to put his life on the line for King and Country and does so on several occasions.

In one adventure he has the help of an assistant named Helen Marks, a young but capable blonde-haired woman. Why she is assigned to him on one instance and not the other is never mentioned.

Another matter never mentioned is anything dealing with Saunders' life before we meet him as a Flowers operative. He obviously had a life before the War and his entry into the organization; we are just never told anything about it.

These adventures were written and drawn to appeal to a youngish audience, largely teenage boys and slightly older. They are gritty and often stark as they describe tough men and women having to go up against other tough men and women and prevail in order to stop evil forces like the Nazis from conquering the world. In that regard they did a pretty impressive job in each 64-page, 2 panels per page, black-and-white issue.

The schedule for creating and producing these stories must have been tight because the artistry, usually good though not always, did not have time to put in much flourish. Similarly, the writing had no room for fleshing out the characters, especially the heroes, at all. Since they seemed to have sold well, that target audience did not mind so why should an old fellow like myself over a half century later.