Really, the decades-long absence of SPECTRE from the Bond franchise has been a noticeable one. The legal entanglements kept them out of the films for the longest time, which is fair enough, but Fleming dropped them rather quickly in the books - Blofeld and the rest of the organisation bowed out in You Only Live Twice, which was radically different in its big screen adaptation. They were later brought back a couple of times by new writers, with Blofeld's daughter trying to get a new SPECTRE off the ground, but to no avail. In the films, meanwhile, they just sort of disappeared. Fizzled out. What happened to that once great enemy? SPECTRE were around since the beginning. They never appeared on-screen in Dr No, but their presence was felt heavily in From Russia With Love, and they acted as a primary antagonist for every film after that up until Diamonds Are Forever. They killed Bond's wife, for god's sake! How their history will fit into the loose 007 chronology remains to be seen - especially after the hard reboot of Casino Royale, and the slightly softer return to the old status quo after the climax of Skyfall - but it wouldn't be a great surprise if it turns out that SPECTRE have been pulling the strings all along. After all, that was the implication in the earlier Bond stories. Enemies come and go, henchmen get toasted, political point scoring and drawing from real-life situations are a given. More often than not, though, the true puppet masters are Blofeld, Rosa Klebb, and their cat. Maybe less the cat.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
