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Referenced By / The Avengers (1960s)

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    Audio Drama 

    Comic Books 
  • Darkwing Duck #10 features a female spy named Femme Appeal.
  • Kingdom Come: Steed and Mrs Peel appear in the background in a scene with a bunch of references to British pop culture.
  • Knight and Squire: Knight calls Squire by saying "We're needed" in the style of Steed calling Mrs Peel.
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Emma Night, a significant character in Black Dossier, is a serial-numbers-filed-off version of Emma (Knight) Peel. And one of the recurring villain's many identities, Cosmo Gallion, is the titular cult leader from the Avengers episode "Warlock".
  • Miracleman: Big Ben is a superpowered version of John Steed. Lampshaded within the story, when a Greek Chorus type "little man" character points out the resemblance.
  • The Secret Service: John Steed's name appears in a list of deceased former agents of the Service.
  • Recurring X-Men antagonists the Hellfire Club, introduced in The Dark Phoenix Saga, were inspired by the Hellfire Club in "A Touch of Brimstone". Jean gets a version of Emma Peel's makeover. The original story included chIaracters named Emma Frost (as a nod to Emma Peel) and Jason Wyngarde (as a nod to Peter Wyngarde's guest-starring role in "A Touch of Brimstone"). Later comics established the Black Queen of the London club as named Emma Steed and a 17th century Black Queen was Diana Knight (Diana Rigg + Emma's maiden name) and her consort was Patrick Clemens (Patrick Macnee + episode writer Brian Clemens).
  • The cover of issue 180 of The Incredible I-Ching and The New Wonder Woman had Wonder Woman wearing a purple and yellow Emmapeeler outfit complete with a zipped front and white boots, although she would later adopt a white catsuit. The Emma Peel influnce on the character lasted from 1968 until 1973.
  • In 1970, Black Widow was overhauled to resemble Emma Peel. Issue 86 of The Amazing Spider-Man has her wearing a dark blue skin-tight catsuit similar to Mrs. Peel's.

    Fan Works 
  • Dangerverse: Chapter 8 of "Surpassing Danger" has Ron and Hermione dressing as John Steed and Emma Peel.
  • In Chapter One of the Gunslinger Girl fanfic And the Adventure Continues, Monty and Jethro Blacker use Steed and Peel as aliases. At the end of Chapter 6, Monty gets a message from the Agency calling them back into action, so tells her partner, "Mister Blacker, we're needed."

    Film - Live Action 

    Literature 
  • Bimbos of the Death Sun is set at an SF convention, and Marion spends a significant portion of the page count dressed as Emma Peel.
  • In the Diana Tregarde story "Satanic, versus...", Diana and her boyfriend dress as the Avengers for Halloween.
  • The Dresden Files: Warden Chandler, a well-dressed English gentleman with a bowler hat, is nicknamed "John Steed" by Harry Dresden.
  • The Diogenes Club series is a homage to that period of British telefantasy, and "You Don't Have To Be Mad..." in particular has the style of an Avengers story. The way Vanessa is written out of the series in "The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train" is strongly reminiscent of Mrs Peel's exit from the series.
  • The Salvation War: One of the B-52s that supports the Russians at the Phlegethon River is named the "Emma Peel".

    Live-Action TV 
  • The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.: In "Stagecoach", the captured agent is named Emma Steed.
  • The Benny Hill Show: One episode includes a parody of The New Avengers with Benny Hill playing Steed.
  • Doctor Who:
    • "Robot": A scene where Sarah attempts to infiltrate a secret meeting borrows from the Avengers episode "The Mauritius Penny", which was also written by Terrance Dicks. When Harry goes undercover, he's very clearly doing a John Steed impression (and dresses accordingly).
    • "The Seeds of Doom" was heavily inspired by "The Man-Eater of Surrey Green". The episode was written by Robert Banks Stewart, who had written for The Avengers, although not that episode. The Doctor introduces Sarah Jane to the villain as "Miss Smith", rather than "Sarah", which is very reminiscent of Steed and his female associates being on a Last-Name Basis, but isn't usual for the Doctor.
    • "The Crimson Horror", which guest stars Diana Rigg, has a few homages to The Avengers, including the style adopted for Jenny Flint's Action Girl fight scene.
  • Endeavour: "Passenger" revolves around a mysterious disappearance at Noroborough train station, which was also the scene of the shenanigans in the Avengers episode "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Station".
  • During Diana Rigg's appearance in Extras, Daniel Radcliffe asks her if she still has her catsuit from the show.
  • Get Smart: "Run, Robot, Run" features a duo of KAOS saboteurs named Snead and Mrs Neal.
  • Good Eats: In "Flat Is Beautiful": "This is my favorite peel, Emma. You youngsters are just going to have to look that one up."
  • The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries: "Assault on the Tower", in which the Hardies visit England, guest-stars Patrick Macnee as a secret agent known only as S, who is Steed in all but name.
  • The Invisible Man: "A Sense of Community" features a collection of retired secret agents, including an English man with an umbrella who is said to be the in-universe inspiration for John Steed.
  • Leverage:
    • In "The Inside Job", Sophie and Hardison give the aliases Emily Peel and Jonathan Steed when pretending to be auditors.
    • In "The 10 L'il Grifters Job", a scene set at a mystery-story themed costume party includes background characters costumed as Steed and Peel.
  • The Middleman: Wendy's father, like Emma Peel's husband, disappeared in a mysterious and unexplained DC-3 crash. Also, Wendy's Imagine Spot upon being asked to join the Middleman is a pastiche of the Avengers opening credit sequence.
  • Outlander: "Dragonfly in Amber" establishes that a scene is set in the 1960s by showing a television airing an episode of The Avengers.
  • The Prisoner: "The Girl Who Was Death" is a parody of spy shows like The Avengers, and includes a scene homaging the episode "You Have Just Been Murdered".
  • In The Saint episode "The Man who Gambled with Life", Simon Templar's Girl of the Week confesses to having learned fighting skills from television. He later quips, "Keep your voice down, Mrs. Peel".
  • Sherlock's take on Mycroft Holmes was clearly inspired by John Steed - a sharp-dressed government man who carries a weaponised umbrella.
  • VR.5: "Escape" includes a VR environment parodying The Avengers.

    Music 
  • The Pretenders: The band's video for "Don't Get Me Wrong" uses footage from the show, with Chrissie Hynde inserted in as Emma Peel.

    Video Games 
  • Duke Nukem 3D: At one point in the spy-fiction themed level "It's Impossible", an umbrella and a hat can be seen hanging under the sign "Steed".

    Western Animation 

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