Brothers Undercover: Hardy Boys Go Comics

I decided to ease into reading Japanese-style comics through American adaptations of the style--specifically, one of Papercutz's manga-style additions to the Hardy Boys books. This one was called, somewhat ironically, Identity Theft.

In this revamping of the Hardy Boys series (the third major reworking in its history, I believe), Frank and Joe have been granted several attributes that the heroes of adventure comics usually have. They now have secret identities as agents for A.T.A.C. (American Teens Against Crime, but that's a secret). They sky-dive. Joe wears bicycle gloves throughout the adventure, showing how edgy he is.

And the bigger change is in their personalities. When I was a boy, all Hardy Boys books were hardcover novels, and all Hardy boys were alike. Frank was a year older than Joe, but otherwise their characters were the same. Or, as the New York Times noted in 2001, their "personalities...barely extend beyond the color of their hair." (Joe's the blond one.)

Now Failure Magazine reports:

Frank and Joe are now exhibiting stronger and better-differentiated personalities. In the Digest series [started in 1979], "Joe is a bit more impulsive and Frank is described as 'studious,' but the reader can't tell them apart," reminds Gutman. "We're going to exaggerate their personalities. Joe will be younger, hipper, more impulsive and reckless. Frank will be more mature, grounded and perhaps a little nerdy. Think of Joe as Mel Gibson and Frank as Danny Glover from Lethal Weapon."

So basically the Hardy boys are now acting like the Sprouse twins--or at least the version that shows up in their TV show.

Still, I didn't expect them to go all shōnen-ai.

(And in case these new Hardy Boys comics on top of the old books aren't enough, here's a link for clean Hardy Boys fanfiction.)