Origin
The eponymous hero of Dark Horse’s lighthearted espionage series is Alex Fleming, a teenage boy who leads a mundane yet hapless life. Within him however there exists a sleeper persona called “Spyboy”, the result of a clandestine project to create the world’s most capable, deadly, and effective secret agent and intelligence operative. Alex remained unaware of his alter ego for most of his life until a mysterious woman named Bombshell approached him and activated his SpyBoy persona.
Since then, SpyBoy has become a reluctant agent of Bombshell’s employer, S.H.I.R.T.S while Alex struggles to maintain a normal life, and to prove himself useful while feeling overwhelmed by his far more capable, yet pitiless alter ego.
Creation
Although the idea of a teenage super spy was originally conceived by Dark Horse Comics, the concept was actually extensively rewritten and developed by Peter David.
History
What if you were a master martial artist, a brilliant athlete, an astounding acrobat, and a dazzling marksman with any weapon? What if you were able to wield the most sophisticated technology and pilot the most complicated vehicles with perfect ease? What if you were a cool and unemotional killer with a witty and dashing riposte for every situation? You’d be the perfect living weapon. The perfect spy. Able to out-Bond even 007. Who wouldn’t want to be that cool?
Alex Fleming always did.
He was a rather ordinary 15 year old teenager who lived a rather dull ordinary life with his widower father, Sean and his disabled grandfather. He wasn’t athletic or popular or smart or even cool. He was the kid who got his head shoved in the toilet by the school bully. He dreamed of one day being able to stand up for himself, of being faster, of being stronger, of being capable of fighting anyone and beating them with ease.
And then he discovered that his entire life was a carefully constructed lie. He wasn’t really Alex Fleming. Well, that was the name that he had grown up withâbut it wasn’t the one he had been born with.
His father, Sean Moore had been a secret agent for S.H.I.R.T.S, the Secret Headquarters International Reconnaissance, Tactics, and Spies just like his father before him. Then he got married to a fellow agent, Anita Little and two years later, they had Alex. Then things went terribly wrong.
Anita was killed on a mission by the villain known as Annie Mae and Sean’s father, George was left paralyzed. Sean quit S.H.I.R.T.S and his life collapsed. Soon afterwards, at the lowest point of his life, he met Professor Pfizer and agreed to let him conduct an experiment on Alex to turn him into an experimental test subject known as “SpyBoy” for a secret clandestine organization of assassins known as S.K.I.N.S (the Supreme Killing Institute).
His grandfather George got Sean mentally back together and they kidnapped the infant Alex back and tried to raise him, in secret and under the radar of the S.H.I.R.T.S. and S.K.I.N.S by being as perfectly ordinary and as boring as possible.
Then one day, the sleeper persona of SpyBoy “woke” up. A totally ruthless, vicious, utterly remorseless agent who promptly proceeded to destroy the would-be bullies that tormented Alex Fleming. His activities however alerted both S.H.I.R.T.S. and S.K.I.N.S. to SpyBoy’s presence and they quickly moved to try and acquire him once more.
With their cover blown and their location exposed, Sean reluctantly agreed that Alex needed the help and assistance that only S.H.I.R.T.S could provide in exchange for SpyBoy performing the occasional mission for the organization and became partners with S.H.I.R.T.S’ agent Bombshell and the assistance of their allies SpyGirl and Butch Moody.
Trivia
Spyboy’s alter ego, Alex Fleming was named in homage after Ian Fleming who was the creator and original author of the James Bond novels. His family’s real name of Moore is derived from Roger Moore who not only portrayed James Bond in several films as well as played the titular character of Simon Templar in ” The Saint”.