Undercover Brothers doesn't fit into Hardy Boys continualty!

[Bigfootman]

After thinking about Undercover Brother and Casefiles and wondering how they fit with the other series I relized my problem: Undercover Brother dosen't fit! The problems:

ATAC
The problem with ATAC is that it appeared out of nowhere. Intendity Theft was suppoed to show how ATAC started, but didn't, leaving fans screathing their heads. While we don't know how the Network started, we do know how Frank and Joe started working for them.

Now I'll be qouting from SDLagent:

"1) Continuity
The continuity is very bad in the series, so much so that has even been referred to as more then one continuity.  A good example of just how bad it is can be found in the director of ATAC, Q.T. or Q (the two names even are an example) - in one book it says that Q never smiles but then in Mission #12, the Hardys? mission CD starts off with the beaming face of Q. And even worse Q or Q.T. or what ever his name is, has recently disappeared from the series, to be replaced by the nameless ATAC contact(s).

And remember that is just one example, I could go on and on, talking about how there are no recurring characters other then the few introduced in Mission #1 and Vijay Petal, and the inconsistencies in the characters, and the fact that Belinda Conrad has all but disappeared from the series, but I won't.

And that was just the within series continuity problems, I haven?t even started on the problems there is trying to fit the UB in with the rest of the Hardy World?   

2) The boys' personality
Most of the time Frank and Joe are almost unrecognizable, they don't get along like they do in other series, and they act a lot younger! Also, Frank is NOT a idiot around girls, and Joe is the chick magnet not Frank! This is part of what I was talking about at the end of point #1, the UB just don?t go with the rest of the Hardy World!

3) Nothing changes
All Hardy Boys series have used a flouting timeline but this is just over kill ? nothing changes! In the Casefiles and even in the early originals the series evolved, and events took place that gave a sense of the passage of time, but in the Undercover Brothers you can pick up book #1 or book #22, and it won't make a difference. In book one Frank and Joe have ''gone on many missions for ATAC'', and in #22 they have ''gone on many missions for ATAC'', whereas in the originals, in the first books they are new to detective, but as the series goes on they become experienced, and in the first Casefiles, they are just starting in their fight against terrorism, but towards the end it seems they have been at it longer.

To give you a good idea how little change there is in the Undercover Brothers, from almost the very first appearance of Vijay Petal, the Hardys have been pushing for him to become a field agent, but almost 20 books later nothing has happened and Vijay is still a trainee. I'm sure if this was the Casefiles, he would have become a full undercover by now."

These are some of the reasons why while you can put the Casefiles in the Hardy Boys Cannon (they take after the digests), putting UB in the cannon you just get a headake

[SDLagent]

Yeah, I wouldn't dislike the UB so much if they fit in with the rest of the Hardy Boys.

And that was just the within series continuity problems, I haven?t even started on the problems there is trying to fit the UB in with the rest of the Hardy World?

But maybe I should.

A) ATAC. Where did it come from where does it fit in in the timeline? Is it before or after the Casefiles? It can't be after because Iola is alive, and yet it can't be before because the Hardys were amateur detectives when the Casefiles started. Was ATAC founded and then closed down between the Original/Digests? No, it wasn't because in the UB Frank and Joe have been working for ATAC for a few years and have been on 100s of missions, and it seems only a few weeks have past since the end of the Digest era when the Casefiles start. Also what happened to their friends at ATAC, like Vijay?

B) The Hardy boys personalities are totally changed. Calm and cool Frank is now a total unsecured goof when he is around a female between the ages of 13 and 30. Chick magnet Joe can't buy a date.

C) The Hardys' chums. Where are Tony, Biff, Phil and the rest of the gang? Why aren't Frank and Joe dating Callie and Iola? If this is after the Casefiles where's Vanessa?

D) Trudy. Why is Gertrude calling herself Trudy? Because of Hurricane Gertrude, you say? That doesn't make any sense since that hurricane happened years ago and if that was the case she would have gone by Trudy in her first appearance. What about the contradicting reason in Graphic Novel #2? Maybe the UB does take place after every thing else, so she gets the name after...and in the mean time has moved out and is moving back in. Yeah right!

E) Fenton Hardy is retired in the UB yet in the Casefiles he is an active PI, so the only way this works out is if the UB take place after. As mentioned above they can't since Iola is alive. Also Fenton's past is different, in the Casefiles his partner on the NYPD was Sam Peterson, but in the UB it was Jake Johanson.

F) Laura Hardy is a research librarian in the UB, yet is a stay at home mom in all the others.

G) WARD. Only slightly more probable then point A, appears this far down on the list simply because the Hardys don't come in contact with WARD as they do ATAC.

H) Where's Playback in the other books?

You could S&S mess up the HB continuity so much?

[Bigfootman]

Correct, and no one can earse Casefiles from Hardy Boys cannon, because they fit in so well, here's why:
1. Digests
We know the Casefiles started with the 2 digests Revenge Of The Desert Phantom and the Skyfire Puzzle, and sence those are cannon, the casefiles must be too. Later on, when the series ended, The Crisscross Crime and Training For Trouble were made into digests. So unlike Undercover Brothers, Casefiles connects with the digests perfectly.
2. Blue Spines
The casefile's universe also fits with the Bluespines. Mr. Applegate is mentioned in Cold Sweat. And almost all the charicters personlys have stayed the same. Needless to say the same can NOT be said about Undercover Brothers.

You see the Casefiles fit better into the cannon then UB, and since only one can fit in without casuing problems, Casefiles suits the job the best. Meanwhile, we can just forgot about UBs and pry S and S learns from their mistakes.

[tomswift2002]

Plus, you have to ask yourself, if the Undercover Brothers took place before the Casefiles, then why would the Gray Man not know about ATAC and the fact that the Hardy's were agents for this "other" top-secret organization?  The Gray Man probably knew about their involvement with SKOOL and the FBI and CIA in the Originals/Digests. 

Of course, one could say that from the Gray Man's comment in Dead On Target about Mr. Gray knowing the Hardy's father that might mean that Fenton and the Gray Man worked to establish ATAC in the past, but now he doesn't remember it??  Or it could also mean that the Gray Man worked with Fenton Hardy years earlier on a case that Fenton Hardy was brought in on by the FBI or the CIA or another government organization that was also working with the Network, and had no connection to ATAC.

I also agree on how the stories in the UB tend to be stuck at one point in time.  It's like the Hardy's are stuck in one day and they are solving like 200,000 cases in that same day.  But, I think to the Casefiles, specifically the Ring Of Evil trilogy.  I believe the author mentions the three books of the trilogy taking place in like July or August, and then when you get to Casefiles #80 Dead Of Night, on the first page Frank mentions that it is about 9 a.m. on October 31st, Hallowe'en day. That sure shows that the Hardy's had enough time to solve Danger Unlimited and a little down time, since the main part of the trilogy ended in the summer while the epilogue to the trilogy doesn't start till 9 a.m. October 31st, nearly 2 months after.

[Bigfootman]

It seems that the ATAC fans don't have anything to say about this....

[SDLagent]

Of course there is a few inconsistencies, like the Hardys van, but other then that the Casefiles fit really well with the Original continuity.

In-universe time line:
Original
Digest
Casefiles
SuperMystery '88
Ultra Thriller

UB in-universe timeline:
Graphic Novel
Undercover Brothers
Super Mystery '07

[tomswift2002]

Of course, Time Bomb is the one main universe book that doesn't fit in in time, since the majority of that books plot was erased when Tom told Reseinbach not to do his test the way he had originally done it.

[bozonessinc]

There just a couple a serieses with the same charachters and storyline!

[tomswift2002]

No, the barely have the same characters and there is no storyline in the Undercover Brothers series.

[bozonessinc]

atac=storyline

[SDLagent]

What storyline?

[Bigfootman]

atac=storyline

So a bunch of random nonsence is a storyline?

[tomswift2002]

I didn't even know that there was nonsense in the UB books?  I thought that it was a bunch of gibberish.

[Bigfootman]

atac=non sense

[bozonessinc]

The story line of the Undercover Brothers Series is the same through/out the ATAC books I mean if you want to say there is none say that. Do you not know what remains the same in every book? The same, is that its always an ATAC mission, theres always somebody starting a mission, thats the storyline, most other serieses are just the same charachters throughout but every book is way different, ATAC series stays mostly the same, so I guess you could say change would be nice, and thats why theres trilogys, I think they want to give us some change.