10 Years Since The Undercover Brothers

[tomswift2002]

I just realized that it's been 10 years since "Movie Mayhem", book 39, the final book in the main series, and the "Deathstalker Trilogy" was released in January, 2012.  There would be one more UB in July 2012 featuring a crossover with the Nancy Drew of the "Girl Detective" series, but the UB's would finish with book 39, and a 40th (The Case of the MyFace Kidnapper) cancelled.

The UB series had debuted early, in April 2005 (copyright shows a June 2005 date but I remember buying the first four books in April 2005 in North Bay, Ontario).  The series was meant as a break and restart from the "The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories" that had been running since 1927.  The final "Mystery Stories" book, #190 'Motocross Madness' had appeared in stores in March 2005 (but had a copyright date of April 2005), putting an end to the longest running and most voluminous Hardy Boys series to date. 

At first, the Undercover Brothers seemed to be a continuation of the "Mystery Stories", with hints in the first four books that the series took place sometime after "Motocross Madness" but this was soon dropped (even in the Graphic Novel series, which started in 2004 with the 3-issue "The Ocean of Osyria" storyline that had no A.T.A.C and was more in style with "Revenge of the Desert Phantom" (1984), Scott Lobdell and  Papercutz had announced plans to tell the story of how and why Fenton Hardy created A.T.A.C, American Teens Against Crime, but it never came) and the series was treated to a number of soft-reboots. 

Unfortunately, because of these soft-reboots and Frank and Joe not remembering events from past UB or MS stories, this very quickly led to no continuity in the series and caused most fans to abandon ship.  Also a lot of fans found that the writing and plots went downhill real fast.  The series seemed to be on life-support from #5 "Rocky Road" onwards.  Most of the plots seemed to be half-baked ideas and fans were angry that the authors never expanded them.  This was fairly evident in what a lot of fans consider the "jumping the shark" book of the series, #6 "Burned" where the Hardy's are investigating a CD Pirate. 
This could've been a large, globe-trotting story for the Hardy's, taking down a worldwide CD Pirating network, similar to what was done in the "Mystery Stories", but no the author turned it into a 'gang of 1' story and it somehow turned out that a local school teacher was managing to get burned CD-R copies of albums into record stores all by themselves without any partners.  Or selling them on the street. (A better story about record pirates had been done on the 1977 Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mystery TV show called "The Mystery of the Flying Courier".). Also a number of the plots were just plain idiotic, such as "Feeding Frenzy" where someone was trying to win a hot-dog eating competition (that was taking place during a football game's half-time show) by killing the other competitors with hot dogs!  No joke, the murder weapon was hot dogs!

That's another major issue the series had: the Gang of 1.  Every book in the series, including the trilogies, had gangs of 1!  Didn't matter how big the crime, it was always (except in the Graphic novels) gangs of 1 committing the crimes!  Sure in the "Mystery Stories" and the "Casefiles" there had been the odd book with the crimes being committed by one person, but it wasn't every single book.  ("The Masked Monkey" & "The Stone Idol" come to mind, where it is one crook.). And in the trilogies this was really stretching credibility, since every book had one criminal, who was operating a part from the other two, taken down in each book.

Speaking of trilogies——the authors of this series clearly had no inkling of what a trilogy was, except for the "Deathstalker" trilogy where someone finally told them how to write a trilogy.  Prior to the Undercover Brothers, the Hardy's had had 3 trilogies: 1 unofficial (Bayport Corruption storyline, Casefiles #8, 16 & 55) and 2 official ("Operation: Phoenix", Casefiles 64-66, Time Bomb (Hardy Boys Tom Swift Ultra Thriller Epilogue; "Ring of Evil", Casefiles 76-78, 80 (epilogue to trilogy)), and a few duologies, but those were far and above the trilogies that we got from the UB's.  The majority of UB trilogies were made up of self-contained stories that were wrapped up, and then right at the end the cliff-hanger to get you to buy the next volume just felt really tacked on, like the author had reached the last page when they remembered that the book was book 1 or 2 in the trilogy and they needed a new thread for the next book, instead of starting a thread earlier in the book and leaving it unresolved.  And these threads were not anything like Fenton Hardy being blown up in a warehouse explosion and Frank and Joe thinking he was dead, or discovering that the Assassins were behind a luggage theft ring.  No this was something like a feather in a bath tub. 

Also with the trilogies, especially the first one "Murder House", that took place on the set of a reality TV show, the author kept introducing new contestants in each book to the "reality show".  Last time I saw a "reality show", the producers were trying to dwindle the number of contestants down so that at the season finale there were only 2 or 3 left. 

Another thing fans found was the characters in the series were always being repeated.  Sure they would have different names or gender (in one book it's a woman in another it's a man), but if the book was set on a reality TV show set, you would always end up with the same actress/actor that was trying to 'redeem' him/herself from a scandal; a loudmouth blogger; a shy person, etc.  The books really felt like cookie-cutter books. 

To date, I still have not finished #18 "Pushed", but that's because it was full of so much talking, which was another major issue that fans didn't like.  The books were mostly stuck at one location, and I touched briefly on this with "Burned", but the Hardy's didn't go anywhere once they were at a location.  If it was a house, sure they might go to different rooms, but you wouldn't see them travel.  If a clue came up regarding, say a suspect's brother in New Mexico, or Ontario, instead of going there, the Hardy's would call ATAC and get them to send another agent to check it out, or the Hardy's would just talk to the other characters to figure out what the clue meant, rather than investigating it.  The UB's were a very talky series with very little actual investigating or adventure.

Now then, getting away from the main series, there were differences for the spin-offs.  The Graphic novels had the Hardy's facing off against the Noir Sisters (who never appeared in the main series) in an ongoing plot line (similar to the Assassins/Network line of the Casefiles).  Most fans considered the Graphic Novels to be the "true" continuity of the Undercover Brothers series, with the main novels being apocryphal.

[tomswift2002]

Then we also saw the UB Hardy's show up in the Nancy Drew computer games, such as "Last Train To Blue Moon Canyon", a game based on the SuperMystery'88 book "Mystery Train" (1990) that never featured the Hardy's with ATAC (the book is from the Casefiles-Files continuity where the Hardy's are part-time Network agents; also it's publication date was 15 years before ATAC debuted).

Then in 2008, the Undercover Brothers were featured in their own PC game "The Hardy Boys: The Hidden Theft".  The game was based on both the original & revised texts of "The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories #1: The Tower Treasure".  None of the events were referenced in the books, unlike the original book that did get referenced a ton over the years.  In 2009 the game was ported to the Wii.
(There was another PC game in 2009, but that seemed to be inspired by the 1950's Disney serials, even using photos of Tim Considine & Tommy Kirk, who had played the Hardy's in those serials , and had a completely different game style, as it was a more "Where's Waldo?" game than a play former like "The Hidden Theft".). The UB Hardy's also appeared in a Nintendo DS game made by Sega.

[MacGyver]

Thanks for the review of that era of Hardy Boys history. While I have disdain for the books themselves (in addition to the reasons you listed, I am also rather dismayed that cursing and taking God's Name in vain was allowed in those books), I do enjoy the graphic novels. That is really the only vestige of the UB series that I have kept in my collection. And though some are better than others, I'm also glad to have Hardy Boys video games now too.

[tomswift2002]

Unfortunately the two vestige that we still have from that era is the first-person narrative and weak plots.  Unfortunately the new "Adventures" also have a lack of action and are still talky-heavy.

I will admit that with the first four UB's, back in 2005, I thought they were refreshing and may've been aiming to reincorporate elements of the early books and Casefiles.  Unfortunately the series grew stale extremely fast. 

And, when you think of it, we got 65 books in 7 years (which is far less than the 164 books we got between January 1987 and December 1994).  But with the "Adventures" we've only got 24 books over 9 years (2013-2022; I'm not counting the reissues of the UB Graphic novels as "Adventure" books, or the new comics). 

[MacGyver]

I will at least give Undercover Brothers credit for trying something different with the writing style. I still think alternating first person narrators is confusing though.

[Raven]

Interesting review. I hardly remember any books in this series. The only trilogy I found myself liking was The Lost Mystery Trilogy (#1: The Children of the Lost; #2: Lost Brother; #3 Forever Lost), and that is a low bar for me. I'm still not liking the first person writing, though.

[VLoneWolf]

Its not my favorite book series.Their ok aren't as good as the other Hardy Boys books   

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

This is the only Hardy Boys series that I own every book in the series for. And, I think I was around the same age as the Hardy's when this series come out...so yeah, it's sort of my favorite. 

[Bigfootman]

I will say, despite being heavily involved in the ATAC vs Network wars a long time ago (Something I find embarassing nowadays), there were more than a few books in the series I really liked. "Murder at the Mall", "Death and Diamonds", and "Extreme Danger" all come to mind.  There was quite a few bad books, like "Rocky Road", "Thrill Ride", and "Hazed", and I just gave up after the second "trilogy".

Although, I heavily prefer the "Girl Detective" series. That changed a lot less, had Nancy finding cases on her own, and the slower plots fit Nancy Drew more. Even the Trilogies were better.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

I will say, despite being heavily involved in the ATAC vs Network wars a long time ago (Something I find embarrassing nowadays), there were more than a few books in the series I liked. "Murder at the Mall", "Death and Diamonds", and "Extreme Danger" all come to mind.  There were quite a few bad books, like "Rocky Road", "Thrill Ride", and "Hazed", and I just gave up after the second "trilogy".

Although, I heavily prefer the "Girl Detective" series. That changed a lot less, had Nancy finding cases on her own, and the slower plots fit Nancy Drew more. Even the Trilogies were better.

The Nancy Drew Girl Detective wasn't as good as the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers, in my opinion. Arglefumph Reads has most of the reviews for the series on his YouTube channel. He's got really good points. Nancy Drew's first book in the series left much to be desired.

[tomswift2002]

The Nancy Drew Girl Detective wasn't as good as the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers, in my opinion. Arglefumph Reads has most of the reviews for the series on his YouTube channel. He's got really good points. Nancy Drew's first book in the series left much to be desired.

I read that one around 2005.  That plot felt much like the newer Hardy Boys Adventures where the plots are Grade 2 reader level plots (I.e Nancy Drew Notebooks/Hardy Boys Are The Clue Brothers), since that was the Nancy Drew book where she had to find out who destroyed a neighbor's zucchini garden.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

I read that one around 2005.  That plot felt much like the newer Hardy Boys Adventures where the plots are Grade 2 reader level plots (I.e Nancy Drew Notebooks/Hardy Boys Are The Clue Brothers) since that was the Nancy Drew book where she had to find out who destroyed a neighbor's zucchini garden.

The zucchini garden plot was really bad!

[tomswift2002]

The zucchini garden plot was really bad!

It's hard to understand how that book reached #113 on the USA Today Top 150 list and even landed on the New York Times Bestsellers list.  It was most likely because of the 99 cent introductory price and just curiosity.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

It's hard to understand how that book reached #113 on the USA Today Top 150 list and even landed on the New York Times Bestsellers list.  It was most likely because of the 99 cent introductory price and just curiosity.

At least the Hardy Boys first book was better then that was!

[tomswift2002]

At least the Hardy Boys first book was better then that was!

That book seemed to be an extension of the Mystery Stories, along with the first four books, but set a while after Motocross Madness.