[In Octopussy] Commander James Bond, British Secret Service Agent 007, shows himself to be the dove some of us had long suspected. Dispatched by his frosty-eyed chief, "M," to Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin to kill a Soviet sniper. Bond disobeys for sentimental reasons….

Without further question, Bond now joins the knightly company of story-book heroes. All of them are athletic, daring and handsomely virile, but their chief mark of distinction is that their patron saint is George and they chivalrously spend much of their time saving pretty girls from dragons of one kind or another. That, in essence, is what Bond does in his last adventure, at Checkpoint Charlie.

Probably there should never have been any doubts about Bond being a true-blue hero…. Nevertheless, Fleming, presumably deliberately, caused many readers to confuse Bond with the currently more prevalent anti-hero. Fleming did this by two devices. He supplied Bond with a different girl in every story, instead of a steady; and he had Bond treat her more like a whore than a heroine. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service the heroine actually gets bumped off, and in Live And Let Die she commits suicide. More than once Bond disgustedly describes his Secret Service missions as dirty as well as dangerous.

Fleming was keen to be "in." He wanted to be the best-seller he became, and he knew the vogue was for tough anti-heroes who would sooner bash a girl's face in than go to bed with her. But Bond, though he is a tough dove, is never a tough. He is quick on the draw, drives fast cars, kills villains, but all the stories imply what the last one spells out: Shooting girls just isn't his style….

Bond may be as well-known as Tarzan. This is encouraging to those of us who've never accepted the anti-hero, with his lousy manners and false hair on his chest. Does anybody really admire Mike Hammer? What's good about a Tarzan who tosses the girl to the cheetah instead of saving her from it? But a problem arises. Who will take Bond's place? There are disconcertingly few other story-book heroes around any more, and some of the best are getting pretty long in the tooth….

Does this mean the stage will soon be empty of heroes and dominated by hawks, who at the word of command will eagerly proceed to Berlin or any other checkpoint, to bump off any number of girls and the prettier the better? Or is there, somewhere, a new Bond getting ready to jump out of somebody's typewriter, to thwart the villains and save the heroine? If there is, may his adventures match the courage of the late Ian Fleming….