007
SPY FILES COLLECTABLE CARD GAME (GE-Fabbri)
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Release
Date |
January
2002 |
Set Configuration:
150 Base Cards
10 Joker cards
10 Cards per pack
32 Magazines
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In
January 2002 a brand new James Bond magazine popped up at the local
book stores. “007 Spy Files” magazine was issued as a
run-up to the new James Bond movie “Die Another Day”.
The content of the new 007 magazine was aiming to the younger James
Bond fans in the age between 8 and 14. Each magazine was packed with
pictures showing gadgets, cars, allies, villains, Bond girls and all kinds
of spy things to teach the youngsters in how to become a spy. The
retail price for the first magazine was £0,99 about 1,5€
at the time, following magazines would be issued every fortnight at
a retail price of £1,99 or about 3€. The idea behind this
first issue being sold for less is simple mass marketing, it is thought
by companies who sell this type of part magazine that the first issue
is the pull in and each issue after this will sell less, with around
ten or so issues in it’s pulled from shops and sold as a print
on demand subscription basis. Each magazine contained 24 colour pages
and a wrapper pack containing 10 collectable game cards. The beautiful
designed 007 gifts that came as a bonus with the first three issues
were something to look out for. A first gift came in the shape of
a small tin box embossed with the 007 Gunlogo, the tin box could be
used to collect your spare or double cards so you could trade them
at the school yard. The second bonus was a hardboard magazine holder,
the magazine holder was finished in a shiny silver colour depicting
the 007 Gunlogo surrounded with bullet holes. What everybody was waiting
for was that third issue, here the bonus was again a tin box but bigger
in size to hold all the 160 cards.
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"Small
Tin Card Box" |
"Spy
Files Magazine Holder" |
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"Tin Collectors
Box with 007 logo"
There was 32 spy files magazines,
enough to get about two sets and if lucky a few jokers. Inside the
tin box was divided in five parts, one part for each card category.
All these wonderful 007 items were manufactured by GE Fabbri. When
one took out a magazine subscription, a “007 Spy Files Recorder
Pen” was given as bonus free gift. A real 007 spy gadget, the
spy pen was able to record and replay recorded conversations. A
gadget that came straight out of Q’s laboratory.
"Digital Recording Pen"
It
was a while ago, but this time it was really collecting and swapping
cards just like we use to do at the schools playground in the sixties.
The collectable game card set was divided into five different categories;
“Allies”, “Locations”, “Q-Branch”,
“Vehicles” and “Villains”, each category holding
30 cards and two holographic joker cards. This time there was no possibility
to buy a complete box, as the cards were only issued with magazines.
Fans soon became aware that each issue had almost the same cards,
so buying double issues to speed up the collection became a waste
of time but all in all collecting the 150 base cards went quiet quickly.
The joker cards were another matter, issued only in limited numbers
in each issues print run they became very rare and very soon they
became a big request on eBay, sometimes offered for 5 to 6€ per
card. The cards were beautiful manufactured, but on many cards the
picture was out of centre. For the die-hard collectors this developed
a huge amount of misprints (see additional variation checklist). Today the cards and all the accessories
are offered on eBay and memorabilia markets for very interesting prices.
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Second
Issue “007 Spy Files” |
Third
Issue “007 Spy Files” |
The magazine
was packed with spy information and many different puzzles. To solve
the puzzles you needed special decoding lenses. The lenses came as
a bonus with the first magazine. They were packed in a silver envelope
embossed with the 007 Gunlogo.
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"Special
Decoding Lenzes & Cards" |
Issued
with magazine number three there were five checklist or divider cards,
one card for each category and one card to explain the game rules.
These cards were a little higher than the actual game cards and could
be used as dividers inside the big tin box. Within the last magazine
there was an order form to obtain your missing cards, including the
joker cards, because of this special service I was able to compose
a second set.
"Divider Cards & Game Rules"
There
is in fact two versions of this card set producing a number of different
cards. Three months before the official release GE Fabbri tried out
the set in one county of the UK, this produced a number of cards with
the front picture being on the back of the card and the back picture
of the card being on the front. Some cards had different pictures
or reframed pictures, one or two cards went thru re-text information,
and all of the cards in this first limited run have a different copyright
year. These cards are to be considered very rare.
It appears to me that some of the variations are minor cropping differences of no real interest although some are significant cropping.
Other involve significantly different pictures, sometimes due to cropping and other times a different picture altogether. This can be the front which contains the description & number, or the back - where full size picture is.
It appears that most if not all of the "errors" involving different pictures on the front or back of the cards involve different copyright years. For example Allies #06 where one variation has a picture of Honey Ryder on the back and another variation has the same image although reduced in size so that James Bond also appears. Similarly Vehicles #12 which is the same image but cropped & moved edgeways significantly enough to produce a "different" image. For both the copyright years are different so the 2001 version is likely to be from the test series and 2002 from the main series. Similarly Allies #02 has two completely different images on the back, Vehicles #06 which has two completely different images on the back and different cropped images on the front. Again both show different copyright years. There are some cards that have variations that are both dated 2002. I assumed all cards dated from 2001 are test, and have identified a few variations between some 2002 cards that do not seem to be test variations (due to their copyright dating). There is also a variation for Joker Card: The Big Bang. There is a very rare variant with a dark blue reverse, in the style of the Villains Joker Cards. I assume it was a printing error. Some examples are shown here below.
The advertising pamphlet which came with the magazine indicated that there were "special edition" cards. I assume this came with the 2002 magazine but cannot be sure but I doubt it was from the test series. See the pamphlet here below, on the bottom right hand corner under "Agent Warning", it shows a card I have never seen. I assume it could be the - Location -- Joker card showing the Piz Gloria mountain resort on the top of the Schilthorn, (it is Blofeld's clinical research institute) as depicted in the 1969 On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Consequently I would now suggest that there are 5 special edition Joker cards that were issued in the test series (classified as variations) and these would be Q Branch and Allies.
In 2016 it came to my knowledge that the same magazines were issued in Poland. The picture here below showing magazine N°. 2 in their own language.
"Magazine N°. 2 issued in Poland."
"Allies"
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01 |
02 |
03 |
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04 |
05 |
06 |
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07 |
08 |
09 |
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010 |
011 |
012 |
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013 |
014 |
015 |
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016 |
017 |
018 |
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019 |
020 |
021 |
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022 |
023 |
024 |
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025 |
026 |
027 |
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028 |
029 |
030 |
"Locations"
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01 |
02 |
03 |
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04 |
05 |
06 |
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07 |
08 |
09 |
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010 |
011 |
012 |
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013 |
014 |
015 |
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016 |
017 |
018 |
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019 |
020 |
021 |
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022 |
023 |
024 |
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025 |
026 |
027 |
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028 |
029 |
030 |
"Q Branch"
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01 |
02 |
03 |
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04 |
05 |
06 |
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07 |
08 |
09 |
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010 |
011 |
012 |
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013 |
014 |
015 |
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016 |
017 |
018 |
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019 |
020 |
021 |
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022 |
023 |
024 |
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025 |
026 |
027 |
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028 |
029 |
030 |
"Vehicles"
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01 |
02 |
03 |
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04 |
05 |
06 |
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07 |
08 |
09 |
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010 |
011 |
012 |
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013 |
014 |
015 |
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016 |
017 |
018 |
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019 |
020 |
021 |
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022 |
023 |
024 |
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025 |
026 |
027 |
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028 |
029 |
030 |
"Villains"
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01 |
02 |
03 |
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04 |
05 |
06 |
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07 |
08 |
09 |
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010 |
011 |
012 |
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013 |
014 |
015 |
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016 |
017 |
018 |
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019 |
020 |
021 |
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022 |
023 |
024 |
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025 |
026 |
027 |
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028 |
029 |
030 |
As James Bond, GE
Fabbri will return in 2007 with another James Bond collectable
card game. More details and information on this set are in a special chapter
on the “007 Spy Cards Commander Set”.
| Check
List: |
| "Allies"
Base Cards |
[ ] 01 James Bond
[ ] 02 Original M
[ ] 03 Moneypenny
[ ] 04 Q
[ ] 05 Felix Leiter
[ ] 06 Honey Rider
[ ] 07 Tatiana Romanova
[ ] 08 Kerim Bey
[ ] 09 Pussy Galore
[ ] 10 Tiger Tanaka
[ ] 11 Kissy Suzuki
[ ] 12 Tracy di Vincenzo
[ ] 13 Solitaire
[ ] 14 Sheriff J W Pepper
[ ] 15 General Gogol |
[ ] 16 Anya Amasova
[ ] 17 Milos Columbo
[ ] 18 Octopussy
[ ] 19 General Pushkin
[ ] 20 Kamran Shah
[ ] 21 Pam Bouvier
[ ] 22 Current M
[ ] 23 Bill Tanner
[ ] 24 Jack Wade
[ ] 25 Valentin Zukovsky
[ ] 26 Natalya Simonova
[ ] 27 Charles Robinson
[ ] 28 Wai Lin
[ ] 29 Q’s assistant
[ ] 30 Dr Christmas Jones |
| |
| "Allies"
Joker Cards |
[ ] Dropping In To Help
[ ] Leap Of Faith |
| |
| "Locations"
Base Cards |
[ ] 01 Crab Key
[ ] 02 SPECTRE tr. School
[ ] 03 Auric Enterprises
[ ] 04 Fort Knox
[ ] 05 Shrublands
[ ] 06 Palmyra
[ ] 07 Volcano Lair
[ ] 08 Piz Gloria
[ ] 09 Draco’s estate
[ ] 10 Baja oil rig
[ ] 11 Crocodile farm
[ ] 12 Dr Kananga’s lair
[ ] 13 House of Fun
[ ] 14 Atlantis
[ ] 15 Amazon Temple HQ |
[ ] 16 Space station
[ ] 17 St Cyril’s monastery
[ ] 18 Monsoon Palace
[ ] 19 The Eiffel Tower
[ ] 20 Golden Gate Bridge
[ ] 21 Brad Whitaker’s HQ
[ ] 22 Olimpatec Centre
[ ] 23 Arkangel Facility
[ ] 24 Severnaya Base
[ ] 25 Janus headquarters
[ ] 26 Printing works
[ ] 27 Wai Lin’s armoury
[ ] 28 Caviar factory
[ ] 29 The Maiden’s Tower
[ ] 30 MI6 headquarters |
| |
| "Locations"
Joker Cards |
[ ] Snow Go Area
[ ] Party Animal |
| |
| "Vehicles"
Base Cards |
[ ] 01 The Dragon Tank
[ ] 02 Aston Martin DB5
[ ] 03 Rolls Royce
[ ] 04 Lockheed Jet Star
[ ] 05 BSA Lightning bike
[ ] 06 The Disco Volante
[ ] 07 Little Nellie
[ ] 08 Bird 1
[ ] 09 Bathosub
[ ] 10 Double-decker bus
[ ] 11 AMC Matador
[ ] 12 Lotus Esprit
[ ] 13 The Liparus
[ ] 14 Speedboat gondola
[ ] 15 Glastron speedboat |
[ ] 16 Moonraker
[ ] 17 The Neptune
[ ] 18 The Acrostar
[ ] 19 Union Jack Balloon
[ ] 20 Zorin Industries' airship
[ ] 21 Aston Martin Volante
[ ] 22 BMW Z3 Roadster
[ ] 23 Russian tank
[ ] 24 ICBM carrier train
[ ] 25 BMW 750iL
[ ] 26 BMW R1200 motorbike
[ ] 27 The Stealth Ship
[ ] 28 The Q Boat
[ ] 29 BMW Z8
[ ] 30 Parahawk |
| |
| "Vehicles"
Joker Cards |
[ ] Air Raising
[ ] Motor Mayhem |
| |
| "Villains"
Base Cards |
[ ] 01 Dr Julius No
[ ] 02 Ernst Stavro Blofeld
[ ] 03 Red Grant
[ ] 04 Rosa Klebb
[ ] 05 Auric Goldfinger
[ ] 06 Oddjob
[ ] 07 Emilio Largo
[ ] 08 Fiona Volpe
[ ] 09 Irma Bunt
[ ] 10 Dr Kananga
[ ] 11 Tee Hee
[ ] 12 Baron Samedi
[ ] 13 Francisco Scaramanga
[ ] 14 Nick Nack
[ ] 15 Karl Stromberg |
[ ] 16 Jaws
[ ] 17 Hugo Drax
[ ] 18 Aris Kristatos
[ ] 19 General Orlov
[ ] 20 Kamal Khan
[ ] 21 Max Zorin
[ ] 22 May Day
[ ] 23 Georgi Koskov
[ ] 24 Franz Sanchez
[ ] 25 Alec Trevelyan
[ ] 26 Xenia Onatopp
[ ] 27 Elliot Carver
[ ] 28 Dr Kaufman
[ ] 29 Elektra King
[ ] 30 Renard |
| |
| "Villains"
Joker Cards |
[ ] Fight Fright
[ ] Double Jeopardy |
| |
| "Q-
Branch" Base Cards |
[ ] 01 Walther PPK
[ ] 02 Q Branch briefcase
[ ] 03 Flick knife shoes
[ ] 04 Garotte watch
[ ] 05 Razor-trimmed bowler
[ ] 06 Bell jet pack
[ ] 07 Safe-cracking copier
[ ] 08 Buzz-saw watch
[ ] 09 Golden gun
[ ] 10 Blade-edged tea tray
[ ] 11 Metal fangs
[ ] 12 Wrist dart gun
[ ] 13 Spiked umbrella
[ ] 14 Yo-yo buzz saw
[ ] 15 Acid fountain pen |
[ ] 16 Poisoned butterfly
[ ] 17 Keyring finder
[ ] 18 Exploding bottles
[ ] 19 Ghetto blaster
[ ] 20 Explosive toothpaste
[ ] 21 Grenade pen
[ ] 22 Airbag phone box
[ ] 23 Plaster cast missile
[ ] 24 Laser watch
[ ] 25 Walther P99
[ ] 26 Remote control phone
[ ] 27 Sea-Vac
[ ] 28 Inflatable ski suit
[ ] 29 X-ray glasses
[ ] 30 Walking stick gun |
| |
| "Q-
Branch" Joker Cards |
[ ] Lab Locations
[ ] The Big Bang |
| |
| Collectable
Gadgets |
[ ] Small tin box with
007 Logo
[ ] Big size tin box with 007 Logo
[ ] Hard board collectors map
[ ] 007 Spy Files Recorder Pen (subscribers only)
[ ] Silver Envelope with decoding lenses |
| Variations & Extra Joker Cards Check
List: |
| "Allies" |
[ ] 02 Cropped differently on front/ Completely different image on the back: TEST
[ ] 05 Cropped differently on front and text change: TEST
[ ] 06 Completely different image on back/ Cropped differently on front: TEST
[ ] 09 Completely different images on front and back: TEST
[ ] 13 Cropped differently on front: TEST
[ ] 20 Cropped differently on front: TEST and NON-TEST (Only NON-TEST has cropping variation; TEST identical to more common national version)
[ ] 24 Completely different on front: TEST
[ ] 26 Completely different on back: TEST
[ ] 30 Completely different on front: TEST |
| |
| "Allies"
Extra Joker Card |
| [ ] Never believed to be released |
| |
| "Locations"
|
[ ] 01 Cropped differently image on front: TEST (Could be rarer NON-TEST Var. matching TEST cropping)
[ ] 02 Completely different image on front/Cropped differently on back: TEST
[ ] 07 Completely different image on front: TEST
[ ] 10 Completely different image on front: TEST
[ ] 11 Completely different image on back: TEST
[ ] 14 Completely different image on back: TEST
[ ] 16 Completely different image on back: TEST
[ ] 17 Completely different image on back: TEST
[ ] 24 Completely different image on back: TEST
[ ] 25 Completely different images on front and back: TEST
[ ] 28 Completely different image on back: TEST |
| |
| "Locations"
Extra Joker Card |
| [ ] Great Escapes: TEST |
| |
| "Vehicles" |
[ ] 01 Completely different image on front: TEST
[ ] 06 Completely different image on front/ image cropped differently on back: TEST
[ ] 10 Completely different images on front and back: TEST
[ ] 11 Completely different images on front and back: TEST
[ ] 12 Completely different image on back: TEST
[ ] 15 Completely different images on front and back: TEST
[ ] 16 Completely different images on front and back: TEST
[ ] 19 Completely different images on front and back: TEST
[ ] 23 Completely different image on front: TEST
[ ] 28 Cropped differently on front/ Completely different image on the back: TEST
[ ] 30 Completely different image on back: TEST |
| |
| "Vehicles"
Extra Joker Card |
| [ ] Chases And Races: TEST |
| |
| "Villains" |
[ ] 02 Completely different images on front and back: TEST
[ ] 06 Completely different image on back: TEST
[ ] 08 Cropped differently on front: NON-TEST (No TEST card as far as I know; but could be with exaggerated cropping)
[ ] 11 Cropped differently on front: NON-TEST and TEST (TEST Var. has same cropping as rarer National Release Var.)
[ ] 12 Completely different image on the back: TEST
[ ] 13 Cropped differently on front: NON-TEST and TEST (TEST Var. has same cropping as rarer National Release Var.)
[ ] 14 Cropped differently on front & sometimes missing name on front: NON-TEST and TEST (TEST has same cropping as spelling error 2002 Var)
[ ] 15 Cropped differently on front/ Completely different image on the back: NON-TEST and TEST (TEST Var. has same cropping as rarer National Release Var; only TEST has different image on reverse)
[ ] 16 Cropped differently on front: NON-TEST and TEST (TEST Var. has same cropping as rarer National Release Var.)
[ ] 21 Cropped differently on front: UNKNOWN (Could be TEST and/or NON-TEST; no current known NON-TEST variation examples)
[ ] 24 Cropped differently on front: NON-TEST and TEST (TEST Var. has same cropping as rarer National Release Var.)
[ ] 25 Completely different image on front: TEST
[ ] 29 Cropped differently on front: NON-TEST and TEST (TEST Var. has same cropping as rarer National Release Var.) |
| |
| "Villains"
Extra Joker Card |
| [ ] Fall Guys: TEST |
| |
| "Q-
Branch" |
[ ] 03 Cropped differently on front: TEST (Could be rarer NON-TEST Var. matching TEST cropping)
[ ] 08 Cropped differently on front: NON-TEST (No visible differences in cropping with TEST Var.)
[ ] 09 Completely different images on front and back: TEST
[ ] 12 Cropped differently on front: TEST (Could be rarer NON-TEST Var. matching TEST cropping)
[ ] 15 Completely different image on back / text on the front: TEST
[ ] 19 Cropped differently on front: : TEST (Could be rarer NON-TEST Var. matching TEST cropping)
[ ] 20 Cropped differently on front/ text change: NON-TEST and TEST (TEST Var. has text change; NON-TEST Var. has unique cropping)
[ ] 25 Cropped differently on front: TEST
[ ] 27 Completely different image on back: TEST |
| |
| "Q-
Branch" Extra Joker Card |
| [ ] Never believed to be released |
| |
| Summary: |
| "TEST List " |
Allies: 01, 02, 05, 06, 09, 13, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 30
Locations: 01, 02, 07, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 24, 25, 28 (+ Joker)
Vehicles: 01, 06, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 19, 23, 28, 30 (+ Joker)
Villains: 02, 06, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 21, 24, 25, 29 (+ Joker)
Q-Branch: 03, 08, 09, 12, 15, 16, 19, 20, 24, 25, 27
2002 Cards with Two Variations List:
Allies: 20
Locations: N/A
Vehicles: N/A
Villains: 08, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 21, 24, 29
Q-Branch: 08, 20 |
Special Thanks to Joseph Watchorn for providing information to update the checklist |
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