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IXE-13. IXE-13 was created by “Pierre Saurel,” the pseudonym of the Canadian author Pierre Daignault (Jean Lecoq), and appeared in the Quebeçois pulp Les Aventures Etranges de L'Agent IXE-13, L'As des Espions Canadiens #1-960 (1940-1967).

IXE-13 is actually John Thibault. In 1938 he was 25 years old, built like a colossus, handsome as a devil, and one of Canada's best tennis players, but he renounces all of that to pursue his academic studies. But the following year Canada declares war on Germany and Thibault takes the exams for Canada's spy service. He passes them with flying colors, is given the code name IXE-13, and goes to England, where he begins his first mission. What follows is an unbroken record of success, fame, and glory for IXE-13, who defeats, during the war, the Germans, Italians, and Japanese, and then after the war defeats Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese and Cuban Communists around the world, on every continent and seemingly in every country. IXE-13 also takes on German war criminals who escaped the fall of Nazi Germany. IXE-13 even gets involved in science fictional adventures, taking on death-ray-wielding Mad Scientists and even going off-planet. In the 1960s he becomes very Bond-like, but before that he is more on the lines of a typical pulp spy.

IXE-13 is a man of many talents. He eventually becomes a Captain in the Canadian Secret Service, but he has great success working for the United Nations. He is the "number one enemy of the Communists." He can speak French, English, Italian, German, Russian, and Chinese. He is a crack shot and ace pilot. But he is unlucky in love, loving and losing any number of women due to accidents and murder. His cast of friends and enemies is colorful and varied. Marius Lamouche is the hulking Secret Service Captain who is IXE-13's right arm and accompanies him on nearly every mission. Roxanne Racicot, later Marius Lamouche's wife, is also a member of the Secret Service and almost always accompanies IXE-13 and Marius on their missions. Gisèle Tuboeuf is agent T-4 for the Deuxieme Bureau in France. She is pretty, and as capable as IXE-13, and they love each other, but Fate intervenes to keep them apart until Les Aventures Etranges de L'Agent IXE-13 #585, when they finally get married.

The head of the Canadian Secret Service, and IXE-13's boss, is General Smiley, a man of superior intelligence who does not easily forgive failure in his agents. General Klyne is one of the chiefs of the English Secret Service; he is a harsh, proud man who dislikes IXE-13 (the feeling is mutual). Henry Walker is a fight-eager young freelance spy who IXE-13 occasionally uses. General Mapoutine is the head of the Soviet spy service; he loathes IXE-13. Finally, there is Taya, the Yellow Peril "queen of the Chinese Communists;" she is the sworn enemy of IXE-13 and a very dangerous woman who will use any means to gain her ends, but who secretly likes and admires him and functions as IXE-13’s Loving Enemy.

* I'm including Les Aventures Etranges de L'Agent IXE-13, L'As des Espions Canadiens in the Best of the Encyclopedia category because the pulp was historically important and because IXE-13 is archetypal. 27 years and 960 issues is a long, long run for a pulp by anyone's standards, and Pierre Daignault made the best of it, creating the spy who became the Canadian James Bond in terms of reach and influence, and creating the pulp that would set the standard for Canadian spy fiction for a generation. It helps that the pulps themselves are pretty good. 

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