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Hello BC readers, it’s been a while. I’ve been off working on comics (The Freeze Vol 1 trade from Image Comics/Top Cow is in stores now…) but after
Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, dynamite, entertainment, james bond, jason masters, warren ellis
Slow And Steady – Reviewing James Bond #2
Today we see the release of the second James Bond comic from Warren Ellis and Jason Masters. I got a chance to read the issue and figured I'd share my thoughts. I will do my best to keep the spoilers to a minimum, but it would be impossible to do a review without some spoilers.
So —– Spoiler Warning ——
The second issue picks up in Berlin as Bond, traveling under one of OO6's cover names, is picked up at the airport by the Berlin station operatives. Or at least he believes that to be the case. The whole traveling without a weapon issue comes up almost immediately as Bond finds himself being attacked. We meet Dharma Reach and her special pair of gloves, a character that seems very Ian Fleming in both name and manner.
Ellis continues to give us a comic that reads like the old Fleming novel's, which in most cases is good… but the one bad is the pace of the story is very slow. There is a lot of time spent on Berlin station and their coffee, which is nice ambiance filler in a prose story but drags a bit in a comic.
Masters artwork is once again strong, setting the right mood for the series. But there is an awkward scene that takes place just after a car crash where it is very unclear what happens and we only find out a few pages later when Bond explains it to the station chief. Only upon going back and looking at the scene again does it start to make sense.
By the end of the issue we see who the main bad guy is going to be and just how OO6 ran a fowl of what seemed to be a simple situation. A situation that Bond also thinks is simple… cue dramatic music.
The series continues to read like a classic James Bond novel and that part I am enjoying, but I'm sure hoping things start picking up soon.
James Bond #2 is on-sale today.
Cover art by Dom Reardon, for more information on James Bond, click here.
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