Great Britain Has Been Insulted!
When a high ranking American official goes on record proclaiming England’s lack of usefulness as an ally to the U.S., a terrorist cell makes it their mission to silence this enemy of the Crown. Working on a series of coded communiques, sent to MI6, as his only clues, secret agent James Bond is tasked with infiltrating the nationalist extremists and shutting it down permanently before they can enact revenge. And if 007 can win back the affection of the United States in the process, even better.
Star Wars: Darth Vader’s Kieron Gillen pens an interesting James Bond adventure in this one-shot from Dynamite. The author does a masterful job capturing the wit of Sean Connery’s 007 throughout the book. He also follows the basic plot of a Bond film pretty well. Gadgets, M, Q, and Moneypenny all make their appointed rounds. It’s just a little odd to encounter a 007 story that’s not filled with femme fatales christened with names that have naughty double meanings.
The artwork was fair. Artist Antonio Fuso’s (Torchwood) pencils didn’t really wow me. I’m not sure if rendering 007 as normal looking guy, and not in the style of one of the many actors to have portrayed the character in film, was a great idea. I felt more disconnected to this version of James Bond because of his generic every-man look. Thankfully, the writing was good enough to make up for some of this slack. The art deco style of the cover, credits, and establishing pages were stunning. They made me feel like I was looking at the opening credits of a real life Bond flick. Major kudos to the design team on this.
James Bond: Service Special was an entertaining read that seems almost ripped from today’s headlines. It was a tiny bit confusing at times in the beginning. But I felt that the overall story was very fresh as was the concept of a MI5, acting in concordance with MI6. That was completely new to me. Upon further research, it turns out there’s actually been an MI1 all the way to MI19. Only MI5 and MI6 remain in the present day. But I was able to follow this caper quite well without that prior knowledge of British Intelligence.
Worth Consuming
Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.
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