Death in the suicide forest.
Creative Staff:
Story: Benjamin Percy
Art: Rapha Lobosco
Colors: Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Simon Bowland
What They Say:
In the so-called “Suicide Forest” of Japan, near the base of Mt. Fuji, James Bond finds himself hunted by No Name, the nightmarish assassin. After narrowly escaping, 007 and Selah Sax find themselves on board a bullet train bound for the headquarters of Saga Genji — in a race against Felix Leiter and the Americans for the “black box” of information that could compromise their nations.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As we near the end of the Black Box storyline it’s turned into one that’s certainly intriguing but suffers from the problem of the villain not being engaged enough. The usual piece is to have the brains of the operation and then the hands on type and we get that here and it works well enough, though the time to invest in either opponent is minimal because of the split. Percy is having fun with the cast that’s made complicated with Selah in the mix and ups the ante a bit more this time around. What keeps things hopping along in a very good way is Lobosco’s artwork once again as he makes for some moody pages in the beginning with the suicide forest and then hits up some fantastic layouts when it shifts to the train sequence.
The muscle of this side uses No Name as well as one can with him stalking the pair through the forest but it’s less what he does (and how he doesn’t quite die) than how Selah deals with him when they get the upper hand over him. Her level of morality is different than Bond’s and he calls her out on how his license is to kill, not to murder, making a fine distinction that she does apologize for later. But she’s coming from a very different place and is struggling in the face of the larger mission that they’re dealing with. That flares toward the end here as well as she knows what must be done and believes she’ll go the distance on it whereas Bond won’t, but it just shows her lack of understanding his commitment to completing the mission. The issue is that their missions are really diverging here.
The train sequence comes at a time where we get the better understanding of what Genji is up to with his information in that he’s looking to sell off what he has to interested parties as opposed to blackmail, which is certainly tempting some in England. That also brings Felix into the picture as he makes his own play for the Company here, which is frustrating coming from the just complete miniseries that he had. Honestly, Felix should be off-limits in the Bond series at this stage as the character has certainly grown through that other miniseries with what he can do and he just feels weirdly used here after all of it. The shift in what Genji is doing, or rather the reality of it being revealed, is certainly more in line and expected and it puts the various nations far more in competition with each other – which will surely drive up Genji’s pricing in the negotiations. That said, you know where Bond will fit into all of this and that makes it a little anti-climactic going into the final installment of the arc next time around.
In Summary:
The Black Box arc continues to be interesting but this issue is a bit overstuffed with what it wants to do and the movement between locales doesn’t flow as well as it should when it comes to Bond and Selah. The forest material feels underserved and a bit disconnected from the previous issue while the train material is pretty good on its own, yet that feels weaker with a Felix that doesn’t jive too well with what we’d just read elsewhere. I like what Genji is orchestrating overall but he’s been a somewhat secondary character at best in this storyline and that has kept him from being an engaging opponent – in addition to those awful VR glasses that just make me want to smack him.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: July 5th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99
