Past and present continue to have far too many similarities.
Creative Staff:
Story: Jody Houser
Art: Jacob Edgar
Colors: Dearbhla Kelly
Letterer: Simon Bowland
What They Say:
On a ‘routine’ protection mission, Moneypenny discovers a complicated assassination plot that bears a startling resemblance to a terrorist attack from her childhood. Can she call upon her secret agent skills to stop the plot…?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Dynamite has been putting together some fun Bond miniseries as of late and we also got a really fun Felix Leiter miniseries, which made me want to see more of the cast explored. The next one up is this one-shot focusing on Moneypenny, which is frustrating only in that the character really deserves her own miniseries, not just for the present day incarnation but I’d love to see an alternate take on the old Bond films version as well. Written by Jody Houser and with artwork by Jacob Edgar, we get a decent tale that works through three different periods of time to tell her story, though in the end it feels a bit weaker because of that split focus as no single storyline feels as cohesive as it should be.
The foundation for Moneypenny is given well as a child as she sees a terrorist attack that happened near her, likely adding to her sense of wanting to see justice done and being involved in it. What’s more striking is that we see her trying to offer comfort to a classmate at school of similar ancestry to the terrorists as she’s getting bullied. But the classmate has it right, it’s not her that needs to hear the words Moneypenny is saying about how she’s not at fault nor should she be blamed. It’s the bullies that need to be educated on this and made to see the error of their ways. That gives us a character that’s learning from others at a young age and one that becomes able to deal with a range of situations as we see her grown into a solid field agent, one that continues to excel.
Of course, she excels right into what can easily be seen as a secretary position but she’s far more than that for M as she’s bodyguard and all-eyes and ears with any range of situations, including keeping watch on the other agents that come through her door like Bond. It’s good background material but the main issue is that the present day storyline involving her and M traveling to Boston for a meeting ends up not feeling fully formed, especially with those from the civilian side that come along and are mostly unprofessional in a lot of ways. While it does segue into an assassination attempt on M’s life, it never feels like it had the right setup or motivations to really connect and feel earned. It’s fun to see Moneypenny leap into action and get things done but it just lacked a certain something to feel cohesive.
In Summary:
While I didn’t have really high hopes for a one-off special, this one has me hopeful that we’ll get more in the future for the character. She really warrants a deeper exploration as there’s a range of great stories that can be told about her in the past, in the field, and in working with M that could hit a lot of good political and intrigue levels. Houser does a solid enough job in trying to convey three different periods of her life, and a bit more than that when you get down to it, but it undercuts the present day storyline as it never felt fully formed or engaging enough. Jacob Edgar’s artwork has a more minimal approach in a lot of ways but it captures the movement dynamic well and I liked the layouts a good bit. But I’m still of mind the character needs something more like what Felix got with that miniseries in terms of writing and artwork than what we got here.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: August 30th, 2017
MSRP: $4.99
