As more art theft stories get underway, interest wanes.
Creative Staff:
Story: Vita Ayala, Danny Lore
Art: Erica D’urso
Colors: Roshan Kurichiyanil
Letterer: Ariana Maher
What They Say:
Agent 007 is a loner, by nature. But finally, he accepts that he needs help. But will trusting someone else help his mission…or lead to the deaths of innocents? By VITA AYALA (Morbius, Gamora), DANNY LORE (Queen Of Bad Dreams) and ERICA D’URSO (Captain Marvel).
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Though the previous issue closed out the first arc it’s like closing out the first act of the larger story that’s going. Which is good and bad. I like having Vita Ayala and Danny Lore working with smaller arcs because you can do some creative stuff in tighter spaces. The downside is that it may carry forward storylines into the next that aren’t all that interesting. This issue gets a change in artists with Erica D’urso stepping in and she does a solid job here in presenting Bond as we generally know him in these books. I like her take on the other characters like Brandy and Nadya a good deal and there are a few other fun ones in the mix too. She’s definitely a solid addition if we’re getting rotating artists with the various shorter arcs.
The premise for this has Bond continuing to try and find out what’s going on with the fake art that’s being used to smuggle hidden weapons plans. There’s the usual dance that goes on back at headquarters with M considering how the first arc plays out and then we get some time with the Q branch, which includes a new member in a woman named Masters that easily sees through who Bond is. I do like that we get a little bit of outfitting here but there’s kind of a meaner angle being played than the usual playful one that we got in a lot of the films for many years. It’s not bad, it’s just different and I’m not sure that I actually like it.
When we get the mission going on with this particular art dealer and focusing on Bond working with Brandy Keys as she’s there too, there is an ease to which they work together that’s nice. But the story itself just isn’t moving in a way where it… feels cohesive? I already feel like I’ve lost the plot on the story itself and that doesn’t help in the slightest to be able to really engage in it. A new round of characters to try and figure out so quickly doesn’t help either and I’m left kind of just enjoying it for the visuals and some of the wit that we get out of Bond and others from time to time as opposed to what the mission is about. It reminds me of the opening series that we had from Warren Ellis where it had interesting ideas but never gelled into an actual story that worked.
In Summary:
With a lot of strong series/miniseries in the past couple of years, James Bond feels like it’s fallen hard with this current series. There’s nothing compelling about the story, the locations are decent but aren’t being utilized that much, and there’s a slowness to it that’s not uncommon to a Bond tale but it’s not backing it up with interesting enough characters and personalities to draw you in. I like the potential of the shorter arcs to tell the larger whole tale but so far this just isn’t hitting the right marks.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: March 11th, 2020
MSRP: $3.99
