James Bond Agent of Spectre #002

James Bond Agent of Spectre #002

Dynamite Entertainment 2021

Written by Christos Gage

Illustrated by Luca Casalanguida

Coloured by Heather Moore

Lettered by Simon Bowland

James Bond is in the USA...but NOT as part of Her Majesty's Secret Service. Shockingly, he's there as an Agent of SPECTRE, sent to eliminate an upstart rival SPECTRE boss at the bidding of Ernest Blofeld himself! The leverage Blofeld has against Bond is a threat to the life of one of the few people in the world Bond can trust… but that friend may have the interests of Bond’s target as the higher priority!

How is it that James Bond, 007, is Batman without the costume and just a really good designer suit? He’s got gadgets galore that’s for sure and i’m not sure I wanna know where he hides them, actually that’s a lie because I do want to know, but hands down he’s unapologetically the man all men wanna be and women, and gay men, wanna be with. What Christos is doing with this story just demonstrates that in spades as he talks his way into getting the assignment he wants as well as well as working two sides of the same fence. I mean who else is capable of doing this?

I love the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. I mean going to M telling him what’s happening then proceeding to make it clear he’ll do what he will and then the whole enemy of my enemy bit well it’s just laid out to perfection. The character development ties into that as James will do what he pleases and I have to say how we see his behaviour as well as how the others act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter just make us feel who they are. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages pulling us further and further in.

How this is structured and how we se see the layers within the story continue to grow and and emerge really help shape the direction the story goes. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story ever forward is incredibly well done.

At first I wasn’t a big fan of the interiors but the more the I see them the more I find myself liking them. The opening page with the house yeah that to me is impressive and the amount of work whether it be the linework or the imagination coming to life it really showcases some really nice talent. How we see the linework with its varying weights and techniques to bring out the detail work we see is marvellous to see. The composition within the panels with how backgrounds are utilised to bring us depth perception, a sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the story is inc redibly well done. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a solid eye for storytelling. The colour work is a lot more solid than I was expecting to see and yet the colour blocking and how we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is extremely well rendered.

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I am totally into and digging this take on James Bond that we’re seeing here. This is the kind of excitement and thrills that you associate with the man and it’s an extremely fun time. This is written so that it engages the readers’ mind and we can see how the entire picture unfolds one piece at a time. We’re still not seeing the entire bigger picture yet but I will say this I can’t wait for the next pieces to be revealed.