James Bond Agent of Spectre #007

James Bond Agent of Spectre #003

Dynamite Entertainment 2021

Written by Christos Gage

Illustrated by Luca Casalanguida

Coloured by Heather Moore

Lettered by Simon Bowland

As Bond struggles with the fallout of the previous issue's shock ending, all bets are off. Double and triple crosses and being in bed with the enemy - sometimes literally - are the order of the day. Has Bond truly become no different than the members of SPECTRE he is now working for, or does he have a master plan that can work against impossible odds?

I am so digging this story and how James is being portrayed. Having had the greenlight to go ahead and infiltrate Spectre under Blofeld and now with how everything went tits up at the gallery it is time to reassess the situation and do something even more bold and daring in return. This is how I see James Bond being who he is, thinking on his feet and doing what he needs to do on the fly for the betterment of not only himself and MI6 but for humanity as well. When we see him with his license to kill we think of the death and destruction he’s capable of but this one is where he gets to use his brain and prove he’s so much more than a deadeye shot.

I am a huge fan of 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. The character development that we see is pretty amazing itself. How the dialogue, character interactions and how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter really do wonders in furthering their characterisation. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists & turns along the way it’s so easy get lost in the story.

How we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to strengthen, change and emerge as events we see occur. Oh James and Felix what a complicated friendship this is but I have to say it is one that brings me joy every time they cross paths. The way we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved perfectly well.

The interiors here keep growing on me. I love James’ disguises that we see him use, they really are so basic but then again those are the most effective ones. The linework is interesting and how we see it with those varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level of detail work that we see is rather amazing. I do wish we’d see more backgrounds in play but the way we see the composition within the panels bringing us depth perception, a sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is remarkably well done. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show an extremely talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is interesting and that we see so much black for this thick near noir style shading is a bold and daring choice. The hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is wonderfully rendered.

​

I used to be a fan of the film franchise and then the novels and finally the comics now for me the comics are the only part of the franchise I pay attention to anymore. Mainly because it is the only place that the essence of what Ian Fleming created is still alive and thriving today. The intelligent writing and dynamic interiors make seeing James adventures a treat time and time again.