James Bond Himeros #002

James Bond Himeros #002

Dynamite Entertainment 2021

Written by Rodney Barnes

Illustrated by Antonio Fuso

Coloured by Adriano Augusto

Lettered by Social Myth Studios

: Issue #2 continues the comic book adventures of the world’s most famous spy – James Bond! While the setting exudes the allure of sun, sand and fun, this deadly island is no playtime retreat! Its sun, sand and misery for all those who visit, and up to Bond to put an end to the deadly circle once and for all!

I love the opening here! There are shades of Resident Evil which I found rather exciting as well as unexpected. Just the fact that this team lands and goes about their business and we see what we do let us know that there is definitely more than meets the eye here. James never has a straightforward mission; there are twists and turns throughout that make us guess and second guess what’s going on here as well as who may or may not be responsible. Knowing James as we do though he tends to get involved with women who aren’t always on the up and up and have something to hide or in the end either try to use him for their own needs or kill him when he’s served his purpose. So now it becomes a game where we have to figure things out alongside him with what clues and gut instinct we got.

I’m a 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 through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does wonders in spotlighting their personalities. The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story the more mistrust and misdirection are laid out before us.

I like the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. I also like how we see the layers within the story open up new avenues to be explored, the opening to the issue does this in a few ways extremely well, and how they add depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward are impeccably handled.

I’m a fan of the interiors here. The linework is clean, crisp and sharp that along with its varying eights and techniques being utilised to create the detail within the work that we see is sensational stuff. We see some nice use of backgrounds here to enhance and expand the moments and how we see the composition within the panels being utilised to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope of the story is phenomenal. 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 stupendous! The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows a great understanding of how colour works. Also impressive is how it is used to create the musculature we see especially in the faces.

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See this is what I love about James Bond, it’s as much an intellectual story as it is about gun-play and action sequences. He has to use his wits and smarts to figure things out and get himself into and out of these sticky situations and how Rodney is portraying this here is perfectly suited to the characters. The writing is perfectly suited to the book; the characterisation is sharp and witty while the interiors create this fantastic style. This is everything we could hope for in a comic that feels like an extension of the novels.