Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: Rapha Lobosco
Colorist: Jorge Sutil
Letterer: Rob Steen
Cover Artist: Dave Johnson
Publisher: Dynamite
Price: $4.99
Release Date: February 21, 2024
James Bond dispatched the Costanza cartel before they could kill him. He blew up the kill team in Bournemouth before they got off a shot. But Stalvoda—the weapons project stolen from the Ministry Of Defense laboratory in Porton Downs—is still missing. Can Bond recover it before the thieves deploy a weapon so secret that not even the last three Prime Ministers knew about it? Let’s grab our Walther PPKs (not your Berettas, please), leap into James Bond 007 #2, and find out!
Story
Thanks to a rail strike, James Bond has become a man of the people. He takes a bus back to London with noisy, uncouth fellow passengers. Moneypenny laughs at his irritation. Yet he’s all business. Bond tells her that former 00 agent Archibald Tryon resigned because of Stalvoda. He stole the weaponized water project from Russian scientists. Tryon’s triumph redeemed M.I.6 after years of government officials spilling secrets and defecting to Russia. Still, Tryon hated that Britain pursued a project begun in Hitler's concentration camps.
After sorting through the bodies on the beach and the long bus ride home, Bond wants a bath. He tells Moneypenny he’ll freshen up and return to the office. As Bond walks home from the bus depot, Felix Leiter calls. As with Tryon, the Americans are glad that M.I.6 assigned a capable agent to capture Stalvoda. Yet Bond’s not as unaware of his surroundings as he appears. Bond tells his C.I.A. friend he’s putting him on speaker. Let those tracking him follow Felix’s voice. Forced to blow up his car and take a bus home, Bond's ready for a rematch.
In James Bond 007 #2, our favorite M.I.6 agent dances with death. Moneypenny and Q view him as immature. M believes Bond causes as many problems as he solves. Had Bond dispatched Sebastian Constanza more carefully, the family wouldn't have targeted him for death. Now Bond's riding public transportation instead of renting a car. Why not just paint a target on your back and be done with it?
James Bond doesn’t know who attacked him in Bournemouth. Their bodies and weapons—or at least what remained—told no tales. Garth Ennis' story suggests that the Russian S.V.R. ordered the beach hit. But Tryon couldn’t tell Bond who stole Stalvoda from M.I.6 labs. And if the thieves wanted to scrub Tryon, shouldn't M.I.6 put the retired 00 agent in protective custody instead of letting him return home to live with his sister? Did Pablo Constanza, the head of the Constanza drug empire, hire an organization to assassinate Bond should he and his family fail? Or am I flaunting logic like Bond flaunts danger in James Bond 007 #2?
Art
Rapha Lobosco interposes Bond on the bus with Moneypenny in her office. The rain dissipates, and he walks alongside the columned porticos fronting London's historic homes. Lobosco shows a Christmas tree air freshener dangling in silhouette from a rear-view mirror as someone watches Bond walk.
Scaffolding rises inside the lobby of an abandoned hotel. Tilted camera angles show masked soldiers fanning out and taking defensive positions. Bond grabs an assassin and uses his opponent’s body as a shield. A dance with death plays out across the floors of this multistory building. James Bond 007 #2 becomes as choreographed as a Hollywood musical and as violent as Douglas Quaid's efforts to reclaim his memory in Paul Verhoeven's movie Total Recall.
Jorge Sutil shades Bond's face with purple in the bus, while textured blue suggests rain outside the darkened interior. Moneypenny's milk chocolate skin glows as she stares at her monitor. Bond remembers searching the broken bodies on the beach through a beige haze tinged with green. The same color pervades the hotel interior. As soldiers pursue Bond in their armor and green fatigues, yellow and orange erupt from guns, red plumes from injuries, and orange pervades panels. Yet the threat of Stalvoda, also called steel water or ice napalm, reveals victims frozen in cold, cold blue.
Rob Steen’s large, uppercase black letters in white dialogue balloons are easy to read. Balloons sprout spikes as sharp as flash-frozen water to signal Moneypenny, M, and Felix’s voices. Words grow bold, enlarge, and threaten to escape their balloons as the action heightens in James Bond 007 #2. In this issue devoid of sound effects, the cries of soldiers riddled by gunfire inform Bond that they're still alive.
Don't worry. James Bond will rectify that.
Thanks to Dynamite Comics for providing a copy for review.
Final Thoughts
Bond lures assassins into a trap, learns the history of Steel Water, and goes where few have gone before in James Bond 007 #2.
Rating 9/10
To preview interior art see my review at Comic Book Dispatch.
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