Gun Honey Collision Course #1 Review

 

Writer: Charles Ardai

Artist: Ang Hor Kheng

Colorist: João Rodri

Letterer: David Leach

Cover Artists: Derrick Chew, Adam Hughes, Sean Phillips, Shannon Maer, Cosplay, Ang Hor Kheng, Jasmin Darnell, Sketch, Claudia Caranfa, Rare Tempter, Ivan Tao, Jay Ferguson, Ariel Diaz, Kyuyoung Eom, Cedric Poulat, BRAO, David Dias, Godtail, Greg & Fake, Anna Zhuo, Warren Louw, Carla Cohen, David Sanchez & Tony Trophy

Publisher: Titan

Price: $3.99

Release Date: May 15, 2024

 

Joanna and Brook have laid low for nearly a year. The world believes they are dead. But neither wants to spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders and living under an assumed identity. Joanna has a plan she hasn’t told Brook about. Yet. How will Brook react to her revelation? Who might it endanger? Let's strap on our weapons, leap into Gun Honey Collision Course #1, and find out!

 

Story

Dahlia Racers faked Joanna and Brook’s deaths. Dahlia’s pal Sarah Claride ensured US intelligence agent Gorman would never trouble them again. But that left agent Kruger waiting to pounce should Joanna and Brook resurface.

 

Joanna and Brook have been hiding out in Kalimantan, Borneo. But the former government operative wants his life back. So, Joanna reveals one of her carefully laid plans. Before they disappeared, she took out an insurance policy with a Japanese crime lord. Should former US agent Brook Barrow remain "dead" for a year, Hiroshi Yamato would release damaging information about Kruger. 

 

 

 

In Gun Honey Collision Course #1, Joanna and Brook travel to Yokohama, Japan. Joanna intends to lie in wait if Kruger’s agents attack Hiroshi Yamato’s operation. But Joanna and Brook arrive late. Someone has kidnapped Hiroshi’s son. If Kyosuke breaks under interrogation, Hiroshi Yamato is dead. So, Joanna and Brook must hustle to find Kyosuke to preserve their "deaths" and ensure people don’t learn Hiroshi Yamato’s secrets.

 

Joanna's plan puts everyone in danger. It only works if someone in Yamato's operation rats out Hiroshi and tells Kruger about the ticking timebomb. Now Agent Kruger is pulling the strings, wielding the might of the US intelligence service to prevent Hiroshi from releasing the secret government files that could destroy him. Joanna and Brook care about each other. But if they survive, will Brook trust her again? If people die because her plan went wrong, will he be able to look Joanna in the eye?

 

 

 

Art

Brook ends a perimeter patrol by climbing a tree overlooking Joanna bathing. As he drops beside the pond and trains his gun on her, Joanna grabs the gun from her leg holster and puts Brook in her sights. Birds fly over a jungle valley surrounded by mountains as Joanna climbs from the pool in Gun Honey Collision Course #1. Brook looks away as Joanna pulls on her pants and shirt. Then they return to a bamboo shack roofed with palm fronts where Joanna lights a candle before laying a fish on a wooden table and preparing their meal with a meat cleaver and a wooden mallet.

 

Ang Hor Kheng illustrates their planned route with a map. He shows Joanna and Brook working off their passage aboard a fishing vessel. But by the time they disembark, two armed men clad in black clothes and balaclavas have pulled Kiyosuki from his casino’s office, pushed Hiroshi’s son into a sports car, and sped away.

 

 

 

João Rodri lavishes a loaded palette upon Gun Honey Collision Course #1. Rodri steeps the Bornean jungle in verdant greens and browns, showing Joanna and Brook's suntanned skin beneath a blue and purple sky. Kiyosuke's dyed orange hair embodies the brightly colored casino. Glowing streetlights turn the black sports car gray as it roars across the orange cobblestones past Yokohama's magenta and mauve buildings. Rodri’s attention to detail enhances the lifelike realism of Kheng's art, whether characters fight in an arena or women strip to bathe in a picturesque Japanese Onsen.

 

 

 

David Leach fires black uppercase lettering into white dialogue balloons and narrative boxes in Gun Honey Collision Course #1. White and blue gunshots scatter across Kiyosuki’s casino. But the sounds of a desperate fistfight and an intense massage remind readers that Joanne's plan has deadly consequences. 

 

Thanks to Titan Comics for providing a copy for review.

 

 

 

Final Thoughts

Charles Ardai’s Gun Honey Collision Course #1 is a fast-paced spy thriller. Ardai’s modern-day Modesty Blaise immerses readers in the Japanese underworld and launches two rival criminal empires into a gang war neither desired.

 

Rating 9.2/10