007: For King and Country #3 // Review
James Bond is on the phone with the guy who just shot at him. Bond’s got a pistol. He’s on the street taking cover behind a staircase. The guy who shot at him has a sniper rifle and higher ground. He compliments the sniper on the ease with which he led him into the snare. Bond’s going to get out, but the sniper is only one of his problems in 007: For King and Country #3. Writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson delivers a well-modulated issue that is delivered into the visual by the art team of Giorgio Spalletta and Alessio Avallone. Color accompanies the art courtesy of Francesco Segala.
Bond’s not alone in the immediate danger. There’s longer-term danger, too. It’s danger that’s going to have to follow him if it’s going to keep up, though. Bond’s got business in the States. He’s meeting an operative there. It would be a real shame if there was some sort of rumor that he was no longer in MI6. Someone might get the wrong idea and point a gun in a rather unfortunate direction. Elsewhere, the villain in question might have to deal with someone of his own. He’s rather busy as well. He’s got business in the States as well.
Johnson works fluidly with the standard trappings of a Bond story. The initial chase scene leads to the showdown. Then, there’s an interlude with the villain before the plot proceeds overseas to the States. There’s a place for everything. Everything is in its place. It’s all very clean and well-executed. It might lack a bit of flair, though. Johnson IS wise to keep it simple. Try to clutter up the edges of the action with too much exposition, and the whole thing is going to sink. Johnson’s got the right feel for speed, accuracy, and pacing with the script. If he could drive it across the page with a little more poetry, he’d really have something here.
Spalletta and Avallone can be a bit vague with the action. Ideally, James Bond moves across the page with sharp precision. There’s a kind of casual gloopiness about the execution on the page that would work far better in another series. That being said, Spalletta and Avallone have little difficulty striking the right poses in the right places throughout the issue. Classic iconic cloak-and-dagger visual cliches maintain a fresh strength in the hands of the art team. The problem is that it doesn’t exactly flow across the page. Even big action moments feel relatively stiff.
For all its flaws, it’s still nice to see Bond on the comics page. The story is simple and breezy. Bond appears suitably Bond-like on the page. Everything seems more or less as it should. One would hope for more of a flashy stylishness in a contemporary Bond comic, though. Aside from a smartphone, there’s very little on the page that would have felt out of place during any other era in the history of the franchise. This should feel timeless. In the hands of the creative team assembled for the issue...it just feels a bit old.
