By Chris Tresson

I don’t know what it is about Bond for me… It may be my British-ness or the fact I grew up watching the films on an almost weekly basis, but I always find myself coming back to him. I haven’t actually watched the last few 007 movies but I have been reading the comics and I’ve been finding them more entertaining than any of the movies I had watched recently (I think Casino Royale was the last I watched), so it’s good to see more comics coming out. Anyways, I’ll stop talking nonsense now. Here’s my review of James Bond: Hammerhead, published this week by Dynamite Entertainment.

The story opens as all good Bond does: A bad ass entrance from the main man as he attempts to infiltrates his enemy’s HQ… We get some nice shots of gadgets and it’s all action action action as Bond makes his way towards his target. Bond’s after information and things turn fucking brutal when he catches up to the guy he’s after. He shoots a fucking grappling gun through this kid’s leg and tries to interrogate him like a turtleneck wearin’, British Batman. He’s after a name, the real name of the big bad guy in this story whose codename is Kraken… The kid fails to give up any information and ends up getting blown up (he’s wearing a bomb collar, and The Kraken is watching at all times, so he decides to blow the kid up.)

When Bond gets back to MI6 HQ, he’s in the dog house with his boss, M. And we get some more information about this Kraken guy and what this story’s about. The meat of it. Bond is ready to get on it but M hands him a shit job as a punishment for fucking up the previous mission. When Bond gets to Dubai, he meets a bird called Victoria Hunt who introduces him to a HUGE railgun gun thing called Hammerhead. Hunt and Bond have a little chat about it, unaware that they’re being watched by someone… Something tells me he has something to do with the bad guy (Kraken) but I don’t know who it is, neither will you, and that’s why we’re going to pick up the second issue of this... Smashing!

Writer Andy Diggle has done good job on this issue. It feels like Bond story already, the action was great from the opening page onwards and the beginning of this really got me in the mood to see more of it. I can’t really complain about any of it story-wise. The only thing would be that it’s quite similar in tone to the Ellis/Masters ongoing Bond, but I’m not sure that’s necessarily a bad thing, I quite like that one, too. Diggle’s doing some good work for Dynamite at the minute and he’s always been pretty good at writing these sorts of stories.

Luca Casalanguida’s art is a good fit here. I hate to compare it to Jason Masters’ Bond but I’m going to. It’s quite similar again, but a little rougher around the edges than Masters’ artwork. Luca draws a good building, I’ll give him that. I hadn’t heard of Luca Casalanguida before picking up this book, so this is the first time I’m seeing his art. I have nothing to compare it to, so I’ll assume this book is on par with the rest of his work. Not bad, just a little rough around the edges. Still good. Chris Blythe has chosen a nice palette for the artwork in this issue, I like it. There’s some really rich color in there. The first few pages look awesome under Blythe’s colors. Nice job, Chris.

A good start to the series by this creative team, and a book Bond fans will enjoy. It’s pretty strong and looks like it’s going to be a great little series. If you are a reader of the ongoing James Bond series, you’re going to want to pick this up. If you aren’t reading the ongoing and just fancy dipping your toe in the Bond universe, this is your shot. I know I’ll be following along.

[su_box title="Score: 4/5" style="glass" box_color="#8955ab" radius="6"] James Bond: Hammerhead #1 Writer: Andy Diggle Artist: Luca Casalanguida Colorist: Chris Blythe Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment Price: $3.99 Format: Mini-Series; Print/Digital [/su_box]