What I thought of James Bond #5

Thoughts about #1, #2, #3 and #4.

At the end of the last issue writer Warren Ellis and artist James Masters had left Bond in a deathtrap, but of course, this is James Bond. Deathtraps are things he does before breakfast. His mobile is more likely to break before he does.

Escaping Germany, Bond heads back to the UK where he’s debriefed by M about the fact that the drug related deaths are getting worse and that Bond’s stumbled across a huge drug ring almost by accident. So Q sends Bond to liaise with MI5 on the docks to stop a shipment of drugs only for Bond to meet a familiar face.

After a brutal and somewhat bloody fight with Dharma Reach, Bond finds out just what Vargr is…

It’s a Norwegian battleship based on a small island off the coast of Norway. What exactly is the significance of Vargr, or why a group of drug dealing criminals are doing with it promises to be revealed next issue.

As said in previous reviews, Warren Ellis has carved himself a superb James Bond tale here full of action, adventure, jokes and the sort of brutal violence Ian Fleming would inject into those original Bond stories. In many ways this is the truest adaptation of Bond I’ve ever read, while at the same times the updates to Bond make the character both relevant and an anachronism at the same time. This really is a splendid comic and it’ll be a shame for it to end.