By Wesley Messer — Amid the multitudes of takes on James Bond over the years, Warren Ellis writing the character seems almost too perfect. I mean, it is Ellis taking on James freaking Bond, one of the legendary spies of our pop culture landscape. The main question I had coming into reading the new James Bond by Warren Ellis Omnibus, however, was, with creatives having adding their own style and flow to the character, just what does Warren Ellis add? That’s what I’m here to figure out today.

James Bond by Warren Ellis

This omnibus collects the stories Vargr and Eidolon, and reading these, the one thing you can say for Ellis and how he handles Bond, is that he pulls no punches. This is a Bond with the look and charisma of Sean Connery and the ferocity of Daniel Craig. Each of the stories shows Bond at his best and worst points while exploring the strange machinations of the other agencies around him. As each of the villains of the piece takes turns at being sinister but also being something else entirely different. There were more than a few twists here that Ellis snuck in to catch me off guard in the best way.

What also doesn’t hurt is the way the entire art team of this book comes together to capture the world of Bond. Jason Masters has a great expressive style, ranging from the ways faces capture emotion to the way characters move; it’s so fluid. It takes the fight scenes and car chases to another level. Ellis did well in giving Masters moments to let his art breathe. It’s also great in how it captures the speed the characters move during the fights. It’s brilliant. There is also clever panel work showing the impact of the fights in this book. The x-ray panels were a perfect touch to emphasize the sheer intensity of the struggles.

The colors that Guy Major adds to this work are incredible, mood-setting to absolute perfection. There is a part early on in the book with shades of blues, dark and light, to set the mood for a certain moment that is incredible. There is a lot of that sort of mood lightning in here, and it is fantastic to behold. Everything just pops out at you in this comic with the colors, creating a truly sublime reading experience. Even more intriguing is Simon Bowland’s lettering. There’s not a lot of flashy effects, but in certain scenes, the letters pop out in a subtle way to add to the force of a fight.

If you are a fan of James Bond, you need this in your life as soon as possible. Even if you aren’t the biggest fan of James Bond but only have a passing interest, you will have fun with this. Warren Ellis makes a point to make this accessible to anyone who would want to read it, making for a great collection of stories that I’m glad I got to experience.

James Bond: The Complete Warren Ellis Omnibus
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Jason Masters
Colorist: Guy Major
Letterer: Simon Bowland
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
Price: $39.99
After a mission of vengeance in Helsinki, James Bond returns to London and assumes the workload of a fallen 00 Section agent. His new mission takes him to Berlin, presumably to break up an agile drug-trafficking operation. But Bond has no idea of the forces gathered in secret against him, the full scope of an operation that's much scarier and more lethal than he could possibly imagine. Berlin is about to catch fire... and James Bond is trapped inside. Dynamite Entertainment proudly presents VARGR, the debut storyline in the all new James Bond comic book series, as crafted by masterful writer Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan, The Authority) and artist Jason Masters (Batman Incorporated, Guardians of the Galaxy). James Bond is trapped in Los Angeles with a MI6 agent under fire and a foreign intelligence service trying to put them both in bags... and possibly more than one foreign intelligence service. And things may not be any safer in Britain, with bodies dropping and ghosts moving in the political mist...
Release Date: June 10, 2020
Buy It Digitally: Click here!

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Wesley Messer