James Bond 007 in #Black Box

Dynamite Comics 2017 release has James Bond working to collect a hard drive of international leaks, secrets that will sink every superpower and give the owner of the data the power to corrupt any government. Currently it is in the hands of a Japanese tech mogul with ties to the Yakuza.

This graphic novel, a collection of singles, was pretty good, but great would be a stretch. Maybe I am growing out of my interest for 007, or perhaps it doesn’t translate well to comic. I enjoyed it, the art was pretty great, but what would normally be a 2+ hour film was a diluted plot with a sub par enemy, and a recurring faceless antagonist that all felt watered down. More interesting than the comic was an interview provided the Oregonian and a sample of the first issue original storyboards and script (better than the comic)

Worth reading, but don’t shuffle your to be read pile.

Review based off a copy received for review purposes

'James Bond: Black Box' by Benjamin Percy with art by Rapha Lobosco is a decent take on James Bond.

The story starts in the French Alps with James being targeted. When he sees the face of his intended killer, he must know more about her, but he is off on another adventure. Of course, you know she will show up again if you know much about James Bond.

The main story involves a villain who has secrets on the world leaders that he is going to use as blackmail. Bond wants to find it first, but there are other agents in on the hunt as well. There is also a scarred villain who makes masks of the people he has killed.

The story is breathtaking and cinematic in scope and pace. The art was nice and solid. I did have a problem with a couple odd story skips, but it only broke the rhythm slightly for me.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Dynamite Entertainment, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

“Bond. James Bond.” I got roped into watching a whole bunch of these movies as a kid. I loved watching the gadgets in action, was oblivious to the innuendos soaring over my head and was terrified by some of the baddies. Yes, Jaws, I’m talking about you!

Rewatching a few of the early movies as an adult made me aware of some of the more problematic aspects of his character but aside from those particular niggles I still enjoy movies with big action sequences, gadgets and oodles of baddies. I haven’t watched a Bond movie in a few years but thought it would be fun to test drive a Bond graphic novel, and it was.

Black Box gets straight into the action and introduces our potential leading lady (who incidentally isn’t immediately charmed by 007) before the theme song earwig has had a chance to burrow its way into your brain.

007’s latest mission, Operation Black Box, requires him to travel to Tokyo to track down a “cache of digital secrets”. Evil hackers are ready to release your deepest, darkest digital secrets to the world! Let’s go get ‘em!

Yes, James does have a ‘Licence to Kill’. In fact, it’s expected. The big bad in this story is Saga Genji, who is responsible for the cyber theft but my favourite character was his difficult to kill henchman, No Name, who makes up for his dodgy moniker with his creepy collection of death masks.

Armed with mission appropriate fancy gadgets and some even fancier new wheels Bond is ready to face off with some baddies, but not before asking Boothroyd, the gadget guy (Q, I presume), to do some cyberstalking for him. Potential leading lady (she does have a name. It’s Selah Sax) isn’t getting away from 007 as quickly as she had hoped. Or perhaps it is Selah that is stalking James …

The usual Bond stuff happens. There’s gambling, alcohol, sex scenes, fight scenes where people get ‘The Living Daylights’ beaten out of them, an explosion and a high speed pursuit, catchphrases, double entendres and a good ol’ villain monologue. Bond utilises his cool gadgets but also manages to improvise when the need arises. Who knew a selfie stick would make such a good weapon?!

I’m glad I read this graphic novel. After all, ‘You Only Live Twice’. It was a fun, quick read with plenty of action.

Content warnings include mention of suicide.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Dynamite Entertainment and Diamond Book Distributors for the opportunity to read this graphic novel. I’m rounding up from 3.5 stars.

A humdrum Bond graphic novel with a plot I could barely remember immediately after finishing reading it. There's nothing too awful, but also nothing to make it stand out.

This was a great graphic novel version of James Bond.

These Bond comics are a lot of fun. They have everything you enjoy about the Bond stories, Gadgets, Villains, The World at Risk, Mysterious Ladies, even Felix Leiter. In this one governments have been hacked and all their secret information has been stolen. The race is on as various agencies are after their own information and the damaging information of others. Enjoy this exciting story.

The Black Box opens with Bond preparing to take out a target in the French Alps when he is beaten to the shot. He chases down the assassin, but she escapes. He is then sent out to Japan to find out who is offering sensitive information out for bid to various countries. The suspicion is focused upon a Japanese businessman with ties to the Yakuza. Plenty of fights, plenty of double-crosses by "friends" and enemies, plenty of set scenes that reminded me of Bond movies. Almost regret that I did not have Bond music playing while reading this title. A fun way to scratch the Bond itch.

Bond goes to Japan, where Bond girl Selah Sax takes him to a love hotel and puts him in handcuffs. Pretty kinky, except she’s just trying to get him out of the way so she can do her own assassination thing. Bond’s mission is to steal or destroy a high-tech gadget that enables data breaches that benefit the latest Bond nemesis. And he has to do it before Felix Leiter beats him to the punch.

This Bond story is a bit more of the movie-version Bond than previous installments in the series, which tended to be less gadgety. That’s not a serious problem for me, because I like the movies (I mean, who doesn’t?). In addition to the Bond girl, there’s a sports car armed with machine guns, a bunch of fights, a bunch of chase scenes, some shootouts, an evil villain (Saga Genji, who wears a visor that sends visuals into his brain) and an evil killer (who collects faces) working for the evil villain. Not Oddjob or Jaws, but a worthy successor, as evil killers go.

Perhaps because of its reliance on movie props, this is my least favorite of this Bond series. Which doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. It just isn’t as meaty or as edgy as the other entries.

I wish I could have read and given this an honest review. However, my device would not load it so I did not have the pleasure of reading it. Do not hold this against anyone but me. I tried all that I could to find a proper program to read this but it was beyond me.

Percy returns Bond to his movie roots. Lots of gadgets, death traps, and gimmicky henchmen. After a cold open sequence in the Alps, Bond is sent to Japan to retrieve a cache of stolen data that could be used to black mail government figures. Here he teams up with a beautiful assassin to take down a Bond villain with a Geordi La Forge visor and recover the data while being hunted down by a scarred Jason Voorhees type who wears the faces of those he's killed as death masks.

Fantastic book! I love James Bond and it truly does the cannon and fandom justice.

I'm not sure what credence or respect for a Bond book we could have when the well-educated James Bond loses all sense of grammar himself - even if he is undergoing a very derivative ski-chase at the time - or when M doesn't know the difference between 'effect' and 'affect'. Beyond that, this book decides to not call Q Q, gives Bond only one woman to dally with, and just doesn't really have the great scope of a proper, wide-world Bond comic. Heck, it has fewer locations and big set piece action scenes than the films do, and it's slightly cheaper to produce. And talking of cheap, the huge amounts of exposition and monologue (just who is Q talking to on that ship near the end?!) really demeans the audience. Finally, the end interview is very rude about Andy Diggle's book - this author is not replacing Warren Ellis directly. This isn't dreadful - but I would never "stand by idly" to wait for more.

The story follows a typical James Bond plot line. Bond is interrupted by a woman that intrigues him. Then, when sent to an exotic location, he again meets said woman. The two work together to stop an evil villain from taking over the world. And then the two escape to a location only known to them.

All the ingredients for a great Bond story are here, shaken, not stirred, of course.

The evil Japanese mogul, who receives assistance for vision from a visor, has stolen digital secrets from the majority of the world's powers. M16 has assigned the task of retrieving the Black Box to Bond. He is faced with the ethical decision of retrieving the Box and turning over all the secrets to his own government. The mysterious woman is the ethical voice of reason. Will Bond keep the Black Box for his government or will he allow it to be destroyed?

This is a good, enjoyable read.

Read this on a rainy Saturday night. Surprisingly I like this more than I had expected. Hard to put down and able to finish in one sitting.

From the publisher: In the snowbound French Alps, James Bond finds himself in the cross-hairs of an assassin who targets other assassins. This is the first puzzle piece in a larger adrenaline-fueled mystery that will send Bond across the globe to infiltrate the underworld, risk everything in high-stakes casino gambling, evade deadly pursuers, and root out a digital breach threatening global security.

The James Bond comics from Dynamite Entertainment have been fun. They are very much in the spirit of the latest movies and Ian Fleming's books (at least more so than many of the earlier movies were). It was in that spirit that I decided to read Benjamin Percy's James Bond: Black Box. And you know what? It was fun, too.

Black Box finds James Bond on the trail of a tech mastermind named Saga Genji. It seems Genji has hacked the information of MI-6, along with the spy agencies of nations around the world. It's Bond's mission to reclaim the missing data, stop Genji, and maybe bring home information that would give England a leg up on other countries. Along the way, he has to deal with a mysterious woman and an assassin who makes and wears a death mask of his victims.

Percy checks off all the Bond boxes with this story. Exciting pre-credits opening? Check. Beautiful, mysterious woman? Check. Outrageous villain? Check. Felix Leiter? Check. Foreign locales? Check. Gadgets? Check. Let me be clear, I don't think any of these are bad, just formulaic. And a major part of what Bond fans like is the formula, me included. Just don't expect any lasting characterization or permanent changes. Only Fleming did that, in the original books.

Overall, I enjoyed James Bond: Black Box by Benjamin Percy. It was a fun, exciting, and entertaining Bond story. As long as Dynamite keeps putting these out, I'll keep reading them. I recommend Black Box to any and all James Bond fans.

I received a preview copy of this book from Dynamite Entertainment and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Comics are a great way to tell a Bond-story. I prefer the old classic movies about the spy who is licensed to kill and this collection has the same tone. Sharks, gorgeous ladies and a witty British agent. Everything you can ask for, right?

My first ever Bond GN. It was interesting, but I do have to confess, I prefer the novels and the films.

Still, I enjoyed the story and the panels were well-drawn.

James Bond: Black Box is another decent entry into Dynamite's James Bond reboots. In contrast to the earlier works by Warren Ellis (Vargr and Eidolon), this Bond story is less top heavy and dreary; the story flows smoothly and we have an enjoyable (and not over-complicated) Bond adventure.

Story: A Japanese tech eccentric has found a way to hack into the most private of information around the world; information he is selling to rivals that will destabilize governments around the world. Bond is sent to Tokyo on mission black box: to secure the stolen information and take it back to the British government to be used at their discretion. Along the way he meets a rogue Scottish agent who is intent on stopping the information from being sold.

Admittedly, much of the story is somewhat facile and Bond comes across more in a Roger Moore than Sean Connery vein. But that's ok - it made him a lot more accessible than the morose bond in the Ellis books. And the Bondisms remain true here: from skiiing in the alps morphing into an assassination, swimming with sharks and surviving, to underground gambling dens in Tokyo. From Bond bodily landing on the new love interest, Selah Sax (perhaps a better Bond Girl name?) and then getting her in bed just a few scenes later. There were some hitches: making British secret service heads look like megalomaniacs and plot points where we have to suspend disbelief that when Bond hacks into Selah's cell phone, it gives her entire history in the secret service and why she left it. So while this was not my favorite in the series, it was still very entertaining.

If I had one nitpick, it was that in the age of predatory powerful men finally being called out, Bond's looks/interactions with Selah were uncomfortable to watch. It was 1950s Bond, where women were objects to be conquered and discarded, and it felt out of place in this modern interpretation. That isn't to say we don't want to see Bond hook up; just that the way Bond was drawn here was predatory and pathetically outdated.

The art is ok - I wasn't a fan. It was clean but most of the figures were somewhat fleshy and squat, appearances changed often between panels so there were issues with consistency as well. But I could follow the action just fine.

So while this wasn't the deepest or most well-written of the Bond escapes, it's still an enjoyable read. Especially for those who enjoyed the Moore years. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.