I suppose it's natural that a writer as sceptical of state power as Ales Kot keeps being drawn to writing secret agents; they're what that power looks like when the lights are off and the need to put on a nice front is removed. But whereas his own creations such as Zero can really dig into that, it leaves him in a more awkward position when he's playing with someone else's toy such as Agent Coulson or, here, the exemplar of the species. And perhaps that tension is why he's created a somewhat fractured story, six one-issue looks at Bond with a vague thematic link, but which show very different sides of him. The variety, verging at times on a sense of disjointedness, is emphasised by using different artists, some of whom handle the gig much better than others. The first chapter, 'The Body', has Casalanguida, one of the stand-out Dynamite Bond artists, who captures the appopriate air of elegant menace; this is the traditional, heroic Bond, preventing an assassination in spectacular style (though the explosions and helicopters remain off-panel, the comic instead showing us the prelude and the aftermath, the important stuff often overwhelmed by pyrotechnics). But that's followed by 'The Brain', essentially an interrogation scene, which means a lot of repeated panels of Bond in the same pose. Some artists can carry that off; Antonio Fuso just makes Bond look wet, a bit confused - almost Daniel Craig-esque - and as if a stock picture has been repeated with comic intent. Not that the story is otherwise funny, as Bond sits getting harangued about the horrors of Britain's past (Kot's occasional tendency to regurgitate his research undigested is in full effect here) by a scientist accused of giving terrorists access to bioweapons. The third issue, drawn by Rapha Lobosco, looks almost like Goran Parlov; it ends with a fabulous, knowingly homoerotic money shot as Bond goes undercover in a neo-Nazi sauna. This feels to some extent like the synthesis of the first issue's trad heroic Bond and the second's foolish catspaw, but if you attain that harmony halfway through the collection, where do you go next? Well, it turns out the short stories may be more linked than they first appeared, and the second half feels much more consistent, both in tone and in the quality of the art - though there's still a massive and appropriate variation between Eoin Marron's low-key vignette The Heart and Hayden Sherman's tense, intricately designed work on The Lungs. And then it's back to Casalanguida again as Bond and Leiter go for a drink and the main action is again resolved offscreen. Not without its flaws, but still definitely the most interesting Bond I've seen in any medium since Tomorrow Never Dies. I'm just disappointed that, given both Kot and the Bond franchise have a bit of form for on-the-nose names, he didn't manage to include a Bond girl called Patriarchy Kristeva or something.

(Netgalley ARC)

This is the seventh volume of the James Bond series, and it keeps getting better. In this volume, we get even deeper into the psyche of Bond as he tries to unravel a tangled web involving Afghan assassins, deadly biological weapons, neo-Nazi gangs, supersmart scientists switching sides, and of course, EU and American politics.

It was also quite cool how the author tied it all into injuries that Bond has experienced.

James Bond: The Body is a delightful addition to the spy hero’s canon. It features the notes we Bond lovers enjoy and stands with some of the best 007 illustrated work.