The Ruskies have nicked weaponised water - “stalvoda”, literally “steel water”, which instantly freezes after exploding - from the Brits, who originally nicked it from the Ruskies during the Soviet era. Bond’s gotta - sigh - nick it back. International espionage, eh?
It’s surprising that Garth Ennis has never written a James Bond comic before given that he’s basically written this type of character - the unstoppable one-man killing machine - in numerous books over the years, most notably in the form of The Punisher over at Marvel.
(Well, sidebar: he kinda has in the quasi-porn-y parody Jimmy’s Bastards for the awful publisher Aftershock Comics, which is somehow still around despite declaring bankruptcy a few years ago. Jimmy’s Bastards was one of Ennis’ “joke” comics - if you know the writer, he alternates between dead serious, impeccably-researched war comics and schoolboy humour-level dross. The premise for this embarrassment was: what if James Bond fathered dozens of daughters with all the women he slept with and then, years later when they were adult women themselves, had sex with all of them, not knowing they were his kids? I know, hilarious. Somehow that one, unfunny joke was an entire miniseries - I don’t recommend seeking it out.)
Years of experience writing this type of character and story should mean that Ennis and Bond would be a slam dunk - so it’s disappointing that it’s not.
The opening scene is fun - really that whole first issue is promising. And then Ennis loses the thread. There’s some half-hearted attempt at making it seem like M was a traitor and Bond, like the increasingly dull story, is all over the place (in space at one point) trying to get answers for something. Most of the book is Bond shooting people for some reason. The action finale isn’t bad and then it’s over.
Rapha Lobosco’s art is serviceable but unremarkable. The story is very intermittently interesting and mostly vague and feels muddled and pointless. Ennis has captured the essence of Bond’s character at least, and M as well - it’s a shame the generic story surrounding them is much less sharply rendered.
James Bond 007: Your Cold, Cold Heart left me cold - very underwhelming, unimpressive stuff from a writer of Ennis’ calibre.
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