Review – The Illegitimates #1

This was originally published at Word of the Nerd on December 18th.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that James Bond, in all of his adventures, never once used protection when he managed to find some spare time for some frolicking with his female companions and adversaries. What’re the odds that Bond has a slew of kids out in the wings just waiting to meet daddy? In The Illegitimates #1 Taran Killam and Marc Andreyko imagine such a scenario, only our Bond surrogate, Jack Steele, doesn’t exactly get to meet the family.

While on a mission in Ukraine, Steele comes across one of his oldest foes, Dannikor, atop a speeding train. They fight, as per usual, only this time Dannikor finally comes out ahead, so to speak. Distracting Steele long enough, the agent meets his unfortunate end when his head is splattered into gore and grey matter when the train enters a tunnel. Knowing that Dannikor is planning something big, something that would have required the skills of the recently deceased, Olympus, the organization operating under the dual partnership of British and American special forces, fast-tracks Operation Sire. Seeing the potential in Steele’s illegitimate children, Olympus carefully nurtured their hereditary skills. We have Vin Darlington, an American expert marksman, Kiken Kaze, gear head and son of a Yakuza assassin, Saalinge M’Chumba, a South African spy, Leandro Caliestas, a Mexican martial artist/model, and Charlie Lordsley, the brainy daughter of a former temp at Olympus. All of them are ready to be recruited, Olympus just has to make a team out of them. Unfortunately, Dannikor is already aware of the potential threat.

Part of the fun of The Illegitimates are the various scenarios that could very well have been pulled from actual Bond movies. Obviously Killam and Andreyko have done their homework because Steele’s multitude of missions carried out from the ’60s to the present are pitch perfect. Foreign locations, bad guys in need of killing, clever one-liners, scantily dressed women, adversarial women, mercenary-type women…let’s just say there’s a lot of women. I was surprised, though, by how restrained the humor was in this book since Killam is a well-known comedian who most people would recognize from Saturday Night Live. Then again, Killam is credited as the creator and co-writer of the book, so the restraint might be coming from Andreyko, which is smart since a premise like this could easily fall into parody without having any real substance. And there’s no real sense of how the book is going to progress since the first issue is all set up. Steele’s promiscuity is established, he dies, and then we get a splash page per bastard child to explain their skills, the women Steele impregnated, and some beautiful illustrations by Kevin Sharpe depicting milestones in each child’s life. Well, everyone except for Charlie. Sharpe’s art is especially important given the rapid-fire pacing of the story. He conveys movement and action very well with the inks and colors by Diana Greenhalgh and Peter Pantazis, respectively, making the illustrations pop. The cinematic style of the art really reinforces the James Bond homage.

Final Thoughts: It’s time for the family to meet and oh to be a fly on that wall. I can’t wait!

Review – Saga #16

This was previously posted at Word of the Nerd on November 27th

Oh, Saga, you certainly do know how to make a girl’s jaw drop one minute and squeal in delight in the next.

Continuing their search for the truth regarding Alana’s possible kidnapping/defection, the intrepid reporters Upsher and Doff confront yet another of Alana’s former commanders, Special Agent Gale of Secret Intelligence. While Gale is reluctant to speak with them, which is putting it mildly, when they show him a picture of Alana snagging her poncho from a clothesline while wearing her wedding ring, he ushers them into his apartment and reveals to them that Alana never defected. She’s a spy for Landfall, one of the best, according to Gale. However, if Upsher and Doff continue digging for the truth, it could endanger millions of lives. He then undercuts a reasonable request by blackmailing the homosexual journalists who’re considered criminals on their home world of Jetsam and calls for a hit on them once they’ve left.

Unfortunately, the best man for the job of taking the two out isn’t returning anyone’s calls because he’s be brutally stabbed by a little girl high on the opiates produced by a planet’s ecosystem. Which I’m sure happens all the time. Gwendolyn, while searching for Sophie with Lying Cat, falls prey to the same hallucinations when she sees the woman who took her virginity calling to her. Thankfully, Lying Cat lets her know that the woman isn’t really there and Gwendolyn figures out that Sophie and The Will are in trouble. When she discovers the damage done to Will, she knows there’s only one person who can save him: Marko. On Quietus, the family of fugitives are still soaking in the restful few days they’ve had in Heist’s lighthouse, giving Marko and Alana some time to think more about how they’re going to earn a living and raise Hazel. The solution appears to be putting Alana in Circuits – Saga‘s equivalent of television – since she does have a previous background in acting, which she tries to downplay. The illusion of luxury, however, disappears quickly when the plot catches up with itself and Prince Robot IV shows up.

Sixteen issues in and Brian K. Vaughan has managed to create a menagerie of fleshed out, nuanced characters and suddenly he’s put the motivations of one half of the romantic duo into question. A lot of time and effort has been put into showing Marko and Alana’s romance, building it up like a science-fiction version of Romeo and Juliet. The lovers meet, quickly fall for one another, and run away together, though their actions have significant consequences. Now, Vaughan is setting up a new wrinkle in the story. Is the love between the two real? It certainly looks that way on Marko’s end, but the scenes involving Upsher and Doff uncovering Alana’s past, as well as brief scenes of Alana and Marko meeting for the first time and supposedly falling in love over Heist’s book can be viewed in a new light with this information. Vaughan reinforces our suspicions of Alana when she and Marko discuss her possibly becoming an actor on the Open Circuit. Alana says there’s more to acting than what Marko briefly saw and when Marko suggests he’d rather Hazel grow up around actors than soldiers, Alana quietly implies that he’s never been around actors enough to make that call. All of this is meant to keep us guessing about Alana’s true allegiance and Fiona Staples does a remarkable job of making Alana’s expressions as cryptic as possible. She’s becoming less of the open book she was at the beginning of Saga, which is almost uncomfortable to look at because Vaughan and Staples have made us care so much about Alana and Marko as a couple.

There is, however, a glimmer of hope that Alana’s defection was real for the reasons we think. Hazel’s narration implies that she was raised by her parents, so if Alana was a spy, perhaps she truly did fall in love with Marko over the course of their time on the run that resulted in Hazel being conceived. There’s also Hazel to consider. That’s some pretty deep cover for Alana to risk getting pregnant just to somehow spy on the enemy when it seems Marko isn’t all that involved in his people’s affairs. There’s also the possibility that Special Agent Gale said Alana was a spy to throw the journalists off, though his call for a hit on them a clear indicator that they’re getting to the bottom of something. All I know is Vaughan is going to do his damnedest to keep us guessing until some sort of reveal occurs.

Final Thoughts: It’s Vaughan’s story to tell and though Heist he proclaims that stories always follow a formula, but the best stories break all the rules for the fun of an adventure. Considering what the next issue has in store, this adventure is only getting started.