Review of
Kingsman: The Red Diamond 1 of 6,
by Rob Williams and Simon Fraser
Four out of five stars
Introduction of a James Bond familiar
This comic is
the first of a six part series featuring a snappy dressing Englishman called
Eggsy. In keeping with the Bond character, the opening captions have him in a
car with a sexy woman and the discussion is hot with promise of sexual action. The
setting is London and Eggsy is an agent for the British government. He receives
a call on the videophone in a public cash machine informing him that a member
of the Greek royal family has been kidnapped and threatened with death. Eggsy
is to drop everything and attempt a rescue.
While the agent
is talented, that skill set is dwarfed by that of his car. It flies, exudes
bombs and Eggsy uses it to rescue the Greek prince. In true Q fashion, he also
has some rather effective gadgets on his person, and he exhibits some incredible
athletic ability during the rescue. At the end, when the Greek prince is
unappreciative of his acts, Eggsy does something that leads to the threat of
his being fired.
The story then
takes a different turn, where Eggsy meets his mother, and the British
class-conscious social mores are in full view. When Eggsy visits a bar in the
area of his youth, he meets people he knew and is reminded of where he came
from. When he asks a woman to go with him to another place, he is rebuffed with
the standard comment, “You think you are better than us.”
What makes this
story resonate is that the private life of the hero agent is that of an
ordinary man. He has been successful and is wealthy yet cannot escape his
roots. Wearing the sharpest clothing leads to resentment rather than respect. It
ends with an event that no one could envision James Bond experiencing.
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