Boy Bond: Get to Know the Famed Double-0 From the Ground Up

Ian Fleming's MI-5 agent James Bond has thrilled and chilled readers and moviegoers for decades. But despite all that history, how well does anyone truly know the man?

Jeff Parker and Bob Quinn team up through Dynamite Comics to give us a Bond we've never seen before; a Bond who could be both shaken and stirred, far from infallible, hardly smooth, but very much showing that diamond in the rough quality that makes him a candidate for a new type of defense program.

When we meet Bond, he is only 17, growing up in a Britain beseiged by Nazi blitzkreigs. A student, he teaches judo on the side, and befriends a German professor who knew his mother from their years at school together. But when the professor is attacked and killed, James takes the initiative to track down the men behind it, causing him to miss his train for a class outing.

His daring doesn't go unnoticed and soon he is recruited for training at "The Pig Farm," along with a few other likely candidates for the military intelligence initiatives. It's here that Bond pulls his own Kobayashi Maru, leading up to a position with the British Navy aboard a submarine, and the first of a handful adventures collected here where he and his crew mates outwit the Nazis.

Parker's writing is concise and exciting. He keeps the adventure simple, without any confusing subplots that make no sense until you reach the conclusion. It's pure fists-and-bullets pulp fun from beginning to end. Quinn's artwork is refreshingly clean, with sharp lines complemented by a brilliant color palette.

JAMES BOND: ORIGIN VOLUME 1 collects the first six issues of the series from Dynamite Comics, as well as a short story published elsewhere. Any fan of Fleming's spy -- whether in the films or (for the purist) in the books -- would be delighted to have this new, faithful chapter added to their Bond library.