Double-O-D’s: Danger Girl: Revolver #1 Review

I’d never read Danger Girl before I picked up the first issue of the latest miniseries, Danger Girl: Revolver, because frankly, I’m not a spy story guy by nature. Keep in mind that when I was growing up, James Bond was Roger Moore; the only less effective casting choice for turning kids into spy fans would have been Jerry Lewis. Granted, my tastes have changed as I’ve grown up, but to this day if I want a good spy comic? That’s why God and Greg Rucka invented Queen & Country.

On the great continuum of spy stories, Danger Girl falls closer to Octopussy than Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. However, as an adult now, I can recognize and appreciate it for what it is: big, kitschy, goofy fun. It’s not necessarily my style of fun, but you’ll dig it if you’re looking for unlikely chases, big tits, guns, planes, stunts, big tits, explosions, big tits, and last but not least: big tits.

This book starts with a classic Bond opening: a daring heist of a Fifth Century Persian ring from a wedding… provided 007 was into wearing a wedding dress to impersonate the bride and had a rack you could gack an eight-ball off of (By A View To A Kill, Moore’s moobs were pretty close… and an eight-ball would explain hiring Grace Jones).

In the first fifteen pages of this book we’ve got a hot tub scene, a horse chase, a boat chase, an airplane escape under gunfire, one spear gun, one Molotov cocktail, one massive explosion, twenty gunshots, and thirteen tit shots. This leads into a big, bombastic double-page spread of hot chicks with sniper-scope target effects, background silhouettes, and fire in the foreground. You could almost hear John Barry’s James Bond theme if you weren’t too busy being distracted by your cleavage-related erection.

Look, this book exists for one reason: to deliver big, goofy thrills with a bunch of chicks you want to bang. It’s V.I.P. with the unlimited stunt and special effects budget you get in a comic book, and a James Bond feel in it’s DNA… to the point that the head of the Danger Girl organization looks like Sean Connery after a course of Deca Durabolin and is named Deuce. Get it? “Deuce?” Like “double?” Double-Oh, anyone? Hello? Is this thing on?

But ultimately, it’s the James Bond feel that makes this book disappointing. This is, in fact, the cold open of a Bond flick – a big action sequence that ultimately has nothing to do with the greater story. Which means we get a nice chase sequence, but don’t even get a remote idea as to what this story is gonna be about until 3/4 of the way through the book. While I get that writer Andy Hartnell is specifically trying to reproduce that classic Bond structure, it means that most of this comic feels like a throwaway. Which I can live with if I look at the book as a one-and-done, but considering we don’t even get a proper introduction to the members of Danger Girl beyond first names and the position of the nipples on their hooters until the eighteenth page, it feels kinda scant for four bucks.

Chris Madden’s art works for a big cartoon of a story like this because, well, his art is a cartoon. Big and bright, with simple lines and big Manga eyes, it matches the style of the book, down to Looney Tunes explosion effects to indicate blown minds. It’s not an art style I’d want to see on Batman (Although to be fair, other than the brightness, it’s not all that dissimilar from Bruce Timm’s style on Batman: The Animated Series), and frankly, it’s not a look that I generally prefer. It’ll look good to the eyes of anyone who’s into, say, Mike Wieringo or Humberto Ramos… and it’ll look like manna from heaven to anyone who’s ever jacked off to Jessica Rabbit.

In the final analysis, this is a good book for James Bond fans who’ve never seen real boobs in real life. It’s a cheesecake book, with broad and cartoony characters, art and a storyline. If that sounds like your cup of tea, you’ll probably be into this book. For myself, I’m probably not the best person to judge it, since I acknowledge that it’s not my cup of tea. The best I can say is that I think it succeeds on its own merits… and it reminded me that I needed to order Queen & Country volume four from my local comic store owner, who knows me by name and asks me to remember that there is no such thing as a License To Poop.