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James Bond: Hammerhead #6
Released by: Dynamite Entertainment
Released on: March 29th,2017.
Written by: Andy Diggle
Illustrated by: Luca Casalanguida
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It all comes down to this, the sixth and final issue in Dynamite's James Bond: Hammerhead mini-series. It opens with a dramatic page where Bond crawls out of the ocean and onto the Hammerhead rig, a knife in his hand, snipers with night vision goggles perched overhead. He climbs up the ladder and makes short work of them - knives are quiet at least!
In the control room, Victoria Hunt and her henchmen are alerted to a sensor trip on sub-level four. She knows it's Bond, that he's coming for her, and is able to confirm it when she sees him on one of the security monitors. She's also prepared for it, and she sends out two squads of armed men to take care of him: shoot to kill. Elsewhere, the Navy destroyers are closing in on Hammerhead. Just as the gunner inside the Hammerhead canon begins to take them out, Bond shows up and takes over.
Victoria radios the Hammerhead gunner and is surprised when Bond answers. She's not worried - he can't use the thing, it's got bio-metric control. Except Bond, being Bond, has found a way around that thanks to their past together and some clever gadgetry from Q-Branch. She commands the rest of her men to take back Hammerhead from Bond, but that won't be easy. She does have a pretty bargaining chip in the form of that nuclear warhead headed towards London though...
This was a fun read and this last chapter is pretty much action packed. Of course, we know Bond is going to win the day, there's no surprise there, but there are some fun twists here in terms of how he goes about doing that. Diggle writes the character well and the interplay between Bond, M and Moneypenny is done in that classic style. There's also the pre-existing tension between Bond and Victoria Hunt that lends itself well to some good dialogue between the two as the converse while the world seems to be going all to Hell around them.
Luca Casalanguida's artwork uses a lot of heavy line work but it's stylish and evocative and fits Diggle's story rather well. Chris Blythe's coloring helps here too, especially during the scenes that take place on the rig, where it's appropriately dark and dank looking, and during the scenes where the explosions light everything up. The action in this issue flows nicely and Bond is drawn with the right mix of tough guy charisma and macho sex appeal. Once again a great cover from Francesco Francavilla is also worth mentioning - great stuff.
