Warning! Spoilers for King of Spies #1 ahead!
The first issue of Mark Millar’s thrilling new comic series King of Spies feels so much like a natural continuation of the story of James Bond, that it practically comes off as a casting announcement for Pierce Brosnan to play the lead role in the upcoming Netflix adaptation. And it’s not just because Brosnan looks exactly like the protagonist Roland King, with a full beard and a distinguished brand of handsomeness that is equal parts sophisticated and rugged. The story of a retired superspy tying up loose ends before succumbing to cancer is exactly the sort of closure on Brosnan’s run of James Bond films that fans deserve.
Written by Millar with art by Matteo Scalera, King of Spies is the latest offering from Image Comics and Millarworld, Mark Millar’s creator-owned publisher that was purchased by Netflix in 2017. The writer is best known for works such as Kingsman: The Secret Service, Kick-Ass, Jupiter’s Legacy and Wanted. He has also penned incredibly successful works for Marvel and DC, including Civil War, Old Man Logan, The Ultimates, and Superman: Red Son. After the acquisition of Millarworld by Netflix, he has worked on new series The Magic Order, Prodigy and Sharkey the Bounty Hunter. Scalera is best known for his work on series like Batman, Secret Avengers, White Knight Presents: Harley Quinn and Space Bandits.
King of Spies opens with an exciting and kinetic action sequence set in Panama in 1990. Channeling the spirit of Bond, a young Roland King looks dashing and lets the quips fly as he leaps and shoots his way through a series of soldiers and assassins. After boarding a plane carrying the real-life Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, he quickly dispatches the authoritarian leader before flying off with a beautiful woman to make love. The series then cuts to the present day, where an older King has been put out to pasture, spending his days drinking, performing mundane tasks for his old handlers and ruminating on his past mistakes. After coughing up blood several days in a row, he discovers that he is dying of cancer, and decides to get his affairs in order before it takes him.
The toll of his Bond-esque life weighs heavily on King along with the feelings that he had outlived his usefulness. He is completely alone, with no family or true friends beyond other former spies he sees at his social club. After a career spent traveling the world and cheating on his now ex-wife, King’s son refuses to speak to him. He also has an illegitimate daughter who doesn’t know he exists. His life is not completely without action, however. One of the highlights of the issue is when he gets fed up with a group of loudmouthed Russian businessmen at his club and follows them into the bathroom where he quickly takes them down in a cathartic release of all his frustrations. It is then that he determines his final few months afford him just enough time to “rid the world of all the old monsters and try to make it up to the people I let down.”
The first issue was released Wednesday and has been a big success, with Millarworld tweeting that a huge number of retailers have sold out of copies on the first day. While Millar has been cagey about who will play King in the Netflix adaptation, the Millarworld Twitter account has had some fun with the speculation. After posting, “Can you guess who we’re planning to cast as Roland King in our upcoming Netflix series?” the account retweeted an image of Brosnan, praising his hair and proclaiming, “What a dude!” Roland King feels exactly like a “relic of the Cold War,” as M says about Bond in Brosnan’s first 007 film, Goldeneye. But just like the actor, he's still got plenty of fight left in him. While Pierce Brosnan never got a proper ending to his time as James Bond on the big screen, Mark Millar's King of Spies is a perfect fit for the actor to once again play the world’s greatest spy for one final mission.