James Bond

These ads featured scenes that were never intended to appear in the finished film.

Hollywood constantly remakes animated movies in live-action. Why not do the opposite?

Later this year, Kieron Gillen and Antonio Fuso team-up for a one-shot at Dynamite titled James Bond: Service, which sees the infamous spy caught up in a plot to end the Special Relationship between the United States and Great Britain with a single gunshot. ComicsAlliance chatted to Gillen about what makes a modern Bond story, making Bond his own, and what James Bond means in a post-Brexit world.

When Dynamite Entertainment got its hands on the James Bond license, it must have put together a checklist of talent that would be perfect for the franchise and then went down it one-by-one to give the iconic spy the comics he deserves. If such a list exists, another two names can be checked off as this May, Kieron Gillen teams up with artist Antonio Fuso for a 48-page one-shot James Bond thriller as 007 attempts to stop an assassin from putting a permanent end to the Special Relationship.

Every month, Comixology adds more titles to its burgeoning all-you-can-eat subscription service Comixology Unlimited, which allows readers access to a virtual library of comics for a flat monthly fee. February’s update goes live today, and the service is set to be bolstered by a new wave of awesome comics for you to peruse, including Danger Girl, Harbinger Wars and Lady Snowblood.

A big part about what makes comics work is eyelines. I’ve talked before about Chris Samnee’s genius use of them on the current Black Widow series, but another great example caught my attention this week. The opening page of James Bond: Hammerhead, by Luca Casalanguida, Chris Blythe, Andy Diggle and Simon Bowland struck me immediately. It brings you straight into the action with the rather dynamic, but simple, page design.

So here's the bad news: The sentence "Dynamite announces new James Bond, Bettie Page, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Sweet Valley High comics" does not refer to one single series that's going to combine all of those properties into a single high-school themed alternate universe where Tarzan, 007, and the real-life queen of pin-up photography are all taking math class together and trying to figure out who to ask to the prom. The good news, though, is that they're four separate announcements that all seem pretty interesting: Writer Benjamin Percy taking over James Bond, Bill Willingham returning to Dynamite with artist Cezar Rezak for the Burroughs-themed crossover The Greatest Adventure, a new line of Sweet Valley High graphic novels, and – for the first time since 1997, the return of Bettie Page to officially licensed comics.

James Bond is a franchise that was just begging for a great comics adaptation for years, and we finally got everything we wanted when Warren Ellis and Jason Masters were announced as the creators of an ongoing 007 comic last year. Now, following the success of that ongoing series, Dynamite is launching a new James Bond miniseries titled Hammerhead by Andy Diggle and Luca Casalanguida.

Tom Hiddleston hasn’t seemed particularly enthusiastic or optimistic about reprising the role of Loki in the MCU, but with Avengers: Infinity War promising the epic assembly of Marvel characters yet and a new Thor sequel on the way, the actor’s return seemed inevitable. During a recent appearance at Wizard World, Hiddleston expressed excitement for Thor: Ragnarok, teasing the evolution of his mischievous villain and confirming another run-in with the Hulk. Oh, and he also responded to those James Bond rumors.

How much would it take to get you to play James Bond? Personally, I would do it for a couple grand if they let me keep my wardrobe and the watch and the car.