COMIC BOOK REVIEW: KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE

What do you do when you have a madman who is kidnapping celebrities and plots to kill five billion people? You call The Secret Service.

Kingsman:The Secret Service was written by Mark Millar (Kick-Ass, Wanted, Superior),illustrated by Dave Gibbons (Watchmen),
co-plotted by Matthew Vaughn (X-Men First
Class), and published by Icon Comics. A film based off of Kingsman: The Secret Service has been
written and directed by Matthew Vaughn and is set to come out February 13th.
It’s about a young miscreant named Eggsy who, after getting in trouble one too
many times, is given a chance by his secret agent uncle to turn his life around
and become a superspy. And no sooner after he is admitted into Kingsman, Eggsy
finds himself out on the field following the appearance of Dr. James Arnold–a
man with the vision of saving the world by killing five billion people.

Kingsman is
an incredibly fun read from start to finish. The story is highly entertaining,
as all Mark Miller stories are, and has everything from a compelling story to
wonderful characters. The story is very much James Bond meets Alex Rider, with
all the gratuitous violence and F-words that make a Mark Miller story. Eggsy is
one of the best characters in the story, and its fun watching him start out as
this young punk who matures and becomes a badass secret agent. His uncle is a
cool character too, resembling a secret agent Obi-Wan Kenobi. I liked the relationship
between Eggsy and his uncle because it felt realistic, and Mark Miller is great
at making his characters feel realistic and human. There’s also cameos by Mark
Hamill and Patrick Stewart throughout the story, as well as other famous nerd
icons.

The artwork by Dave Gibbons is very well done. The action
sequences really pop, especially during the climax. The artwork is also very
stylish, just like a superspy. The characters are all well designed–especially
the character named Antelope, who has blades for legs. The artwork in Kingsman is very similar to the artwork
in Mark Millar’s other graphic novel Nemesis,
meaning its fantastic. And a good graphic novel is nothing without stellar
artwork. When you have the guy who illustrated Watchmen doing the illustrations for your comic book, you don’t
have to worry about the artwork not looking up-to-par.

Kingsman:
The Secret Service is a great graphic novel. It has an awesome
story, enjoyable characters, and artwork that will make you say “wow”. It’s a
spy story done by Mark Millar, and that is reason enough to go out and read
this bad boy. I especially recommend reading it before going to see the movie,
because judging from the trailers it looks like the film is going to be very
different from the graphic novel. Different is good though, because I would
rather watch a comic book film that is a great movie without being completely
accurate than a comic book film that is insanely accurate to the source
material, but is garbage as a movie. Long story short, you should read Kingsman: The Secret Service. It’s one
of the coolest and most original graphic novels available, and it’s what Mark
Hamill would want.

SCORE: 9/10

-Julian

You can check out more comic book reviews by Julian on his tumblr page here.

Picture via PreviewsWorld.com

If you liked this article, please follow us on tumblr (adventseven) and twitter (@Advent_Seven) for all your anime, video game, and comic book news and reviews.