Black Box is the first stinker in Dynamite’s otherwise strong new line of James Bond comics. From the Alpine opener to the showdown with the villain, the whole book reads like Benjamin Percy sat down and made a list of things readers expect to see in a James Bond story and then wrote his script, ticking them off as he went!

It’s all here: Alpine opener with skiing and shooting, the Femme Fatale, a crusty old guy at the start supplying Bond with cool gadgets like watches that do stuff and a badass car with weapons, exotic locations, a casino scene where Bond drinks booze and plays cards with the obvious villain, sharks in tanks, a tough henchman for Bond to fight, car chases, gun fights, sex scenes, double crosses, and the inevitable finale. The plot is incidental - Bond has to recover a MacGuffin from bad guys. Even Rapha Lobosco’s art is derivative of Eduardo Risso’s, particularly with the faces in shadow and bright eyes lit up.

Percy and Lobosco execute it all well enough and it’s a readable book but, because Black Box is as by-the-numbers Bond as you can get, the effect is totally unimpressive, instantly forgettable and boringly predictable. Instead of this useless crap, I recommend the far more entertaining recent Bond comics Eidolon and Hammerhead.

Very predictable Bond story/plot. This was the first time I've ever dozed off reading a graphic novel; nothing to capture the reader's attention, including the artwork.

It was ok. It appeared they were trying to give James Bond the "Dark Knight" treatment, but for me it didn't work. It felt more like a dark, serious Archer episode than it did James Bond. Part of James Bond's charm comes from the ridiculous stunts and the cheesy lines. He doesn't need to be a dark alcoholic hit man.

Following on from the Ellis and Diggle runs, Benjamin Percy takes over the writing - he's done novels, and DC stuff since they went to pot, but not anything I've read before. And more worryingly, he's American, though to be fair this only shows in a few instances of 'English' where I'd expect 'British', and possibly Bond's taste in whisky (which is not to say I wasn't still slightly flattered to see that Bond's second-favourite bourbon is also my own preference). Otherwise, the story is perfectly serviceable, ticking off all the Bond (black) boxes: an enigmatic, attractive and deadly woman; a high-tech MacGuffin; a bit of topicality; high-speed chases; an impractical secret base or two; plenty of local colour (set largely in Japan, of course it visits the suicide forest and takes the bullet train). There's even a car crashing through a street market, which hints at the biggest problem; it's perhaps a little too concerned with being all things to all men. Some scenes openly homage the Roger Moore era, while elsewhere the tiresome self-examination of Daniel Craig is to the fore, and I'm not entirely convinced they can coexist. Also, Rapha Lobosco's art is a little on the cartoony side for the more serious scenes; as so often with Dynamite Bond, the cover art (mainly by Dom Reardon) fits the mood much better than the interiors.

This was a great James Bond story and it was visually gorgeous. In looking at the art, it made me think of Archer and how this is exactly what the show was channeling.
In a world of digital, theft, Bond must retrieve a cache of digital data collected from the entire globe. With this information, one could rule the world.
I like the comic because it's very typical Bond but it dos add some depth to the character. The comic discusses Bond's love of alcohol and he and his female complains openly discuss their scars.
Exciting and fun, this will hold me over till I get another "good" Bond film.

This is a definitely solid entry into Dynamite's Bond titles. Percy brings strong writing and the artistic style is engaging as well as consistent with what we've seen before in these comics. Furthermore, "Black Box" delivers everything one would expect from a Bond story - action, intrigue, dynamic settings, Bond women, classic villains. All of this plays out along with the modern influences that have shaped Bond in recent years. All in all, the story is well-constructed and engaging all the way through.

Indeed, it is adherence to Bond tradition that brings about most of this comic's shortcomings as well. The one main female character ultimately needs to be rescued. The villain is an outsider (to Bond and the British) with a disability. The secondary villain is a character-type we've seen before. As such, while this is well-constructed for a Bond adventure, it plays out by the numbers and does little to either set itself apart or address some of the inherent representational problems that tend to exist within Bond storylines.

Nope... not for me.
This is the first time I read a James Bond story so i'm a James Bond ignorant.
The story line is cute of into pieces without an specific motive. I don't like the story line, in the first place.
The illustrations are OK, 'comic like' with a dark vibe.