Spy Seal #2

Story and Art: Rich Tommaso
Published by: Image Comics

Coming off of a pretty action packed first issue, Tommaso brings us the continuation of his slickest secret agent - a great tagline - intro to the spy world. When we last left Malcolm the seal, he had just been recruited by Britain’s spy agency to become their newest agent. As we begin issue 2, we get to witness Malcolm’s first mission, as well as his first failure in the field as he tries to uncover the secrets of this mysterious “Phoenix” agency.

However, being the greenhorn that he is in the spy trade, Malcolm plays his hand too quickly and gets “made” almost immediately by the ones he is sent to gather information on. After reporting in, he is assigned to a veteran spy to help him develop his trade skills to help him in the future.

As far as plot goes, this issue is somewhat thin on it, but we get to experience a new, burgeoning spy in his infancy. Malcolm shows off his inexperience and that is somewhat refreshing. You would think from the title of the book that he would be James Bondesque character from the word go, but he isn’t. And better for it. We get to experience his trials and tribulations with him as he learns.

Tommaso’s art is where this book truly shines. As I mentioned in my previous review, Tommaso has a very European style to his approach and that is apparent in not only the clean lines, the use of a matted colour scheme, but also in the paneling of the pages. There hasn’t been one bad page up to date.

My only negative to this issue, and probably to the series in general, is that because it is so reminiscent of European comics, the progression of the story seems a little stilted and would probably benefit if it was a graphic novel instead of individual issues. Once the graphic novel comes out of the first story-arc, it will definitely become a must-read, I’m almost sure of it.