James Bond has survived enough reinventions to make another dangerous assignment look like the easy part. Every new creative team inherits a character audiences already have strong opinions about, right down to his drink order and hair color. Giving him something unexpected to do without losing what makes him Bond is a challenge that comes with the license.
Grant Morrison has plenty of experience with that problem. Their superhero work has taken familiar characters into strange territory while treating decades of history as something worth using. For anyone who followed their time writing Batman, the prospect of another famously resourceful man taking on elaborate criminal schemes should sound promising.
Morrison will write a new James Bond comic for IDW Publishing, beginning with the six-part adventure Sunbreaker. Announced through a partnership with Ian Fleming Publications, the project promises an original mission featuring unfamiliar enemies and a new central villain. Morrison described the goal as creating “a definitive Bond story,” with further publishing details still to come.
WhatAction SeriesWould You Thrive In?
Wick · Fast · Mission · Die Hard
Four franchises. Four completely different ideas of what a hero is: the assassin with a code, the family that never leaves anyone behind, the man who does his own stunts, and the guy who simply refuses to die. Only one of them runs on your particular brand of trouble. Eight questions will tell you which one you would survive.
Grant Morrison’s ‘Sunbreaker’ Gives James Bond a New Enemy
The announcement puts an established comics name behind 007’s next assignment. Morrison’s DC credits includeBatman and RobinandBatman Incorporated, alongsideAll-Star Superman. Their Batman work helped establish Damian Wayne’s place in the franchise and paired him with Dick Grayson in a very different version of the Dynamic Duo. That history makes the choice interesting beyond having a recognizable writer attached. Morrison has already demonstrated how much can change around an iconic character without making their history irrelevant. WithSunbreaker, their announcement suggests Bond himself will remain confident and dangerous, even as the assignment puts him somewhere less familiar.
Morrison described the story’s setting as a distorted reflection of the present, with deception and violence shaping the world Bond moves through. Their description of 007 is equally blunt: “a killer shark among minnows.” That suggests anyone hoping the new creative team might make his opponents’ lives easier should probably adjust their expectations. The mission will introduce new cars and gadgets, along with a villain inspired by current headlines, although the announcement stops short of identifying that adversary or explaining the threat behind theSunbreakertitle. It also leaves the supporting cast unrevealed, so there’s no confirmation yet of which familiar allies will join Bond on the assignment.
An artist and a specific publication date have not been announced. For now, the confirmed six-part opening gives readers a new mission to anticipate, with a writer whose previous work offers plenty of reason to wonder how strange that mission might become.
