Queen & Country
Definitive Edition, Vol. 1 Trade Paperback
Written by Greg Rucka
Art by Steve Rolston, Brian Hurtt, Leandro Fernandez
Oni Press
Cover price: $19.95; Available now

As a comic book geek, newly arrived to the scene, one has to be careful to have read all that is necessary for that title. For example, if you haven’t read Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns, whether you liked them or not, you are just not a comic book geek. Similarly, there are a fleet of other books that are added to that list once you desire to review comics as I do.

To be frank, even though I’m Josh, very few of these comics however are DC or Marvel related. They have names like Fables, DMZ, Sandman, and more.

So when I started back in on comics about a year or so ago, I was surprised to find that if I wanted to have any degree of believability as a comic fan, I had to expand my reading past the “big two” and on to publishers like Vertigo, Image, and Oni.

And so, as I intended, we come now to the focus of this review: Oni Press’s Queen & Country, written by Greg Rucka.

And the tag line of this review is simple, “if you haven’t read this you haven’t read comics!”

By nature I am a book work of extreme proportions. No, that does not mean I am fat (very well built actually), but rather I am obsessive about my books and my reading. I have many hundreds, and I haven’t even hit the first quarter of a century yet (though that’s rushing up quickly enough). This is all to say that I pride myself on my ability to read more than just what I fancy; I expand my horizons (albeit within the fantasy genre).

Queen & Country is the perfect example of expanding one’s comic-reading horizons. The art is black and white, which immediately put me off it. However, upon listening to the boys at iFanboy rant on its brilliance, and how much anyone who liked Checkmate would like Queen & Country, I gave in and bought myself the object of our attention today: Queen & Country – Definitive Edition, Vol. 1.

I was absolutely blown away!

First of all, and seemingly inconsequential until you hold it, is the size of the book. Amazon.com lists this book’s dimensions as 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches, so it is smaller and thus thicker than your average trade paperback. That it wraps up the first 12 issues of Queen & Country, however, was already going to thicken it on top of your regular 128-page TPB. But the smaller, compact size is beautiful, making it a real treat to hold in your hand.

The only way I can describe this is to relate it to the feel of the right type of scotch glass in your hand. For me, it is a square glass with rounded off edges, a circular and extremely heavy base. It makes the drinking much better. As does this Definitive Edition of Queen & Country; its weight, size, and even the smell (I’m obsessive about my books”¦ remember that, and don’t look down on me!) makes this book one of the better purchases of my lifetime.

Of what you get in this edition that you don’t get in the single-issue comics, there is a small amount at the end of the book. Black and white sketches showing the progression of panels from their early stages, early character sketches, black and white covers, and a great page with Lex (I’ll get to her shortly) and the Ops Room.

But a book’s dimensions and special added features are only as good as the content of the story itself. Thankfully, Greg Rucka knows not only how to package a book, but how to write one as well! Queen & Country is the epitome of great storytelling, and makes you crave each next page with a desire not seen since John Candy saw that last pile of donuts.

The story focuses on Tara Chase, a “minder” or operative of the Special Operations Section of the British Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6, however never referred to as such in the book. But instead of being a Bond or Bourne style secret agent spy book, Rucka manages to express with aplomb the realities — or what we assume would be the realities, if we were spies — of a job many of us wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.

We get a look inside the politics and bureaucracy of a job that isn’t just about shooting people, although the opening pages would seem to beg to differ. Chace’s superior, Director of Operations Paul Crocker, must continually walk a tightrope — oftentimes simply ignoring the tightrope altogether — in an attempt to bring a measure of security to not only his Queen & Country, but his minders as well. If I were to tell you much of this book takes place in Crocker’s office — or the office of a superior that Crocker has been summarily summoned too — I would plead with you to understand, it doesn’t matter! No matter what location this book hops too — whether it be Afghanistan, Iraq, the Operations room, or Chief of Service Frances Barclay’s (known colloquially as “C”) office, the storytelling is of a measure that you are still hanging by the edge of your seat.

The Definitive Edition contains the first 12 issues of Greg Rucka’s run, which is itself broken into three separate “Operations”: Broken Ground, Morningstar, and Crystal Ball. At the beginning of each operation/storyline we are provided a cast list, which gives a brief sentence or two of each of the main characters.

This helps maintain a handle on who is who, especially with there being a different artist from operation to operation. This becomes a problem with the third operation, but I’ll get to that in a moment, because I promised I would return to Lex.

Lex, short for Alexis, is the Mission Control Officer, and spends her time down in Mission Control keeping a track on all the operations. She is one of the bit-part characters that Rucka does not fail to give his full attention too, and thus ours. She’s witty, sexy, and immensely fun to read. As is Kate, Crocker’s personal assistant. Her droll sense of humor and penchant for replying to Crocker’s instructions with a dry “Yes Master” has you giggling like you were a 13-year-old school girl (of course, if you are a 13-year-old school girl, I’m not sure what to tell you!).

In other words, this story is like no other, and will have you tearing your hair out when you realize you’ve finished the first 12 issues, and that Amazon can’t deliver to Australia (where I am) by the next day.

I mentioned the art, and I’ll get to my issues with it in a moment. Because, on the whole, I loved the artwork! While I missed the original run of this in issue, I’ve been able to cobble together that some of the critics had issues with Steve Rolston‘s artwork, saying that it was too cartoony. On the contrary, while the artwork didn’t have the definition of an Alex Ross or a Cliff Chiang, it’s lack of lines and fuss really drew me too it.

And while the art changed slightly when Brian Hurtt came on board for Operation Morningstar, it once again had that simple realism I’d come to enjoy in the first story arc.

I honestly was surprised with how well I adapted to the black and white though. I was under the impression that the colors made the comics, however these issues proved to me that that was simply not so. After a page or two, the fact there are no colors doesn’t become an issue whatsoever.

I had significant issues however with Leandro Fernandez‘ work on the third story arc, issues 8 to 12, Operation Crystal Ball. It was nothing short of distracting, as the characters seemed all to have morphed into political satiric cartoons from my newspaper. I cannot understand what effect he was going for, or why Crocker’s nose was so damn long! Whereas for the first two operations I was happy to go slowly, taking in the artwork as I read, the last third of the book was simply spent reading the story, spending as little time as possible on the artwork.

In addition, I had been so happy to find ourselves with a female character that wasn’t busting out of her top as a misplaced Next Top Model contestant. As much as some male artists would have you believe, not all women have a cup size in excess of C and a bust that would mean a midlife crisis for your father. Nor does every woman on the planet — as sad as it may be to hear this — belong on the catwalk. I was actually rather taken with Tara’s looks in the first two story arcs, and was monumentally disappointed when I opened the first page of Fernandez’ work.

That aside, there is literally nothing else at fault with this book. Greg Rucka has penned a mighty story that has already had me visit Amazon or the second Definitive, and will have me revisiting again in June. All in all, the definitive gets 4 out of 5 for art — detracting a point for Fernandez’ work on the latter arc — and 5 out of 5 for storyline!