I have been waiting for my library to get this in for me for many weeks, and here it is, and I read it in one breath. Why? Because it is one of the best comics out there. Do I say that a lot? Well, I hope not a lot, because this series really is among the best comics running. It is a spy thriller, with top secret agents, double crosses, car chases, all you'd expect. . . but so good, with such good Brubaker dialogue and plot control, and then, in this third volume that completes the first arc of the story. . . Bam! Enter The President of the United States of America, Richard Milhouse Nixon, at the Watergate hotel, and maybe something larger at stake than we thought. When Nixon showed up, I actually laughed out loud. Ford, too! Audacious, this Mr. Brubaker, and such a good and inventive writer.
The focus, in case you don't know, is on Velvet Templeton, a kind of Miss Moneypenny character (from Bond! Do I have to tell you?! Come on!) who is investigating the death of a key operative, her husband. She's been out of the country for several months, laying low, but her investigation leads all the way through lies and dirty secrets to the Very Hall of Lies and Dirty Secrets, in Nixon's DC. And we get some answers, and some resolution. It's SUCH a deliciously good sixties spy yarn, with a middle aged woman as the lead character. Wait: Can that idea work in the world of comics?! Can she even do this?! Where is the male-sophisticate lead and all the Barbie-esque Bond girls falling at his feet? What will readers do?! Just read it, you won't miss them, I promise.
And I almost forgot: the artwork of Epting and Breitweiser (coloring) is fantastic here, a complete collaboration, some of the best work going anywhere.