"For I must be traveling on now 'cause there's too many places I've got to see."

[nausicaa83]

For the "A Book With Pictures" square I read Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons' Kingsman The Secret Service, the comic book that inspired the movie of the same name.

It's only six chapters, and I already knew it was going to be pretty different from the movie, but I had no idea it was going to be this different. While the basic idea is still there, what with Gary coming from a poor background into a job out of a James Bond movie, it's executed very poorly. The characters don't have much personality, and they are all unsympathetic and annoying. The villain is very bland, and there's nothing of what made the movie so intriguing and unique. In the movie Eggsy is written as a loyal, empathic young man who cares most of all about his family, and Harry as a gentleman who sees the faults in his own social class and who's ready to use his privilege to change that world and make it better. Their friendship is so compelling because they're very different people who are both open to see the world from another's perspective. There's none of that here. Plus no Harry Hart, no Roxy - scratch that, no interesting female characters at all, a lot of sexist jokes, no puppies, no church scene, and weirdly enough, no actual Kingsman, as these guys are MI6. So no Arthurian nicknames, and no fascinating backstory about this particular agency.

The reason why I didn't give it a little red X right there is because the ending was unexpectedly good: showing teamwork as the best asset at Gary's disposal was a great and unexpected plot twist. And the way they twarted the bad guy's plan was surprisingly cute and funny.

That being said, my advice is just watch the movie, and forget about this book. It's deeply flawed and has basically nothing in common with the movie, and it would have probably put me off watching it altogether if I had read it beforehand. If you're already a fan of the movie, it's interesting in an academic sort of way, to see where the idea germinated and all, but other than that, there's way better graphic novels out there much more worthy of your time.