Jimmy’s Bastards vol. 1: Trigger Warning

If it seems like we’ve been here before recently, that’s because we have.  Garth Ennis and Russ Braun are together again with the story of an ersatz James Bond coming face-to-face with his thoughtlessly cavalier lifestyle.  Jimmy Regent is the “Not Bond” in question and we’re introduced to him as he’s saving London from a blimp attack by two members of his rogues gallery:  Theolonius Trigger and Bobo the Bastard Chimp. (Clearly Ennis is drawing on the pre-Daniel Craig era of Bond Villains for this series.) Congratulations are in order, along with being teamed up with a new partner, Nancy McEwan, who believes she knows exactly what to expect from Regent.  While this is happening, the many disgruntled bastard children from Jimmy’s love ‘em-and-leave ’em legacy with women have all teamed up to finally give their dad what’s coming to him.

“Jimmy’s Bastards” is clearly meant to fall into the “comedic” section of Ennis’ works and it’s biggest failing is that it’s really not all that funny.  Some bits made me smile, but the humor here is either childish, outlandish, or some mix of both. A late-volume twist has the genders of everyone in London being swapped and many members of both sexes trying out their new equipment in all the ways you’d expect from a Garth Ennis comic.  If that sounds hilarious to you then the style of humor this series trades in will be right up your alley.

There are some things that I genuinely liked about this volume, however.  Regent is a charming bastard in spite of himself and his thoughts on things like political correctness and social justice (mirroring Ennis’ own musings I would imagine) do make a certain amount of sense.  McEwan makes a great foil for her partner and gets some awesome moments of action hero glory towards the end of the volume. Then there’s the art from the always-great Braun which does its best to sell the comedy, but does a better job of making the action and character moments genuinely involving.  With these things going for it, I think I can bring myself to see what the second volume has to offer. So long as it’s the concluding volume, because I can’t see this concept sustaining anything more than that.