Writer: Rob Williams / Artist: Simon Fraser / Image
The fifth issue of Kingsman: The Red Diamond said, if you ain’t been about it you better ask somebody! We get hit with personal loss, global destruction, unsuspecting deceit, and full frontal nudity! Yeah, Issue #5 comes through for the cookout, brought the cards for spades, Supersoakers for the kids, and cigars and liquor for the ol heads.
Williams’ ability to keep Eggsy’s family in the forefront of our minds is remarkable. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, mum and little bruv Ryan are but grains in the sandbox of cataclysm that is society’s crumbling decency. Yet you feel for Eggsy’s mom something severe when those looters hit her with a Mike Tyson haymaker and ransack the crib. Focusing on these two changes nothing, unless you’re Eggsy. Seeing him scream in terror when he hears his mom get attacked fills your pores with venomous hatred for Johnny, the scumbag that put mom dukes’ business in the streets. All of this so you can get that “too close to home” context. Williams knocks it out the park.
The issue picks up with Eggsy demanding MI6 to go check on his mum. We quickly pivot to the main focus of locating Red Diamond and the gum-reppin, movie-loving Henchman of Diamond Dame. The map Eggsy and Kwaito nearly died over, fought over, and f**ked over is the key to finding this precious gem-coveting psychopath. But you already knew it wasn’t going to be that easy! Kwaito and Eggsy really have to get their hands dirty on this mission, so it’s reckless explosives being set off after brrrrappppp uzi shots fired after another!
Fraser continues his hit-and-miss depiction of Kwaito, her South African hair texture, and overall look. I know I’ve said that before, but I can’t act like it doesn’t matter. I simply wish Kwaito looked like the cover art. Luckily, many panels that depict this world that Red Diamond has left in tatters are absolute flames, while some fall a bit flat. One of the areas that Fraser really shines is when he gets to depict action that isn’t on the ground level. His aerial and underwater shots are very well done and, as I mentioned before, he is tasked with one of the wildest artistic requests I’ve seen on a page — and he crushes it, like exposing a can of soda to the very bottom of the ocean depths.
Get your hands on issue #5 to check out the despicable betrayal, inspirational Le Fay speech and that final panel of head-spinning indecency as we get closer and closer to our culmination of this Kingsman run.
8 Thrones of Gold and Jewels out of 10
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