posted 02-05-2002 12:21 AM               

I haven't reviewed a black-and-white graphic novel written and drawn by Brian Michael Bendis in a while, and I was starting to get withdrawal pains. So here's a look at Fire, a relatively early Bendis work that was repackaged and republished last year. While the book shares a design sense with Bendis' crime work like Jinx and Torso - right down to the cover scheme - this book is a short spy thriller, about a college student recruited into the intelligence community. (The book was written in 1994, so please, never mind the Alias references.)

The noir-influenced style for which Bendis is famous is on full display here; some of the drawing is a little rougher around the edges, but Bendis retouched many of the other graphic elements. This gives the book a somewhat strange hybrid feel. The artwork grounds the story in the moral ambiguity of the spy game - even though there's plenty of action, there's none of the razzle-dazzle that has come to be associated with the espionage genre in the era of megabudget James Bond movies. The CIA agents of Fire fit right in with the cops and two-bit hoods of Bendis' crime books, except that the story plays out on a global stage.

Despite the many locations, this isn't really a story about saving the world - we never really understand the context of the missions we glimpse. Rather, it's the story of Benjamin, the student recruited into a new program designed to 'build agents from scratch.' He's thrown head first into a pretty overwhelming situation, and it doesn't take long before he starts to regret some of his decisions. Benjamin's narration holds the story together, and it helps take a little bit of the edge off. One of the problems that can pop up with a secret-agent story is that secret agents are supposed to be the people who have an almost inhuman callousness, who can perform any action - no matter how reprehensible - in the name of a perceived greater good or higher agenda. Such characters can be fascinating, but hard to relate to, which is probably why so many stories feature characters like Benjamin - spies who want to find a way out of the game.