Trade Winds: Super Spy

Posted by Graig on October 1, 2007

(Top Shelf)

For every James Bond and Jason Bourne, Emma Peel and John Steed, there’s a Willie Caine, Tara Chase or Sharlink “The Shark”. Where The Man From U.N.C.L.E. or the double-oh agents may glorify the life of spies as a sexy, almost cartoonish existence, it’s series like Queen and Country or Matt Kindt’s Super Spy that bring things back to reality, showcasing a tense and fragile, deadly and/or scarring existence to the men and women that serve their nation, hopefully for the better good.

Super Spy is a deceptive title for this collection of 30+ interlocking stories about WWII espionage, the missions, the people undertaking them, and the toll the job takes on the individual, their family and the bigger picture and not the glorious Bondian action it insinuates. Compiled in a non-linear fashion, each story is self-contained but also a part of the bigger picture. Paths cross, stories interweave, some come to abrupt halts while others seem to dangle, the ending uncertain.

There’s a sadness to the life of the spy that Kindt emphasizes, a distance and loneliness from true relationships, a perpetual distrust of the people around you, a lack of comfort in one’s surroundings, a lack of support for superiors, and often a complete lack of understanding one’s objectives. It’s not a life the bulk of the many characters we meet in Super Spy choose with an informed mind. In many cases it’s out of necessity, in others it’s just to discover that it’s not all gadgets and glory. Still others never realize exactly how much danger they are in, even to the bitter end.

Kindt’s stories are the sobering antidote to hyper-active, testosterone driven spy films like XXX, restoring a humanity to the profession, or a the very least, in some respects, clinically observing the chilling effects of the job on the psyche of the people who perform them.

That’s not to say it’s a dour work. Far from it. There are still spy missions, which regardless of their physical requirements - whether it be extracting information or transporting it from one location to another, eliminating one’s enemy, or blowing up a manufacturing plant - are still damn engaging. There’s inherent tension of covert operations and both the individual stories and the larger picture are engrossing and addictive.

The entire book is printed with a pulpy-yellowing sheen, giving the air of aged stories, the aesthetic of of-the-era printing. The coloring varies between sepia tones, black and white with blue washes and full color (with a four-color sensibility). Kindt’s art serves the stories well, with a roughness of line and edge, generally, that has a tense and rushed feeling, giving into the characters and their often desperate plight. Kindt also switches up his style from time to time, refining his lines or colors to suit the calmer stories. Unfortunately there are a few occasions where Kindt’s characters blur indistinguishable from one another and the sheer number of characters and their somewhat random appearances makes them a little hard to keep track of while progressing through the stories. But it’s a minor quibble, as overall, it’s a gripping work on both an artistic and entertainment level. A must-read for any fan of espionage stories.

4 and a half out of 5 Vikings