Before He Was 007: The Jeff Parker Interview

Who was James Bond before he was 007? It is a question often asked, but there’s never really been a definitive answer. Until now. In Dynamite Entertainment’s James Bond Origin #1 (JUL181213), writer Jeff Parker explains that the answers we seek stretch as far back as World War II!

James Bond Origin #1 (JUL181213) is in comic shops September 5.

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D.E.: Who is James Bond, at the beginning of this series?

Jeff Parker: James is a young man at school starting to carve out a life when war touches him, as it did for millions. He's familiar with loss — his parents died in the Alps a few years before, but James is all that's left of them and isn't going to go down without a fight.

D.E.: How do you and your collaborator Bob Q approach the setting and the context of the series?

Jeff Parker: Bob and I dig through historic al records and ask our learned friends who know some details better. But it's not just war stories, it's James Bond's war stories in particular and we try to see it all through the eyes of a young man who is thrown into the greatest conflict of all time and determined to make a  difference. He's not yet the suave secret agent with steel nerves because he's stared down death so much in his past, this is the journey that makes him that man.

D.E.: Does James Bond Origin tie directly into the classic Ian Fleming novels?

Jeff Parker: Yes, and is advised by the Ian Fleming estate. In the books, Fleming later filled in some details of Bond's history, and we navigate by those mileposts.

D.E.: Your story is set in 1941. Are there plans to follow Bond through to the end of World War II?

Jeff Parker: There are, we follow through 1945 in Origin. You get to see the early operations that will become Ml6, when British Intelligence — like James — also hasn't figured everything out. James' time in the war is dynamic; while he is rising through the ranks in the Navy he also keeps ending up outside the missions, closer to the secret forces that drive the fight. We want to show that he was going to end up in the kind of life he has as an operative no matter what, and his superiors realize the wisdom of harnessing that for Her Majesty's Service.