LADY S. VOLUME 1 & VOLUME 2

HERE'S TO SUZIE | LATITUDE 59 DEGREES NORTH
Drawing and Color Work: Philippe Aymond | Script: Jean Van Hamme

LADY S is a European comic series which began in 2004 and follows the exploits of Suzan Fitzroy, the adopted daughter of a roving United States ambassador, who finds herself working a side gig as an unwilling agent of a top-secret European peacekeeping organization under the leadership of Colonel Orion.

The first book in the series, HERE'S TO SUZIE, was published in 2004, and lays out our heroine's backstory through a series of out-of-sequence flashbacks. I have to admit that as I read the story, I was slightly dreading the fact that when I finished it, I would need to sort through those sometimes-convoluted flashbacks and piece together Suzan's history for a summary paragraph here. So imagine my relief when I got to book 2 and found a nice recap page leading things off, which filled everything in quite succinctly! Thus, rather than try to stumble my way through resummarizing it, here's a brief history of Lady S from the horse's mouth, for your edification:

Seriously, please read this right now, or the rest of the review will make little sense!

The non-flashback portions of the first book find Suzan and her father in Brussels for a NATO conference, where Orion catches up with her, reintroduces her to her long-lost partner Anton (who is often drawn, at least to my eye, to resemble a young Mick Jagger), and forces the two of them to steal a folder from a safe in the office of the Turkish ambassador. What ensues is a chase-laden sequence of kidnapping, topless (well, shirtless but wearing a bra) rooftop-hopping, and motorcycle riding as our heroine escapes back to the U.S. embassy with her prize, while a CIA operative who was after the same folder is caught red-handed trying to steal what has already been stolen, and takes the fall in Suzan's place.

The second book is set in Switzerland on the eve of the Nobel Prize awards. Suzan falls for a dashing Russian reporter and after some conversation with him, begins to wonder if her father, who was said to have killed himself in a Soviet prison years ago, might still be alive. But when Orion and Anton show up, Suzan is pulled back into the espionage game, as she and Anton must steal a folder (again) from a known terrorist, which outlines plans to kidnap the Nobel laureates ahead of the ceremony. The plan turns out to be a red herring, however, and the prize-winners are kidnapped anyway. Orion's people find them and the day is saved, but not without some heartbreak for Suzan.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from LADY S when I started it. As I mentioned in my announcement of the series, I was mainly drawn to the attractive artwork and the political/espionage premise. And when I started volume one, I have to admit that I was a little concerned I'd made a mistake. There was lots of political stuff to open the book, and while I like political intrigue, I prefer it presented in broad strokes rather than minute bits of history. I guess the sort of politics that interest me in fiction are more along the lines of something like 24 or James Bond than THE WEST WING (though I've never actually watched THE WEST WING, but it seems about as opposite 24 as you can get). And this book seemed to assume that its readers were intimately familiar with the history of the Soviet Union, which I am quite assuredly not.

But fortunately, while the flashbacks were heavy on that sort of thing, the present-day segments were relatively straightforward espionage, which is what I was hoping for in the first place. And since the second volume has no flashbacks at all (and is about twenty-five pages shorter than book one), it's a much more entertaining read, and is basically what I expected from the series in the first place -- which I suppose helps to prove the old adage that origin stories are boring.

(I'm joking; not all origin stories are boring, but for me, any origin should be wrapped up fairly quickly -- within the first 10 or so pages of a comic book or within the first thirty minutes of a movie. But I have a friend who says things get boring once the origin is over, while I think the opposite. I'd usually prefer to fast-forward through the origin to get to the fun stuff!)

Anyway, following a bumpy first volume, which is really just an extended preamble, LADY S hits its stride with book 2. Our heroine is established; we know her backstory and her reason for doing what she does. Book 2 is basically the sort of "Bond movie" I was hoping for. It's a mission; nothing more. Hopefully the subsequent books will follow this formula and not spend too much time back in flashback land! Next week, we'll look at the third and fourth books in the LADY S series to find out.