Yumi is in love. Yumi is lethal. When her MI6 boyfriend disappears, Yumi storms the agency – hacking their network, dismantling their operatives, and setting everything on fire. There she finds her first ally… a fully AI Lamborghini that’s built less like a car and more like a WMD. The anti-spy thriller begins here. Yumi: 00EX #1 flips the Bond formula with a debut that’s an assault on the senses and MI6.
Written by Doug Wagner, Yumi: 00EX #1 is fun, a hell of a lot of fun. It’s the story of a young women, trained in lethality, trying to figure out what happened to the man she fell in love with. It just so happens that man works for MI6. What occurs in the first issue is over the top action that if it were a film, would shake the theater in explosions, screaming from the death, and a soundtrack blasting everyone in their seat. It’s pop sense in every way.
Wagner keeps things fun with Yumi strolling through MI6 raining down death while chatting with her father and listening to some music at the same time. There’s an air about Yumi, she’s better than her foes and she knows it. But, we the readers are left with the question as to how is she? What’s her story? All of that is teased, with hints to far more in Yumi’s past, which then opens up the question if her love of the MI6 agent Richard is more obsession by a villain? Wagner teases and hints at these things while delivering humor, action, and some solid violence.
Hoyt Silva delivers the action with colors by Kevin Lenertz and lettering by Frank Cvetkovic. The team puts together visuals that force you to pause to catch every little detail and allow you to appreciate even more jokes than the just the absurd premise. When I saw the comic is an assault on the readers, I mean that with love, as the art is packed in every panel, especially the opening battle, and you can “hear” the panels and everything they deliver visually. The comic bounces between styles with cutesy art lulling us into the belief that Yumi and Richard’s “love” is legit and not just Yumi’s exaggerated take (though the stories she tells seem very exaggerated). The overall style of the comic feels like K-Pop with an action bent in choice of design as well as color.
Yumi: 00EX #1 is a hell of a lot of fun. The comic is pure action and humor with a slightly twisted heroine in the spotlight that leaves readers guessing if she’s a narrator that can be trusted. With some fun pop references and flashy action, it delivers something new to the spy action genre and has us excited to see what’s next.
Story: Doug Wagner Art: Hoyt Silva
Color: Kevin Lenertz Letterer: Frank Cvetkovic
Story: 9.0 Art: 9.0 Overall: 9.0 Recommendation: Buy
Image Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle
