Dynamite Entertainment is adapting Ian Fleming’s James Bond into a comic book series.
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Pop culture figures making the leap to comic books is an established phenomenon: properties such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Bob’s Burgers, Predator, and many others have been turned into comics over the years. It’s somewhat surprising that an icon of action and adventure stories like James Bond hasn’t had much success in the medium, but Dynamite Entertainment is hoping to change that.

In October, Dynamite announced that it had obtained the license to create James Bond comic books, in partnership with Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. Now, Albert Ching reports for Comic Book Resources, the company has announced more concrete plans, including the members of its creative team. The upcoming James Bond 007 series will be written by “superstar” author Warren Ellis and illustrated by Jason Masters. Ellis says of the project, in Dynamite’s press release, “Ian Fleming’s James Bond is an icon, and it’s a delight to tell visual narratives with the original, brutal, damaged Bond of the books.”

Comic Book Resources has the exclusive first interview with Joseph Rybandt, a senior editor at Dynamite, about the new Bond books. Rybandt discusses the road to landing Ellis for the series, emphasizing that they wanted a British writer (at least for the first story arc), and that Ellis’s “genius storytelling” makes him an ideal choice to take on the legacy and associations that go hand-in-hand with James Bond.

The press release from Dynamite doesn’t reveal much about the first story, though it does sound like a typically Bond-y tale of international intrigue. It says that “James Bond returns to London after a mission of vengeance in Helsinki, to take up the workload of a fallen 00 agent… but something evil is moving through the back streets of the city, and sinister plans are being laid for Bond in Berlin.” Beyond that, Rybandt teases further projects, including direct adaptations of Fleming’s novels—including Casino Royale—and the ever-popular comic book trope of telling the character’s origin story.

Dynamite’s James Bond 007 will launch this November, the same month as the release of Spectre, the latest Bond movie starring Daniel Craig.