Kingsman: The Secret Service (comics)

Kingsman: The Secret Service (originally known as The Secret Service; renamed to tie in with the film of the same name^{[NB 1]}) is a 2012 spy comic book series written by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. It deals with a super-spy recruiting his young nephew to the secret service, channeling the classic James Bond films, and other famous spy thrillers. The series is set in Mark Millar's shared universe, the Millarverse; with the celebrity kidnappings taking place in The Secret Service being referenced in Kick-Ass 3 #8.^[1] A sequel, entitled Kingsman: The Red Diamond, is due to be released on 6 September 2017.

Plot

An unknown group of terrorists capture Mark Hamill, a famous Hollywood actor, who is held against his will at a cabin in the mountains in Switzerland. A man shows up and identifies himself as a British secret service agent, and rescues Hamill. They are unsuccessfully pursued by terrorists on snowmobiles. As Hamill and the agent reach the edge of a cliff, they jump off with a parachute, but it turns out to be a misfortune as the parachute opens up too late and both of them crash to their deaths.

Sir Giles, the head of Kingsman, discusses the matter with one of his agents, Jack London, as there have been several kidnappings of famous celebrities which are believed to be linked to each other. Suddenly, Jack receives a call from his sister-in-law, who tells him that her son, Gary Eggsy, was arrested by the police for smashing up a stolen car, and that Jack needs to bail him out. Jack, at first, opposes the idea, but reluctantly uses his national security card to get the boy out of prison.

Meanwhile, in Hawaii, a massive murder takes place during a wedding ceremony when brides and grooms slaughter each other. This is later revealed to be controlled by Dr. James Arnold, a very wealthy cellphone entrepreneur, as a test for his upcoming evil schemes. Jack is briefed about the assignment hours later, which he declines temporarily in favor of a "family reunion."

Uncle Jack, seeing the potential in Gary, takes him under his wing and reveals his true occupation, rather than the Fraud Squad officer story he has told his family. He offers Gary a chance to do something useful instead of wasting his life in the back-alleys and hanging out with thugs. Gary accepts and Uncle Jack takes him to a secret training facility, where he is introduced to his training officer, Rupert Greaves. Gary resides in the facility for three years while training as a secret agent.

Greaves reports to Sir Giles about the progress of trainee agents at the facility, and the fact that the results coming from Gary's records are excellent. However, Greaves states that he is yet to pull an assassination job off in cold blood. Sometime later, Gary has been assigned to go undercover with a colleague to kill an unknown number of street thugs, which he performs very successfully, saving his colleague's life in the process.

The team of trainees are sent to a nightclub to prove their abilities of being persuasive, by seducing women. All of the men appear in fancy suits, except for Gary, who dresses in very casual clothing. They are given transmitting pens to contact each other with. All of them succeed, with the exception of Gary, who listens via the pen as his colleagues talk about his background and inability to become fit for service with his plebian behaviour. He disappears in a rage.

Gary steals his uncle's gadget-laden car and runs off to his former neighborhood to collect his former mates. He is pursued by the police for violating traffic laws. After his arrest, Jack bails him out and decides to find out the truth behind the matter. Knowing all about the disgrace his nephew has been through, Jack tells Gary that things are done to keep the world safe, and not to earn fame and conduct. He offers Gary a chance to return to the training, and he agrees, only to be tranquilized by Jack.

Gary wakes up in Colombia, wearing nothing but an earpiece, through which Jack demands that he use his instincts to get out of that country and return to British soil within twenty-four hours, or he will be dropped from the program. Jack gives Gary the coordinates of his passport and flight ticket. Gary subdues a policeman, stealing his clothes and car to get to the coordinates, which appears to be a mansion of a Colombian drug lord. Taking the policeman's machine-guns, he kills all the guards, and apprehends the drug lord.

Twelve hours later, the Kingsman team are expecting Gary to arrive, who does so in a private jet that belonged to the drug lord. Gary has brought the drug lord with him, so that he can be arrested. Jack takes Gary under his wing again, and takes him to his tailor, where Gary finally becomes the man his uncle was hoping for him to be, a gentleman secret agent.

When Gary pays his mother a visit at her boyfriend's flat, he finds her beaten up for setting up a welcoming party for her son. Outraged, Gary storms to the pub where his mother's boyfriend is hanging out with his gang. Gary beats them all to near death. Uncle Jack then helps him rent a very respectful apartment for his mother and younger brother to reside in.

Both uncle and nephew team up in Cannes, where they have tracked down Dr. Arnold, who was seemingly planning to abduct film director Ridley Scott. While there, Jack seduces Arnold's girlfriend to get information, learning that Arnold plans to save only a few people that he admires, mostly celebrities, and will use a satellite signal to make the rest of humanity slaughter each other. Gary witnesses all this through a shared video device worn as sunglasses. Suddenly, Jack is shot in the eye by Arnold's henchman, Gazelle, and dies.

Horrified by his uncle's death, Gary goes back to the training facility to talk to his training officer, Greaves, who tells him that the killer's intention wasn't to murder a spy, but rather kill the man cheating with his girlfriend. Greaves abruptly reveals that he is working for Dr. Arnold himself. He has recruited numerous rogue agents, offering Gary a place on Dr. Arnold's team. When Gary rejects the offer, Greaves attempts to poison him, but Gary has switched their drinks, classifying it as "a second nature" just before Greaves dies.

Knowing that Greaves was going to head to Dr. Arnold's lair, Gary recruits the trainees to an assault mission. Following the coordinates programmed in Greaves' plane, they land at Olympus, the lair hidden inside a mountain in Switzerland. They ambush and battle the troops, freeing the celebrities in the process, including Pierce Brosnan, Patrick Stewart and David Beckham. Gary also engages in a fistfight with Gazelle, who reveals he was formerly an MI6 agent. He eventually defeats Gazelle and heads to the main control section where Dr. Arnold is.

Dr. Arnold activates the satellite signal and waits for the people to slaughter each other, but one of Gary's colleagues, a computer expert, has changed the frequencies. The new signal causes everyone to be overcome with love instead of hate. The mission is a success and in revenge for his Uncle Jack's death, Gary shoots Dr. Arnold in the head.

In the epilogue, Gary reads a letter from his uncle, left before he departed on his last assignment. In the letter, Jack reveals that two thirds of his estate will go to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the British Heart Foundation. The final third will be going to Gary's mother. His last words in the post-script tell Gary to take good care of his gadget-laden car, or he will "come back and bloody haunt him." As Gary reports to Kingsman Headquarters, now known by his handle "Eggsy", Sir Giles briefs him about a mission that concerns "trouble in Moscow".

Characters

• Jack London: Also known as Uncle Jack, works for the British government under the Kingsman (originally MI6) affiliation. He is ranked as the top agent for thirty years, operating overseas. His cover occupation enlisted him as a Fraud Squad officer, a position which allows him to bail his nephew, Gary, out of jail on several occasions.
• Gary London: The protagonist of the story, also known as Eggsy, Gary is Jack's nephew, who used to live recklessly until his uncle recruited him to the Kingsman training facility. Gary faces a little trouble coping with the new lifestyle, but manages to succeed in becoming the gentleman secret agent his uncle wanted him to be.
• Dr. James Arnold: The main antagonist of the story, a very successful cellphone entrepreneur, who became the "127th richest man in the world" at a very young age. Using his knowledge, he schemes to provoke a holocaust by controlling people's minds through network satellites, only saving the ones he admires, most of them being celebrities.
• Rupert Greaves: The MI6 training facility officer, is a veteran agent himself, and a lifelong operative educating and evaluating newcomers.
• Gazelle: Dr. Arnold's personal henchman, who is a dark skinned muscleman with bionic legs. He is later revealed to be an ex-Kingsman agent.
• Sir Giles: The head of MI6, is often seen contacting Jack through a network device or meeting him in person.
• Ambrosia Chase: Dr. Arnold's girlfriend, who only chose to be with him for his money. She later regrets the relationship as Dr. Arnold's plan unfolds and cheats on him, for which she is killed by one of Arnold's henchmen without remorse.

The original cover of The Secret Service before the series was re-titled.

Film adaptation

A feature film loosely based on the comic directed by Matthew Vaughn and co-written by Jane Goldman was released in February 2015. The film stars Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Michael Caine, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Sophie Cookson, Sofia Boutella, Jack Davenport, and Mark Hamill.^[2] The film borrows only the basic concept of the comic's storyline, and sets up a very different layout along with different characters. Uncle Jack is replaced by Harry Hart, Gary is no longer related to the veteran super-spy, and MI6 no longer serves as the organization the protagonists work for. The film instead features an independent intelligence agency known as "Kingsman". The comic series was eventually altered to replace every reference to MI6 with Kingsman. The character of Mark Hamill does not appear in the film. Instead, Mark Hamill plays Professor James Arnold, who is no longer the main antagonist. That role is filled by an original character: Richmond Valentine, whose motivations are driven by overpopulation.

Notes

References

External links

• Official website
• The Secret Service (Volume) - Comic Vine
• MDP:Secret Service—Marvel Database