Greg Pak's Oddjob Saga (no, really, they call it that)

[knight_moves]

Okay, I got a few questions about this one in my last post, so I might as well dish. This one involves some mid-level James Bond lore, and I'm talking to an audience of self-professed girls and gays, so I can see I'll have to worldbuild a little (I kid, I kid because I love).

Goldfinger was the third James Bond movie ever and it is the quintessential Bond movie. Dr. No and From Russia With Love were good spy thrillers, but Goldfinger set the tone for what we consider Bond. Beautiful women, crazy gadgets, a colorful madman with a plot to kill millions, a theme song by Shirley Bassey--the Aston Martin DB5 that Connery drives in it is still considered THE Bond car.

Oddjob was Goldfinger's chief henchman. A hulking, ever-silent Korean badass played by professional wrestler Harold Sakata. Random Task from Austin Powers, as you might imagine, was a direct parody of him (and guess where they got the idea for Goldmember). You've seen an action movie, you get the idea. The main villain is just a plotter, so he has one incredibly tough minion who can go toe-to-toe with the hero because as good as they are at gloating, the Alan Cummings of the world aren't exactly a match for an angry Chris Hemsworth. (Girls and gays: okay, you know how Andre the Giant worked for Vizzini in The Princess Bride? Same exact thing.)

Skip ahead to 2019 and Greg Pak. As you're probably aware, Pak has a tendency to either create or promote Korean characters when he's writing a comic. It's usually integrated well enough into the story that it doesn't distract from the plot. The Hulk is palling around with someone, okay, it's a Korean guy.

He gets the gig to write James Bond for Dynamite, which is set in its own loose continuity: Moneypenny and M are both black while Felix Leiter is back to being white, sometimes Bond goes on original adventures and sometimes he lives through 'reimaginings' of the Fleming books, and his characterization tends to vary with the writer from total bastard to secret sweetheart. Add in that Oddjob is the only notable Korean Bond character I can think of, aside from the villains of Die Another Day, and I can see how one wouldn't want to go there.











So that's the new Oddjob, who is a foil for Bond. He's also a sexy, heroic secret agent and they're rivals both trying to stop a terror attack and their governments eventually agree to make them team up--it pretty much turns Bond into a buddy movie, which is a bit odd. It's happened before that Bond has worked with other spies (most famously Felix Leiter), even spies from hostile governments like Wai Lin and Anya Amasova, but for obvious reasons, those are usually women. Bond having a bro just feels a little off...

And you may be wondering, hey, what about the old Oddjob? This new one seems like a completely different character. Well...





I won't say "Oddjob is a legacy character" is particularly weird for comics, but still--oh, comics.

Bond and Oddjob 2.0 continue to Sonic and Knuckles against this terrorist organization, until we get the reveal of Oddjob's motives.



So Oddjob is basically a pastiche of Bond circa Casino Royale, only his Vesper was brainwashed and he has a chance to save her.

This all launches into a radical re-envisioning of Goldfinger where Bond, Oddjob, and Kim are all implanted with microchips that force them to work for He Loves GOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDD--which is sort of thematic, since Goldfinger book and movie spent a lot of time with Bond and the present Bond girl being held hostage by Goldfinger because Bond successfully bluffed that if MI-6 stopped seeing him alive and well in Goldfinger's presence, they would send in the cavalry. So there's that. Still, microchips in people's heads. Sort of a out-there thing for a Bond story to be about.

Anyway, I found it weird. Not good-weird or bad-weird, just weird. Bond was a little sidelined in his own story for this special guest star who had his own quest to save the day and get the girl, and it got to feel like the whole thing was a bit of spin-off bait. And that's comics for you, sure, but the impulse to 'reclaim' Oddjob or whatever Pak is doing just seems a tidge kooky? I'm not sure why the whole thing had to be a riff on Goldfinger instead of a totally original story, because I don't know how much tying it into Goldfinger did for the story.

At the very least, why couldn't the heroic Oddjob not still be a huge guy that didn't talk much? That would've impressed me a bit. Making him a conventionally attractive sexpot who banters just seemed like gilding the lily to me.

Comments

[thanekos]

" Oddjob " is a name like " 007 " is a number, and we're just swapping archetypes, " Menacing Henchman " for " Roguish Hero " - it's fair enough.

[blueprintstyles]

Oddjob is a pretty good handle for an agent, "he handles odd jobs."

[lego_joker]

I see you had the wisdom to not get into how the book version of Goldfinger described Oddjob. Speaking of which... aren't the comics supposed to be working strictly off the book continuity via the Fleming estate? (Since the movie rights are a lot more rabidly protected by Sony et al?)

By the way, have you read Anthony Horowitz's own licensed sequel to Goldfinger, Trigger Mortis? I hear he had his own way of remixing Fleming's... colorful opinions on Koreans (and lesbians) for modern sensibilities...

[alan2099]

I didn't see a single hat being thrown.

[huntleyhaverstock]

I dunno, I kinda like this. Bond is a cold, clipped sociopath in this telling, so pairing him up with a boisterous bon vivant and watching him simmer and seethe seems pretty fun.

Take my straight white dude perspective with a grain of salt here, but hanging out in this community gave me a lot of empathy for folks who looked for someone who looked, loved, and/or lived like them in pop culture and never found it -- or had to gin it up for themselves out of subtext, innuendo, and/or wishful thinking. So I'm hard pressed to begrudge anyone from a group that's gotten less than a fair shake, pop culturally speaking, who wants to try to create the kind of story or character they wish they'd gotten to see as a kid.

[shakalooloo]

The new guy is a cool addition, it's just a shame that the IP controllers felt it necessary to insist that he be related to the original Oddjob. No way we can have a Korean character just show up without them being related to an existing character, looks like.

[shakalooloo]

I always assumed that 'Oddjob' was just Goldfinger not bothering to learn his underling's name.