N.O.A. #1, from Source Point Press on August 31st, 2022, follows Benjamin Stahl, aka Agent White, on a secret mission to NYC to find the elusive criminal, Nimrod. What he finds is a monstrous terrorist attack in the making.
The Details
- Written by: Mikael Bergkvist
- Art by: Mikael Bergkvist
- Colors by: Ibrahim Aydin
- Letters by: Mikael Bergkvist
- Cover art by: Mikael Bergkvist
- Cover price: $3.99
- Release date: August 31, 2022
Is It Good?
N.O.A.(Not Otherwise Authorized) is a strangely entertaining twist on the spy thriller genre where the good guys match wits with over-the-top criminal masterminds and… dragons(?). Yes, that’s right. Dragons!
Award plenty of bonus points to Bergkvist for not going the traditional route in the spy genre. Agent White is a suave, effective, sometimes-too-destructive spy who tackles threats on behalf of Sweden’s government. Yet, the threats are so over-the-top and so outlandish, you can’t help but smile at the audacity of it all. This is a wild and crazy spy story that would make 70s Bond films seem tame by comparison.
However, the story works because Bergkvist because the characters are written with 100% sincerity. There aren’t any eye-rolling jokes are sideways winks at the audience. The spy games are played seriously, so when the crazy situation rears its firebreathing head, the character’s actions and reactions feel natural.
Bergkvist pulls double-duty on art, and his style fits snugly between John Byrne and Neal Adam. In other words, it’s excellent. The character anatomies and panel compositions are outstanding, and Aydin’s coloring is top-notch. That said, the lettering is too busy in a few spots, and you wind up with word balloons containing ten or more lines that crowd out the panel. The best practice for word balloons is three lines per balloon to avoid the walls of text you have here.
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What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
We begin with Benjamin Stahl, a secret agent in service to the Swedish government, receiving a reprimand for not keeping his life-saving missions quiet. His boss reminds him the operative word in the title of a secret mission is “secret.” As a learning exercise, Stahl is given the codename Agent White and sent to NYC to track down the recently-emerge criminal known as Nimrod.
What the governments of the world don’t know is that Nimrod went into hiding to work on a genetic manipulation program using the fossil of a dragon skeleton he uncovered in China. He plans to resurrect a dragon as a living weapon for his terroristic endeavors.
We conclude the issue with a shootout in an NYC skyscraper, exploding helicopters, computer viruses, and one heck of a show in Times Square.
Keep scrolling for a closer look at preview images of the internal pages, or Click Here to jump right to the score.
Final Thoughts
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N.O.A. #1 is a surprisingly wild spy thriller with guns, explosions, criminal masterminds, larger-than-life heroes, and a dragon(?!?). Thankfully, Bergkvist plays the people straight and relatable, so when the craziness appears, the reactions feel genuine. Plus, this issue has top-notch art.
Related Information
How did dragons go extinct?
There is no verifiable evidence that dragons, as depicted in popular folklore, ever existed, so there’s no way to tell how or why they went extinct. If the origins of dragon folklore are attributable to fossil records of dinosaurs, the last extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs was caused by an extended winter resulting from an asteroid crash off the coast of Mexico.
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