Customer Reviews

Queen & Country: Declassified

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Queen & Country: Declassified harkens back to a simpler age. There were proper villians with uniforms and armies, and a wall to seperate our world from theirs. This story pays homage to the great titans of the realist spy fiction genre: John Le Carre, Len Deighton and the like. Rucka's writing reaches and surpasses the high mark set by the regular Queen & Country series. The tension of the chase scenes is masterfully constructed. Brian Hurtt's artwork in this collection is less heavily inked than in his contribution to the regular series, "Operation: Morningstar", and this creates cleaner lines and better showcases his artistic detail. An exciting, emotional story that hits all the right notes, this collection is a must-have for spy fiction fans of any medium.

"Declassified": This three-issue miniseries is the first volume of Greg Rucka's "Queen And Country" to delve into the backstory of the Special Operations division, telling the story of Operation Landslide, a botched mission that was alluded to in an earlier graphic novel ("Operation Stormfront")

The story is brisk and action-packed, and it's fun to learn more of the Special Ops leader Paul Crocker's history. However, I was a little disappointed in the plot -- the present-day Crocker's heavy emotional investment in what had happened during this 1986 escapade wasn't entirely borne out in this brief story arc. I mean, it was a good read, but it didn't entirely blow me away. Maybe Crocker's character just wasn't fleshed out that well: author Greg Rucka does tend to minimize his men of action when they are young and physically daring; it's when they are older and battle-weary that the interesting bits come out.

Anyway, this was a fun comic, but other Q&C stories have been better.

I have been warming up to the Q&C series, but this one made me a fan. I loved the first collection, went lukewarm on Morningstar, hated the art in Crystal Ball (liked the story though), and really liked Blackwall (the first collection to give the reader a real sense of Tara Chace's dedication to the job and friends and what it takes to protect both). Declassified features the return of Brian Hurtt from the Morningstar arc. The inking is less heavy-handed here than that storyline and the story, already a very tense thriller, sparkles because of it. I won't divulge what happens as Crockett travels to communist Europe as a Minder, but a lot happens! A very well-defined page turning story with great artwork - what more can one ask for from a great book? Buy it!

After hearing about how great Queen and Country is for so long I eventually bought Broken Ground and thought it was okay. I bought Morningstar and started to warm up to it. I bought Declassified and I loved it. The story has all the right mixes of emotion, politics and action that one would expect from a good spy story. In addition the art is wonderful, plus it has covers by Scott Morse.