Rucka’s precise scripts reveals these characterizations as a function of the plot, plots where there are no conclusions at the ends of each arc, only the basis for further operations and further character development and revelations. There’s only the bottle, her unkempt flat, and a private life in shambles, nonexistent, and subservient to the job, a job where she is asked to pulled the trigger in an assassination, a successful op that almost costs her her life and may end up costing her the will to live. Chace wants to serve her country, and it turns out she’s a bit of an idealist who starts getting a bit self-destructive when operations run counter to her sense of patriotism-an occupational hazard. Nothing ever goes away, particularly for the series protagonist, Tara Chace. It’s a complete story, but in the world of “Queen & Country,” this story has ripples that spread through the rest of the arc, the rest of this edition, and in fact the entire series run, being amplified and redirected by the actions of the minders, their superiors, and world events.

Looking back at the series’ landmark beginning, the first thing about Rucka’s scripting that is striking is that the first chapter of the first arc (‘Operation: Broken Ground’) is such efficient storytelling that it only takes him 25 pages to tell a story that other writers would be tempted to stretch into three issues or even an entire arc.

In “Queen & Country” the glamour of 007’s employer is stripped away in favor of telling lean and very mean stories about the extraordinary and extraordinarily flawed people, the minders and their masters, in the Special Section of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. The first volume of Oni Press’s classy “Queen & Country” Definitive Editions collects issues 1-12 (the first three missions, plus an interlude tied into the first arc).

In this first collection of the Eisner Award-winning and critically lauded espionage series, readers are introduced to the thrilling and often-times devastating world of international espionage as SIS field agent Tara Chase is sent all over the world in service to her Queen & Country. Illustrated by Steve Rolston, Stan Sakai, Brian Hurtt, and Leandro Fernandez

Queen and country definitive edition