Any new Queen & Country is a reason to celebrate, because the book doesn't seem to come out with any regular frequency these days. With the overall story of the modern day cast sort of at a pause after the devastating effects of the novel, however, now is as good a time as any to look back once more at the team in the earlier days. The previous Queen & Country: Declassified was a fascinating look at the Q&C paradigm as applied to the Cold War, and served as some insight into chief Paul Crocker during his field days. This iteration of Declassified takes place in the more complex post-Cold War days, but it's pre-9-11, which gives it a different feel from modern Q&C as well. It also happens to be a look at one of the most interesting Q&C regulars, Tom Wallace, and it also serves to show Paul Crocker just a few years advanced from his own "Declassified" days, all while pairing Batman/Huntress team Rucka and Burchett once more.
While the situations in Queen & Country are fictional, Rucka has always gone to great lengths to make them "feel" real by invoking things that have actually happened in the real world of espionage and military action. Putting Tom Wallace into operations in Bosnia, and indeed having what he sees and does there serve as sort of a turning point in his career, is a good example of this kind of thing. Rucka and Burchett do an excellent job of conveying the uncertainty of combat in the opening sequences, as well as showing how military planning and training can go out the window for a simple, almost primitive desire to throttle the shit out of your enemy when combat takes place. Even more importantly, though, Burchett conveys the subtle but important after-effects of that moment for Wallace, and shows how he was ready for a change to intelligence work.
Queen & Country has always been a book that errs on the more realistic side of espionage. However, Rucka has also made a point of flagging up those who do the job as especially talented or intelligent in one way or another, and Wallace is no exception. The training course sequence, where Wallace impresses his new bosses by thinking and planning ahead, indicates the kind of operative he would become by the time we met him in the pages of Queen & Country proper. Of course, it would have been easier to appreciate had this sequence been clearer, but there are some visual miscues, including uncertainty about whether Wallace got hit by the paint guns, when he finished or what exactly upsets Terry climbing the ladder down, which leaves a lot of the storytelling to be revealed in dialogue later on.
Fortunately, that sort of slip-up is a rarity, as Rucka and Burchett generally work very well together. Burchett's style puts an emphasis on small movements, facial tics and close-in shots like the one of Wallace and Crocker shaking hands. It brings a more intimate, personal feel to the story, and given that the Declassified stories, even more than Q&C proper, are about the characters moreso than the plots, that is the perfect approach for this story. I also like that Burchett remains consistent with the model sheets for Crocker and Wallace, but gives them a younger appearance at the same time. Half the fun of Declassified is glimpsing these grizzled spies when they were still relatively new and unspoiled by the rigors of the job, after all.
Declassified Volume 2 isn't quite as intense as the first volume was, more along the lines of the political warfare that characterizes the regular series than the tale of behind enemy lines suspense of Crocker's early days, but it's still a fascinating read. Given that Rucka has not been at all shy about killing off some of his characters, it's always nice to be reminded that we could go back and revisit them in the past and see them again even if there won't be any stories of them taking place in the present day. 9/10
