Kingsman: The Golden Circle Trailer Analysis

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The genre of “spy movie” has always been an awkward figure in the modern blockbuster pantheon.  The knee-jerk comparison point for this moribund stylistic genre might be Western, but that does a bit of a disservice to the Western.  Both Westerns and Spy movies were the dominant genres in the proto-blockbuster days of the ’50s and ‘60s but the Western has passed through a number of unique stylistic identities and found new life now as a genre for prestige dramas.  Meanwhile, the spy film still feels like the exclusive property of the ‘60s, with almost all modern franchises in the genre like James Bond and Mission Impossible tracing their origins back to that decade. 

Even stuff that’s of the modern era like Bourne or 24 have had a similar feeling of stasis to the ‘60s leftovers- it’s a genre unstuck in time and unstuck in context as a result.  The last time a spy thriller made any kind of grander point it was the private military contractors are amoral, which is up there with “the sky is blue” in terms of meaningful contribution to the broader cultural stew.  There is, however, a recent exception to this particular state of stagnation and hallelujah it’s getting a sequel; let’s talk about Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle. 

Comics Rainbow - All-Star Western

One of the major trends of 2015 was a revival of the long abandoned genre of the American Western.  To a degree this has been building in the background for a while with major hit like Django Unchained, well regarded entries like True Grit, and even notable failures like Jonah Hex or Lone Ranger.  This year marked a full on explosion of the revival however with Revenant, Hateful 8, Ridiculous 6, Slow West, and Bone Tomahawk.  Given that two of those movies just came out and Jane Got A Gun is releasing soon I figured it’d be a good time to look at the Western and cowboy heroes of DC comics. 

DC has pretty much always been more than just its superheroes, mainly thanks to the decade it spent in the ‘50s cranking out war comics, cowboy comics, weird science stories, and horror comics.  Most of those elements were revived in the ‘70s to mass acclaim and their Western heroes were key among them, leading o a mass stable of gunslingers, bounty hunters, and sheriffs all under the DC banner in all their shames, shades, and successes.