Tom King Is Not Messing Around
Tom King wrote one of the best comics of the year with the Grayson: Futures End tie-in and once I found out that Tom King was going to be taking over the writing duties again for Grayson #3, I was really anxious to see if his writing could continue the positive momentum this series has been having. After reading this issue several times, I can safely say that Tom King is not messing around and he is taking Grayson seriously in the best way.
The structure of the plot is very much like the previous two issues of Grayson (not including the FE tie-in) in which it just a self-contained story-arc where Dick and Helena have to find a fragment of Paragon. Here, they have to take it from a shooter who can only see through the barrel of his guns (symbolism!), you know like in the intro to a Bond movie. Since he has no eyes, the hypnos won't work and they need the help of two other agents Agent 1 named Tiger and Agent 8 named Alia.
After reading Tom King's contributions to the series, there seems to be a pattern in his writing, in each issue there is a theme (here guns) and he will use literary devices such as metaphors and symbolism to drive that theme home. Grayson #3 is really about how Dick Grayson's philosophy on guns differs from his Spyral teammates and can he resist the temptation to pull the trigger when tested that doubles as an identity crisis, is he Dick Grayson or is he Agent 37? That question is asked and if you're a Dick Grayson fan, you will not be disappointed in the response, it is how Dick would respond.
There are plenty of quotable lines throughout the book and overall the dialogue is very sharp, occasionally funny and towards the end very emotional. The book takes a tonal shift midway through from the playfulness of the Seeley issues and becomes tense and towards the end goes in a powerful direction that you do not see coming, to be honest, it was a direction that I didn't think we would see until much later on in Grayson. With the last few pages, the roots have been planted for further conflict between Dick Grayson and Spyral, including a potential cat-and-mouse game between Dick and Helena.
All of the new characters that were introduced (Mr. Tanner, Agent 1 and Agent 8) were written pretty well, Agent 8 was probably the weakest of the 3, Alia is essentially the Bond girl of this book but her presence wasn't harmful.
In terms of artwork, Mikel Janin draws it and if you've seen Mr. Janin's work in Grayson, you know that the characters will look great (especially Helena) and their emotions are clear to see, the action scenes are very expressive and has a nice flow to them. Even when the characters are zoomed out in a panel, the panels looks good, which is not as uniform in comics as I would like. The coloring compliments the drawings well, everything fits here.
Overall, I give the issue 5 stars out of 5, I would give it a 4.5, but I can't do that so I will round up. The only thing I would caution the writer is while making sure every issue has its own theme is very good, don't overdo it to the point where it becomes overwhelming, in fact I've heard some readers say that this book is a bit heavy-handed, to me I thought it was close to that line but didn't cross it. So far the Grayson series has been solid with the last two issues really turning things up a notch, I'd implore anyone who is a Dick Grayson fan or comic book readers in general to give this issue a shot as it is definitely one of the better series in the new 52.