Retirement is Harsh for Double-O's

I love the fan theory that "James Bond" is not just one person, but a code name that goes with the designation 007, although I prefer to imagine they overwrite his real name with "James Bond" just for the movies, "names have been changed to protect the guilty"-style, since using the same name all the time completely defeats the purpose of being a spy. Either way, it still opens up some fun possibilities for what the various Bonds got up to once their stints with MI6 were up. Cracked assumes they kicked their heels on a beach somewhere collecting a government pension, but I beg to differ.

For example, we know this one...

...got caught some time around 1968 and ended up in Alcatraz. He escaped long enough to return to active duty for that diamond-smuggling thing, but then he got caught by the Americans again and shpent longer in prishon than Nelshon Mandela. He was offered a deal to break back into Alcatraz to foil a domestic terrorist...

...and in the confusion made a run for it. Aiming for a comfortable retirement, at some point he seemingly turned his master infiltration skills to petty theft.

His replacement...

...liked the MI6 lifestyle so much he stuck to it even after he was discharged, eventually turning to the only other profession that required sociopaths with such a mastery of manipulation, disinformation and cold-blooded using of people – music management.

This one...

...went rogue and was kicked out of MI6, eventually returning to his home town to open a supermarket.

And this one...

...Christ, he was the worst of all, causing no end of trouble in Panama...

...and then getting booted on a Section 8 after filing after-action reports full of bullshit like invisible cars, Richard Branson-esque North Korean infiltrators and solar-laser satellites. But nothing could quite match the thrill of sleeping with women trying to kill him in exotic and dangerous locations, so he posed as a volcanologist and shacked up with a woman who'd spent time in a mental hospital after hallucinating about robots from the future coming to kill her.

So what's the future hold for this one?

No idea, but we can be pretty sure he won't slow down either, since he was a bit of a thrill-seeker even before MI6 recruited him.

Either way, it couldn't be worse than the intro credits for Spectre. I know Bond movies are supposed to be time capsules showcasing whatever was cool in those days, but seriously, Sam Smith? Sam fucking Smith? It was only last year and I still had to look up who he was, and imho his castrati-on-helium theme song was the worst since The Man With The Golden Gun. Luckily, we already had a replacement ready to go.

Yeah, much better.