Book: The Secret Service
Pen: Mark Millar
Pencil: Dave Gibbons
There must be something called a “mogul complex”. There must be. What possesses men and women who take part in a successful collective effort to suddenly believe they can do everything on their own. Movie producers want to own studios; one-hit wonders start their own their own labels; corner shop owners dream of having their own chains. Highly talented and successful comic book writer Mark Millar wanted to be one and Millarworld was born.
Though started as a line to produce creator-owned comics that were an equal collaboration between him and various artists, the success of the movie version of Wanted made him dream bigger. Suddenly his comics became mere vehicles to a movie adaptation. The biggest causality, as expected, was creativity. The Secret Service is just that. A movie pitch with illustrations. Guess what, it is already being made into a movie.
Gary is your standard-issue teenager. High school dropout with all the wrong habits, living with his mum and her abusive boyfriend; without a light at the end of the tunnel. Except that Gary has an uncle who, while not being around, still has the pull to get him out of jail. The uncle – Jack London – turns out to be a secret agent working for Her Majesty’s government. Jack sees a lot of potential in his nephew and decides to groom him to be an agent. Just like that.
Then we have another world-domination scheme thought out by a rich nerd that involves killing off 80% of the population. Why no one thinks of the stink caused by all those decaying dead bodies is beyond me. Anyway, Gary uses his innate street smartness to foil all dastardly plans and, along the way, take care of things at home and impress his uncle.
The Secret Service does have a few Millar flourishes, but they are very few. The trademark over-the-top violence seems terribly forced and the story never moves beyond juvenile. Watchmen legend Dave Gibbons draws, and there isn't a wasted line anywhere. Unfortunately, his faces are not very impressive here. The idea is to make Jack and Gary look similar, the effect is Gary doesn't look a day younger than 40.
The director Matthew Vaughn is credited as being the co-plotter. He is also the one who is going to direct the upcoming movie. Read what you will into that. But it is a fact that The Secret Service, the book, never feels like it is anything other than an intro to the movie. As a result, if judged on its own terms, the book is thoroughly dispensable.
Book: Kick-Ass 2
Pen: Mark Millar
Pencil: John Romita Jr.
Oh, Mark Millar, what have you done!
Kick-Ass 2 is everything the original was not and nothing what its predecessor was. Here’s a sequel that was begging not to be told, but Millar and Romita went and told it anyway. We are poorer for it.
Once superheros had their origins, the next logical step is superhero team ups. Fair enough. Our buddy Dave Lizewski aka Kick-Ass and the pint-sized dynamo Hit-Girl (Mindy McCready) decide to take their partnership seriously and were practicing their moves. Mindy’s stepfather, Marcus, asked her to give up her alter ego for good. Kick-Ass decides to join a group of other costumed ordinary-heroes in a group called Justice Forever, led by former Mafia henchman-turned-born-again-Christian Colonel Stars. They may be a little too violent, but their hearts are in the right place.
Well, you can’t just do good, can you? Our former pretender Red Mist turns up with a new name and wreaks havoc including a beheading, a rape, a prison assassination and assorted murders. Kick-Ass gives it all up, but the villains didn’t get together for fun. But their latest salvo unleashes the Hulk, sorry, Hit-Girl. The body count races up and we soon have a bloody battle in Times Square.
Kick-Ass was gutsy. Kick-Ass 2 just has a lot more guts spewed around. It takes violence to a silly level, even by Millar’s standards. What is worse is it is lifeless. Deaths and rapes mean nothing in the context of what’s happening. Millar and Romita are playing ‘who can shock you more’ and they forget that they don’t have a good story to back them up.
There are a few money shots, mostly involving Hit-Girl, and a few jokes, mostly about a shark in a tank. But when the violence is so mind-numbing you don’t stop to think. You know there’s something wrong about a short series if the biggest plus you can take from it is that it ran for only seven issues.
Book: Kick-Ass
Pen: Mark Millar
Pencil: John Romita Jr.
“I always wonder why nobody did it before me.” Thus starts the first issue of Kick-Ass. It is the hero narrating, asking why no other ordinary Joe thought of putting on a suit and becoming a superhero. It could just as well be me or you asking why no one wrote a comic about an ordinary Joe putting on a suit and becoming a superhero. There must have been some stray comics that explored the idea. But it is safe to say that none did it with such sledgehammer effect as Kick-Ass.
Dave Lizewski was a nobody. Just another schoolboy with glasses, who loved comics and Ryan Reynolds’ movies, who had raging hormones, who harboured crushes on both his biology teacher and his classmate Katie Deauxma. Just another ordinary Joe. Dave also fantasized about being a superhero. Just like the rest of us. Thing is, unlike us, he decided to do something about it. He stitched a green suit, put it on and patrolled the streets at night. He got into an argument with some graffiti artists and got his ass kicked. Badly.
The beating left him immobile for months. Broken bones, even in his skull, meant the doctors had to insert metal plates and screws just to hold him together. Dave promised himself that he would leave the crime-fighting to the comics, but the call of the spandex was too strong and soon he was back in the streets. This time, however, he got involved with some goons about to mug a youngster. Maybe the plates in his head numbed the pain, maybe the comic history in his head flattered his resolve, maybe he had a few screws loose in his head, or maybe he was just a decent kid; he refused to stop protecting the kid even though he himself was being beaten to a pulp. An internet sensation was born.
The popularity gave Dave more confidence and he then moved into the bigger leagues. Trying to give a gangster a friendly warning, he found himself in a position where getting his ass kicked was the best he could hope for. He didn't, because of a puny girl, carrying an enormous sword and dicing up everyone’s limbs, all the while using swearwords that she shouldn't even know about. Enter Hit Girl and her Big Daddy.
Kick-Ass is firmly for the fans. There are repeated comic-book references and Dave Lizewski is a geek who can be any of us. His thoughtless crusade has its heart in the right place. But there is only so much an ordinary dude can do. And that is where Millar brings out his master stroke. The introduction of Hit Girl and Big Daddy. The stakes go up exponentially and the only way Kick-Ass can keep us is with the help of professionals. And who among us is not sick enough to want to see a potty-mouthed eleven-year-old girl cutting people’s heads in half!
Mark Millar has always worn his psychopathic side on his sleeve with regards to violence. John Romita Jr. complements him with a drawing style that shows the brutality but also tempers its shock by being not too realistic. The splash pages are quite brilliant, used both for dramatic and gratuitous effects.
It is easy to dismiss Kick-Ass as a lot of noise and not much substance. The subject matter is such and Millar’s style has always been over the top. But it is not the case here. There is genuine affection for the characters and Millar proudly carries his geek flag. The writing, too, is well thought out, and the dialogue is hilarious and sad in equal measure. 'Tunk' is a word that is going to stay with you for a long time!
Millar and Romita Jr did get it right with Kick-Ass. It is a book that needed to be created and I firmly believe it will stand the test of time. We, the comic lovers, made Kick-Ass happen. And we will always wonder why no one did it before.
Book: Superman: Red Son
Pen : Mark Millar
Pencil: Dave Johnson, Kilian Plunkett
You really cannot get better “What if…” stories than this one. Taking the definitive American icon and turning him into a Soviet citizen and watching how events unfold? That has to be one of the major achievements in comic book imagination. Thank goodness it was imagined by a very versatile non-American. Instead of having a jingoistic, “us good, them bad” feel, it turns out to be a sensitive, thought-provoking study of how the world would be in an alternate scenario.
Red Son begins in the early 1950s. Lois Lane is working at the Daily Planet, but she is married to a certain Lex Luthor, widely considered to be the smartest mind on Earth. Eisenhower is the president and he wakes America up to startling news, the Soviet Union had a new weapon, a superhuman with powers of strength, flight, heat vision and super-hearing. The Cold War decisively turns one-sided. Agent Olsen of the CIA approaches Luthor with a request to develop either a weapon to counter Superman or a Superman of their own. Meanwhile, in Moscow, all Superman wants to do is to help people, despite pretty much everyone pegging him to be Stalin’s successor.
Luthor spends years trying to thwart the threat of Superman, even taking a sabbatical from his marriage to do so. Stalin’s death, and a chance encounter with his childhood sweetheart, Lana Lazarenko, forces Superman to take charge of his country’s destiny. He brings peace, stability and prosperity. The causality was freedom. Superman was so sure of his ideals and principles and confident in his abilities that he didn’t want anyone thinking otherwise. A rebel who dressed up like a bat often caused chaos here and there, but not enough to change the order of things. Diana, the princess of Themyscira, joins hands with Superman. Soon all of the nations of the world, except two, joined the Warsaw Pact and became Superman’s allies. The two standing out were the United States of America and Chile. (Millar, you rascal!)
While Millar changes the circumstances drastically, one thing is constant: Superman. He still stands for good. He believes that by being the best he can, he is only serving humanity. But by ensuring peace he has taken away the freedom of choice. Superman is too good to be a downright evil dictator, but taken independently, his actions resemble one. That is the central premise and not once does Millar waver away from it.
Luthor is far from a sympathetic figure. His obsession with bringing down Superman continues unabated and while it begins as a matter of national interest, it moves into personal vendetta. At the same time, if we were to independently look at his argument, Luthor comes across as someone who stands for freedom of choice.
Once you get over the audaciousness of the setting you realize how intricately Millar has plotted his story. He asks as many questions of us as he answers. This is probably the most serious work Millar has attempted and it is also readable as hell. It is also a supergeek’s wet dream as familiar DC characters turn up in different avatars and homage is paid to famous covers by incorporating them in these panels, in a drastically different setting, including the famous shot from Action Comics No. 1. The artwork is also a throwback to an earlier era, while the color by Paul Mounts is a rare example of colouring making a comic book stand out, with its constant dull, reddish tint, that somehow feels so right.
Red Son is the best Elseworlds tale I have read. If there are any better, I would definitely buy them. Elseworlds has been rightly come under fire for releasing a lot of rubbish. Being different just for the sake of being different. This is the best advertisement for such a series. We need not be tied down by the rules of continuity, but the essence of what made these superheroes great can be taken to tell a rollicking tale with no boundaries.
Title: The Ultimates 2 – Vol 2: Grand Theft America
Pen: Mark Millar
Pencil: Bryan Hitch
Hawkeye!
If you want to take out one defining image from Grand Theft America, then it is Hawkeye. A minor character who is always almost a sidekick to the gods and monsters and superhumans in the Ultimates, an interrogation scene in this book shows us Hawkeye like we have never seen him before. He is a human without any steroid-enhancements or explosion-exposures. Just a dude with a particular set of skills. And what skills! If you henceforth cringe at any comic or movie where Hawkeye is part of the scenery, then this book is responsible.
Let’s go back to the beginning. The Middle-Eastern interference in Gods and Monsters caused a lot of after effects. One of it was a young boy who hated Captain America for what he considered an unprovoked attack on him and his country. The boy would become the trump card in Loki’s grand scheme.
Hawkeye’s family gets attacked and there are no remains of anyone. SHIELD checks the secret cameras and discovers, to their horror, who the traitor is. The shattered team has no time to regroup when Loki makes his move. This is the stuff of their worst nightmares and America is going down. With five of their original team either incarcerated, or disgraced or a traitor, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch have a lot to do, especially during the battles. But the battle is never truly over unless it is over.
Millar’s liberal politics play a big part in the plot. And it is actually kind of reassuring to see America pay for their foreign policy decisions! In the end, however, this is an American mainstream comic that would be read mainly by Americans, so the fault cannot be theirs alone. Still, one has to admire the guts and gumption Millar, during his peak, brought to what should have been all-out superhero story.
Bryan Hitch’s art is top-notch throughout. It is very evident why he is such a sought-after artist. The writer and artist tango like rarely done before to create a high quality product that will ensure the one thing you do after completing the book is to start again. Be glad you live in a time when Millar and Hitch’s Ultimates run is over. It means you have the opportunity to read the whole story at one go. I honestly cannot think of waiting months for the next issue.
Grand Theft America is a fabulous climax to The Ultimates saga. It is the single biggest reason to acknowledge that the Ultimate line that Marvel created was not just a gimmick. This is what superhero comics should aspire to. Oftentimes, in the midst of all the pontification and pondering and psychoanalysis, the casualty is fun. Millar and Hitch’s run on The Ultimates never lets that happen.
At the end, though, Grand Theft America still can be encapsulated in one word.
Hawkeye!
Book: The Ultimates 2 – Vol 1: Gods and Monsters
Pen: Mark Millar
Pencil: Bryan Hitch
The Mighty Thor has his day, and more, in Gods and Monsters. All over The Ultimates, Millar has been teasing us how not everyone was buying the whole ‘Thor is a god from Asgard’ line and people still believed he was just a crackpot with his heart in the right place. It is time to settle that.
The American government, as it usually did, decided to interfere in the affairs of a Middle Eastern country. The supposedly global peace-keeping force – the Ultimates – were sent to sort it out. They did. But Thor dissented and pulled out of the team-up. Before you could say “Ultimates Disassemble” the secret about Hulk is leaked out. The public screams for blood and Fury is only too eager to give them a scapegoat. Despite a blind lawyer, one Matt Murdock, defending him, the jury already made up their minds and it is time for one of the most shattering decisions in comics.
While SHIELD was trying to move into damage control mode they received a call from the European Defense Initiative, the guys who created Captains Britain, France, Spain and Italy! They also meet Gunnar Golmen who was heading the Norwegian group and the secret of Thor comes out. It is time to take the so-called God of Thunder down.
On another note, after his loss of face, Hank Pym is not allowed anywhere near the Ultimates. He goes and joins another superhero team up called the Defenders, which doesn’t exactly end well. But then he learns the truth that is going to be the pivot of the Ultimates 2 storyline. There is a traitor in the ranks.
If you are going to have Thor in the limelight, then you should have his main adversary, too. Loki makes his entrance briefly, but you know he has big plans. Gods and Monsters sets up everything for a grand finale, but that is not to say that it is not capable of standing on its own. With, not one, but two catastrophic events, this is an action-packed edition leaving hardly any time to breathe. At the same time, the constant cut to how the world reacts is how Millar grounds his comic.
The four editions of The Ultimates and The Ultimates 2 can be compared to a relay. Gods and Monsters is the under-appreciated third-leg. As any coach would tell you if your third man is not solid, you would be leaving the impossible for the anchor. Gods and Monsters is solid. The Ultimates are shown at their most vulnerable. An opponent smart enough can dismantle them brutally. And they have such an opponent. Doubts are slowly being raised about the position the Ultimates hold, who they report to and when they should stop. We know a storm is coming. And we can’t wait.
Book: The Ultimates – Vol 2: Homeland Security
Pen: Mark Millar
Pencil: Bryan Hitch
The origin story is over. We had intros, adjustment issues, management lessons on teamwork, a threat to a big city, an almost happy ending and an unexpected cliffhanger. Now comes the part where we wrap up Season 1. If the first volume of The Ultimates gave an idea which book vaguely inspired The Avengers movie, then The Ultimates Vol 1 – Homeland Security will almost have you calling Joss Whedon a plagiarist! Relax, folks, it’s all in the family!
Super-Human ended with a freak attack, the true story of which never reached the common man. As a result, the Ultimates suddenly became heroes. While New York was grieving for its dead, the Ultimates suddenly had to deal with a rogue element within the team. As I said before, The Ultimates showed Captain America in a new, exciting light. In this volume he has a bigger role and you see how a man who believes in simple things like right and wrong goes about his business. The values he stood for should seem silly and out-of-place in these times. Yet you root for him. It doesn’t hurt that Millar saves some of the best one-liners he has ever written for Captain America.
The second volume brings to the fore two major characters – Hawkeye and Black Widow – and introduces two minor, seemingly useless members – Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch – to the team. In the first mission starring Hawkeye aka Clint Barton and Widow aka Natasha Romanoff, we are introduced to the major villains – the Chitauri. Since we have established that the Ultimates are pretty out-of-this-world, it is only natural that the villains are aliens. Their agenda cupboard may be pretty threadbare, but it certainly needs all the Ultimates to band together to stop them.
The most striking thing about Homeland Security is the way action sequences are captured. Rarely has action seemed so fluid. It is almost like the pictures are moving. I don’t mean there are many panels of the same scene with minute differences. But it is evident that a lot of thought went into these. Millar, as he always does, wisely lets the artist come up front and centre during the violence and mayhem.
A horny Hulk is both hilarious and scary. That was one of the revelations of the first volume and it continues here. Hulk’s personality may suffer a bit here as he is not shown as anything but a big, stupid brute who comes across as being unintentionally funny. But there is lot of sympathy for Banner. Iron Man in the comics is definitely not as prominent as Robert Downey Jr in Avengers. But he does have his moments. Thor continues to be a bit of mystery with his eco-warrior avatar while being an ex-nurse who had spent time in a lunatic asylum. This would have been a good sub-plot were it not for the fact that Thor has publically saved a lot of people, so the fact that he has a lot of powers should not be a matter of question at all.
Homeland Security may not have the deafening impact of Super-Human. But it is a very solid conclusion to the Ultimates saga. We are left with a Samuel L Jacksonesque smirk feeling very satisfied with the read. That is something we cannot say about a lot of comics. I heartily recommend both volumes of The Ultimates. Just don’t expect me to lend them to you!
Book: The Ultimates – Vol 1: Super-Human
Pen: Mark Millar
Pencil: Bryan Hitch
At the turn of the millennium Marvel comics was coming out of a tough phase where it had filed for bankruptcy. They made a decision to ‘go Hollywood’ with their main titles. The term didn’t stand for adapting their comics into movies, but changing the comics in a way that they appealed directly to most of new generation, not just the few that read comics. Like Hollywood, they decided the only people that mattered were the 18-to-25-years age-set and the comics were to reflect that.
Enter the Ultimate Marvel imprint. By basing their comics in another one of the infinite alternate universes in the Marvel Multiverse.(Essentially, a lazy excuse to churn out stories that did not fit into the continuity of the characters.A devise like ‘warp speed’ in sci fi!) All the major characters – Spider-man, X-Men, Fantastic Four – underwent the Ultimate treatment, which meant that almost all the characters became of high school age! When it came to the Avengers they realized they couldn’t just reduce the ages. A more thorough re-imagining was necessary. Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch were the people in charge and they were also asked to rename the Avengers as the Ultimates.
Nick Fury, the eye-patch-wearing boss of SHIELD, decided to get a team of highly capable individuals together in order to deal with threats that could not be handled by the military alone. He gets Dr Bruce Banner, who was holed up in a dingy research facility trying to recreate the super soldier serum that was responsible for turning puny Steve Rogers into Captain America almost 60 years ago. Also joining were Dr Hank Pym, who was researching how he could change size into a 60-feet giant, called Giant-Man, and also how he could control ants.His wife Jan, aka the Wasp, could size-shift into the size of a wasp. (Don’t you like it when the superhero names are accurate to the point!)
Fury was thrilled, but suspicious, when billionaire inventor Tony Stark decided to join in along with his entire Iron Man tech. He also tried to recruit a charismatic hippie eco-messiah called Thor who was leading a bunch of activists against consumerism and capitalism. Thor was widely known to be an ex-nurse who had spent time in a lunatic asylum. But he was also known to possess some powers. Unfortunately, Thor had no intention in joining up, definitely not when America still had a president called George W Bush! And then, they suddenly fish someone up from the Atlantic Ocean!
The Ultimates is extremely fast-paced. It also explores real-world issues, and also very convincingly. Captain America was always supposed to be a fish out of water, having woken up decades later. But few comics have explored that theme with such pathos. The characters are well-rounded, not just Nick Fury, who was actually modeled after Samuel L Jackson, with his permission. And this was before the movies.
It is a thrill-a-minute ride that leaves you stunned with its audaciousness. Millar reinvents the classic characters, in imaginative ways, but at no time does it seem forced. While remaining true to the spirit of the Avengers, the Ultimates end up being different. Complementing the story is the incredibly detailed art of Bryan Hitch. You end up staring for minutes at each single panel, even if you are artistically challenged like yours truly!
Of all my comics, The Ultimates is the one I have read most times. It is likely to continue being so. This is what superhero comics should be. Incredible situations, crackling wit, memorable characters, just enough gratuitousness, and, above all, lots of fun. In that way, this is a comic that is worthy of its name.
