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I really hate it when I hate transgressive fiction. Someone says "fuck" a lot in a story and if you have the gall to criticize anything in it, be it the plot or the characterization or whatever, the fact of the matter is you REALLY just can't handle how they said "fuck."
I thought of writing this review with jillions of curses and disgusting references to sex and violence to stave off such criticisms, but ... nah, fuck it. I used to be a goofy 12-year-old writing South Park fanfiction and I remember always making a severe effort to curse a blue streak and make reference to sexual acts I did not actually understand fully. When I moved on, those words and actions now demystified, I told myself, "OK, you saw how far you could personally go with being vulgar. But being vulgar is mostly a gimmick and you won't get anywhere on that alone. So move on and use bad words at the level you personally feel comfortable." So I've gotten myself well set into using profanity when *I* feel it's needed and not trying too hard. (Thus my screenname.) I don't need to change that shit just to prove a point. :-P
When I was first knocking around ideas in my head for how to start this review, I thought of saying, "Mark Millar is one of those comic book writers who people either love or hate." But then I had to stop myself when I realized I don't know anyone who loves Mark Millar. Most people I know either hate him or have as many good as bad things to say about him. Then I thought of his resume: A Huge Crossover with an Ending Everyone Bitched About, A Spidey Story People Criticized for Being a High-Profile Fanfic, Two Revision Stories Where he was Supposed to Make the Property More Accessible to Children and Instead Put in Incest and Mouth-Pissing, Something He Inherited from Another Writer and This Monstrosity.
Then I came to a realization. American comic book fans have somehow accepted Mark Millar into the pantheon of good comic book writers despite the fact that they don't actually like him. Oh sure, Millar has his loyal fans, but that doesn't actually mean anything in these days where every crappy webcomic artist has a loyal drone mafia. I have a feeling if you asked your average comic book fan what they think about Millar, most of them would say, "Well, I sort of like 'X', BUT ..." as in, "Well, I sort of liked Civil War but then it didn't come out on time" or "Marvel Knights: Spider-Man was pretty cool, but his Peter Parker didn't sound quite right" or "I guess he's cool, but what the fuck was up with that Aunt May as a teenager having sex with Richard Parker shit?"
My fellow comic book fans, we must stop fooling ourselves. Although we have never bombarded him with Rob-Liefeld-esque bile, we must face facts. We do not like Mark Millar and, unlike Frank Miller or Dave Sim, WE NEVER DID. He is at best at a high level of mediocrity, barely swimming above the tide of crap before losing his footing and drowning in the mud. The sooner we recognize this, the less we'll be disappointed when we pick up yet another book by Millar and go "Hey, Millar! He's a good writer!" only to be left horribly disappointed and confused when he fails to live up to this unfounded expectation of him.
Now, Wanted ... right, where was I? Unlike what you may have seen in the trailers for the movie Wanted about the story being about assassins with crazy physics-defying bullets, the actual comic premise is that the world is secretly run by supervillains, who won the world in an epic battle where they defeated all of the superheroes circa 1986, then remade the world to rule it from below. One of the greatest supervillains, The Killer, has died, so some of the supervillains track down Wesley Gibson, his only son.
Wesley is a douchebag who pretends to be a nice person out of fear. Oh, wait ... Actually, he is a wimp who is plucked out of his ordinary life to become a supervillain. He learns to kill with side bonus of rape but that's all OK because he is much more empowered (and "Wanted," natch) than he ever was in his desk job. But all is not well, because Wesley's supervillain friends all have control over the Americas and the also-evil Mr. Rictus, who owns Australia, is tired of having the crappy continent and wants to take their stuff. So eventually, Wesley will have to save the day, which is own ass.
I really went into this comic wanting to like it, and I mean that. I knew about the raping and awfulness in advance, but hell, I can live with reprehensible main characters, and supervillains SHOULD be reprehensible anyway. I actually still don't mind all the awful things the characters do and say. I'm also OK that the bad things the protagonist does is never punished, because I get that the story is a reversal of the "young boy discovers he is a superhero" story. There was only one thing in the book that really offended me, but even then it's more at Millar's artistic choice than the act itself.
I don't like this comic because as much as the story WANTS to be a genre-conscious examination of comic supervillains ("It's a superhero reversal story!" "The world got gritty after the publication of The Dark Night Returns/Watchmen/Crisis on Infinite Earths when comics got gritty!" "All the villainsare ripped off of are analogous to DC villains!"), it's basically at its heart a shallow Gary Stu story.
See, Wesley is transformed from a wimp to a badass, but that transformation isn't really special considering Wesley doesn't have to work for it. He's already a superhuman marksman, for example. Yeah, The Fox puts him through "training" where he gets desensitized to violence, but it's not like there would be any consequences if he did badly, because The Fraternity (the group of supervillains who run the world) already protects his ass. Oh, and other than Mr. Rictus and his gang, who would have been gunning for control of The Fraternity anyway, every one of those ambitious, I'm-looking-out-for-me-me-me supervillains* graciously step aside to name Wesley as their new leader.
And don't "But maybe these villains just aren't like that" me. Please, whether it's Lex Luthor or the Green Goblin or Dr. Doom or Joker or the Abomination or Catwoman most villains' motivation is some stripe of, "I have power ... HA-HA-HA-HA! I WILL TAKE EVERYTHING FOR ME!!!" The only exception I can think of is Harley Quinn, but even then Joker may just be one of the things she wants with the rest of the world.
Somebody as genre-conscious as Mark Millar should know this. But instead, all of the protagonist villains revolve around Wesley. Well, maybe not The Doll Master, who was lucky enough to have a life outside of the Wesley worship. (P.S. If your most interesting character is your Toyman analogue, UR DOING IT WRONG!) But despite being the most powerful villain heading up the most powerful continents, Professor Solomon Seltzer is more than happy to take Wesley under his wing like he has nothing better to do. And The Fox, too. She'll even sleep with him because ... because ... well, that's what hot girls do, I guess ...
I have more to say about The Fox, but I'm getting off-track. Anyway, there's some sexual content in this book. Wesley sleeps at The Fox. Before the world turned gritty, supervillains had key parties (ED-GY, yo). Wesley's father talks about screwing Wesley's mother. Wesley's father hires two guys to do it in front of him but Wesley's dad isn't gay he just sleeps with dudes to make himself more grateful for all the women he bones (I don't know how to react to that at all). Wesley's girlfriend sleeps with Wesley's best friend. We even see her naked!
But despite all this, the most erotic moment in the book is when Wesley looks at himself in his costume and thinks about how handsome he is. There's more desire in that panel than any of the sex scenes with The Fox. Because in the end, the whole world doesn't matter. It's the story of Wesley: aren't I so pretty? And the story is as boring as fuck.
In some ways, I think the story realizes this. On the last two pages, Wesley tells the audience that they're pathetic for reading this book, just like he was, but he controls the world behind the scenes now while you're stuck at a desk job, you white, middle-class, comic-book reading, male LOSER. "This is me while I'm fucking you in the ass!"
It would be tempting to just call this a reader-insult (and a presumptive one, too), but I'd prefer to look at it as a condemnation of childish fantasies. Wesley isn't real, and you, unlike Wesley, will never be plucked out of your life to be one of those badasses you read about in comics. So if you think Wesley is awesome, you're an idiot because stuff like this never happens.
If my interpretation is correct, that's at least SOME level of depth to this whole frustrating business, but the last two pages are too late. And are not helped by the final splash page. What the hell is Wesley's face supposed to be? Triumph? It looks a bit too strained ... like the reader's ass is too tight or something.
Now someone could say, "Rebecca, you are a girl and do not understand and are being too harsh. Could you not enjoy Wesley and The Fox just blowing shit away? Could you not enjoy the worldbuilding?" No, because JG Jones' art ruined my fun.
I'd like to make a brief mention of the feminism in this book. In that there isn't any. How the hell did Mark Millar manage to make a major character (The Fox) have absolutely no motivation whatsoever? OK, I get that for most of the book her motivations were intended to be a mystery, as she's a suspect for killing Wesley's dad. But, after it's explained that she's NOT, shouldn't her motivations be explained. Why does she go out of the way to train Wesley and keep up the ruse? What's she getting out of it? It's not money. It's also explained that while she worked with and fucked Wesley's dad, she never actually loved him. And then why does she fuck Wesley later? And why doesn't anyone notice that fucking your lover's son is actually pretty damn creepy?
Also, why does Wesley's girlfriend stay with him if she's fucking other guys. Does she really need the money? She seems to want a baby, but that would only seem to be a motivation to solidify her relationship and why would she do that if she's screwing other people? It's weird. And annoying. So I just pictured her going supervillainess and coming after Wesley while this song blared out of her radio speakers and it made me feel a little better.
And ah yes, the "single mothers make men weak" chestnut. Yeah, how dare that bitch raise her child to her own wishes instead of her ex's, who LEFT OF HIS OWN FREE WILL when the baby was a few weeks old. Look, I get the need for children to have strong family role models of their own sex, but what the fuck was she supposed to do? Give the baby up for adoption? Abort it? Oh, no wait. That's evil.
As for diversity, I will give Millar credit for making The Fox black ... or biracial since she's based on Halle Berry ...(something the movie people didn't bother to do) and for having the African and Asian supervillain warlords be PoC. But considering they were pretty much kept to the background (except for The Emperor's swing vote), it wasn't that impressive.
Okay, we're almost done ... I didn't like this book and you shouldn't buy it ... OH WAIT! I forgot what offended me.
OK, so you know how the world used to be like a comic book, but then the supervillains changed reality? Well, one of the things they did was they didn't actually kill the three main heroes. Instead ... they changed them into ... actors. Specifically, a campy loser, a menopausal ex-actress and a guy "who can't even shit on his own."
Yeah. You know who they're talking about.
Look, I'm not one of those people who think Christopher Reeve is/was some sort of God who is now above criticism. But honestly, to use a real-life tragedy to spice up your shallow Gary Stu shock comic is really kind of crappy.
ETA: OH WAIT I FORGOT SOMETHING ELSE! DOWN'S SYNDROME DOESN'T MAKE YOU SPEAK BACKWARD, DUMBSHIT!
So, now that's really the end of my review. The book is shallow, the characters - especially its female characters - are poorly conceived, and the bit about not-Christopher-Reeve sucks. Don't buy it.
(And real quick: Don't pull the "you're not the primary audience for this" shit. It's one thing to write to a specific audience, it's another thing to alienate every other one. Also, men aren't the primary audience for Lifetime movies, but that hasn't stopped them from (quite rightly) criticizing their anti-male content. So fuck you.)
I thought of writing this review with jillions of curses and disgusting references to sex and violence to stave off such criticisms, but ... nah, fuck it. I used to be a goofy 12-year-old writing South Park fanfiction and I remember always making a severe effort to curse a blue streak and make reference to sexual acts I did not actually understand fully. When I moved on, those words and actions now demystified, I told myself, "OK, you saw how far you could personally go with being vulgar. But being vulgar is mostly a gimmick and you won't get anywhere on that alone. So move on and use bad words at the level you personally feel comfortable." So I've gotten myself well set into using profanity when *I* feel it's needed and not trying too hard. (Thus my screenname.) I don't need to change that shit just to prove a point. :-P
When I was first knocking around ideas in my head for how to start this review, I thought of saying, "Mark Millar is one of those comic book writers who people either love or hate." But then I had to stop myself when I realized I don't know anyone who loves Mark Millar. Most people I know either hate him or have as many good as bad things to say about him. Then I thought of his resume: A Huge Crossover with an Ending Everyone Bitched About, A Spidey Story People Criticized for Being a High-Profile Fanfic, Two Revision Stories Where he was Supposed to Make the Property More Accessible to Children and Instead Put in Incest and Mouth-Pissing, Something He Inherited from Another Writer and This Monstrosity.
Then I came to a realization. American comic book fans have somehow accepted Mark Millar into the pantheon of good comic book writers despite the fact that they don't actually like him. Oh sure, Millar has his loyal fans, but that doesn't actually mean anything in these days where every crappy webcomic artist has a loyal drone mafia. I have a feeling if you asked your average comic book fan what they think about Millar, most of them would say, "Well, I sort of like 'X', BUT ..." as in, "Well, I sort of liked Civil War but then it didn't come out on time" or "Marvel Knights: Spider-Man was pretty cool, but his Peter Parker didn't sound quite right" or "I guess he's cool, but what the fuck was up with that Aunt May as a teenager having sex with Richard Parker shit?"
My fellow comic book fans, we must stop fooling ourselves. Although we have never bombarded him with Rob-Liefeld-esque bile, we must face facts. We do not like Mark Millar and, unlike Frank Miller or Dave Sim, WE NEVER DID. He is at best at a high level of mediocrity, barely swimming above the tide of crap before losing his footing and drowning in the mud. The sooner we recognize this, the less we'll be disappointed when we pick up yet another book by Millar and go "Hey, Millar! He's a good writer!" only to be left horribly disappointed and confused when he fails to live up to this unfounded expectation of him.
Now, Wanted ... right, where was I? Unlike what you may have seen in the trailers for the movie Wanted about the story being about assassins with crazy physics-defying bullets, the actual comic premise is that the world is secretly run by supervillains, who won the world in an epic battle where they defeated all of the superheroes circa 1986, then remade the world to rule it from below. One of the greatest supervillains, The Killer, has died, so some of the supervillains track down Wesley Gibson, his only son.
Wesley is a douchebag who pretends to be a nice person out of fear. Oh, wait ... Actually, he is a wimp who is plucked out of his ordinary life to become a supervillain. He learns to kill with side bonus of rape but that's all OK because he is much more empowered (and "Wanted," natch) than he ever was in his desk job. But all is not well, because Wesley's supervillain friends all have control over the Americas and the also-evil Mr. Rictus, who owns Australia, is tired of having the crappy continent and wants to take their stuff. So eventually, Wesley will have to save the day, which is own ass.
I really went into this comic wanting to like it, and I mean that. I knew about the raping and awfulness in advance, but hell, I can live with reprehensible main characters, and supervillains SHOULD be reprehensible anyway. I actually still don't mind all the awful things the characters do and say. I'm also OK that the bad things the protagonist does is never punished, because I get that the story is a reversal of the "young boy discovers he is a superhero" story. There was only one thing in the book that really offended me, but even then it's more at Millar's artistic choice than the act itself.
I don't like this comic because as much as the story WANTS to be a genre-conscious examination of comic supervillains ("It's a superhero reversal story!" "The world got gritty after the publication of The Dark Night Returns/Watchmen/Crisis on Infinite Earths when comics got gritty!" "All the villains
See, Wesley is transformed from a wimp to a badass, but that transformation isn't really special considering Wesley doesn't have to work for it. He's already a superhuman marksman, for example. Yeah, The Fox puts him through "training" where he gets desensitized to violence, but it's not like there would be any consequences if he did badly, because The Fraternity (the group of supervillains who run the world) already protects his ass. Oh, and other than Mr. Rictus and his gang, who would have been gunning for control of The Fraternity anyway, every one of those ambitious, I'm-looking-out-for-me-me-me supervillains* graciously step aside to name Wesley as their new leader.
And don't "But maybe these villains just aren't like that" me. Please, whether it's Lex Luthor or the Green Goblin or Dr. Doom or Joker or the Abomination or Catwoman most villains' motivation is some stripe of, "I have power ... HA-HA-HA-HA! I WILL TAKE EVERYTHING FOR ME!!!" The only exception I can think of is Harley Quinn, but even then Joker may just be one of the things she wants with the rest of the world.
Somebody as genre-conscious as Mark Millar should know this. But instead, all of the protagonist villains revolve around Wesley. Well, maybe not The Doll Master, who was lucky enough to have a life outside of the Wesley worship. (P.S. If your most interesting character is your Toyman analogue, UR DOING IT WRONG!) But despite being the most powerful villain heading up the most powerful continents, Professor Solomon Seltzer is more than happy to take Wesley under his wing like he has nothing better to do. And The Fox, too. She'll even sleep with him because ... because ... well, that's what hot girls do, I guess ...
I have more to say about The Fox, but I'm getting off-track. Anyway, there's some sexual content in this book. Wesley sleeps at The Fox. Before the world turned gritty, supervillains had key parties (ED-GY, yo). Wesley's father talks about screwing Wesley's mother. Wesley's father hires two guys to do it in front of him but Wesley's dad isn't gay he just sleeps with dudes to make himself more grateful for all the women he bones (I don't know how to react to that at all). Wesley's girlfriend sleeps with Wesley's best friend. We even see her naked!
But despite all this, the most erotic moment in the book is when Wesley looks at himself in his costume and thinks about how handsome he is. There's more desire in that panel than any of the sex scenes with The Fox. Because in the end, the whole world doesn't matter. It's the story of Wesley: aren't I so pretty? And the story is as boring as fuck.
In some ways, I think the story realizes this. On the last two pages, Wesley tells the audience that they're pathetic for reading this book, just like he was, but he controls the world behind the scenes now while you're stuck at a desk job, you white, middle-class, comic-book reading, male LOSER. "This is me while I'm fucking you in the ass!"
It would be tempting to just call this a reader-insult (and a presumptive one, too), but I'd prefer to look at it as a condemnation of childish fantasies. Wesley isn't real, and you, unlike Wesley, will never be plucked out of your life to be one of those badasses you read about in comics. So if you think Wesley is awesome, you're an idiot because stuff like this never happens.
If my interpretation is correct, that's at least SOME level of depth to this whole frustrating business, but the last two pages are too late. And are not helped by the final splash page. What the hell is Wesley's face supposed to be? Triumph? It looks a bit too strained ... like the reader's ass is too tight or something.
Now someone could say, "Rebecca, you are a girl and do not understand and are being too harsh. Could you not enjoy Wesley and The Fox just blowing shit away? Could you not enjoy the worldbuilding?" No, because JG Jones' art ruined my fun.
I'd like to make a brief mention of the feminism in this book. In that there isn't any. How the hell did Mark Millar manage to make a major character (The Fox) have absolutely no motivation whatsoever? OK, I get that for most of the book her motivations were intended to be a mystery, as she's a suspect for killing Wesley's dad. But, after it's explained that she's NOT, shouldn't her motivations be explained. Why does she go out of the way to train Wesley and keep up the ruse? What's she getting out of it? It's not money. It's also explained that while she worked with and fucked Wesley's dad, she never actually loved him. And then why does she fuck Wesley later? And why doesn't anyone notice that fucking your lover's son is actually pretty damn creepy?
Also, why does Wesley's girlfriend stay with him if she's fucking other guys. Does she really need the money? She seems to want a baby, but that would only seem to be a motivation to solidify her relationship and why would she do that if she's screwing other people? It's weird. And annoying. So I just pictured her going supervillainess and coming after Wesley while this song blared out of her radio speakers and it made me feel a little better.
And ah yes, the "single mothers make men weak" chestnut. Yeah, how dare that bitch raise her child to her own wishes instead of her ex's, who LEFT OF HIS OWN FREE WILL when the baby was a few weeks old. Look, I get the need for children to have strong family role models of their own sex, but what the fuck was she supposed to do? Give the baby up for adoption? Abort it? Oh, no wait. That's evil.
As for diversity, I will give Millar credit for making The Fox black ... or biracial since she's based on Halle Berry ...(something the movie people didn't bother to do) and for having the African and Asian supervillain warlords be PoC. But considering they were pretty much kept to the background (except for The Emperor's swing vote), it wasn't that impressive.
Okay, we're almost done ... I didn't like this book and you shouldn't buy it ... OH WAIT! I forgot what offended me.
OK, so you know how the world used to be like a comic book, but then the supervillains changed reality? Well, one of the things they did was they didn't actually kill the three main heroes. Instead ... they changed them into ... actors. Specifically, a campy loser, a menopausal ex-actress and a guy "who can't even shit on his own."
Yeah. You know who they're talking about.
Look, I'm not one of those people who think Christopher Reeve is/was some sort of God who is now above criticism. But honestly, to use a real-life tragedy to spice up your shallow Gary Stu shock comic is really kind of crappy.
ETA: OH WAIT I FORGOT SOMETHING ELSE! DOWN'S SYNDROME DOESN'T MAKE YOU SPEAK BACKWARD, DUMBSHIT!
So, now that's really the end of my review. The book is shallow, the characters - especially its female characters - are poorly conceived, and the bit about not-Christopher-Reeve sucks. Don't buy it.
(And real quick: Don't pull the "you're not the primary audience for this" shit. It's one thing to write to a specific audience, it's another thing to alienate every other one. Also, men aren't the primary audience for Lifetime movies, but that hasn't stopped them from (quite rightly) criticizing their anti-male content. So fuck you.)
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In this book ... not so much.