Written by: a room full of monkeys Mark Millar
Art by: Steve McNiven
Colors by: Dave McCaig
Publisher: Icon/Marvel Comics
Price: $2.99 and a bit of your soul
Mark Millar's new book is finally here! After reading Old Man Logan and Kick-Ass Millar left me feeling insulted as a comic book fan. I decided that Nemesis would be his last chance to restore any hope I had left in him. But enough of that for now. The main concept of this book is what if Batman were like the Joker. So it's neither an original concept nor a hard to write concept and it shows throughout the book. I can sum this book up in one word: Cliche.
I would like to point out that there is a character in Uncanny X-Men named Nemesis who wears an all-white costume. Interesting, huh? The book starts out in Tokyo were Nemesis is talking to a hostage who is tied to a chair. Nemesis reveals that the he lured the (police? FBI? S.W.A.T.? We don't know... Millar never explains who they were) to the wrong building. That building blows up and lands on a train track, killing God knows how many people. Then you find out that the chair that the hostage is tied to is on a train track. Then a train runs over the hostage and we are treated to blood splattering everywhere, a leg flying off, a head being squashed, and other crap like that. Then the train mentioned earlier flys off the rails because the track got destroyed killing, again, God knows how many. Nemesis reveals his next target: Washington D.C.
Seen enough violence yet? Oh well maybe the book will tone down a bit and... what's this? Oh a guy just shot in the head with blood flying everywhere? Another guy gets shot in the stomach with a wave of blood spilling out? Two more guys get shot in the neck? One more guy gets shot in the neck/upper body? All in one page? Yeah, all of that did happen in a single page. It turns out that some form of authority (we don't know what organization it is because Millar is too lazy to tell us) shot the thugs. Then they talk to the chief of whatever organization they're from for a few pages and all that really tells us is that they should prepare for Nemesis since they got a warning from Nemesis himself.
Next we see Nemesis landing on an airplane and, somehow, walking across the wings of the plane without the wind blowing him off the plane. I realize that this is a comic book and they're not supposed to be realistic, but if you're going to write something like that please explain how he is able to remain perfectly balanced on the plane. Then he shoots the pilots (more death! Yay!) and hijacks the plane. Then Nemesis side-swipes a building with one of the plane's wings killing more people (alright! Give me some more Millar!). He then purposely crash lands the plane killing thousands and thousands of people (enjoying yourselves fanboys?)
Here is the kick in the nads for me in this book. The crash landing scene is a rip-off of the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indy and his Dad are in the car and that airplane is coming right after them, and then the car goes into a tunnel and the airplane goes in the tunnel with them, but loses its two wings and explodes at the end of the tunnel. Well guess what? That happens in this book. The plane goes into the tunnel and loses its two wings and lands into a truck full of petrol (and into a mother and her innocent kid) and explodes. Also the book never shows Nemesis or the President leaving the plane, so apparently they're indestructible. I love the fact that the authority of Washington knows for a fact that this mass murderer is coming to their city but it seems like they've done NOTHING to protect the citizens. Shouldn't the state be in a lock down or something??? This whole book has lazy writing written all over it. The "cliffhanger" is that Nemesis kidnaps the President of the U.S. It's not like I saw that one coming...
The art is exactly (sort of) what I expected from McNiven: boring, stale, and stiff. Although this time he inked it instead of having someone else ink it. I know I'm not the only one who has said this, but it seemed like he was trying really, really hard to be Leinil Francis Yu. At certain parts of the book it didn't even look like McNiven drew the art. The art truly was boring and just not exciting at all.
This book consisted of 23 pages of story/art, 3 of which were splash-pages, and 13 of which were 3 or 4 panel pages with little to no dialogue in it. To me that just reeks of laziness. Also at the end of the book you get 5 pages of ads featuring the recent stories Mark Millar has written for Marvel. Hey Millar: How about advertising for stuff done by someone other than yourself, huh?
After reading Nemesis#1 and Ultimate Avengers#5 (which I read a while ago) I have come to the conclusion that the Mark Millar that I used to admire as an aspiring comic book writer is gone. He's gone. If you all want to read an awesome Millar story read Superman: Red Son. That story is utterly incredible. So will I keep buying the series? Yeah, just so I can review/rant on them! :)
At least no one's baby got thrown out of a window (that we know of).
Rating: D
