Reborn by Mark Millar, Greg Capullo, Jonathon Glapion, FCO Plascencia

Rating: WORTHY!

This was a graphic novel I got from my local library which has these days quite the selection. In amongst all the comics aimed at pleasing the Marvel and DC movie crowds as well as comic book aficionados, there are some gems that are not so mainstream even though they may have been penned by mainstream writers and artists. This is one of those.

The writer is a Scot named Mark Millar who has written quite a few graphic novels that I've enjoyed, many of which have been great successes, and some of which have been made into movies including one which starred Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy, and Morgan Freeman (Wanted) and another which starred Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Taron Egerton, and Michael Caine (Kingsman). Millar tends to lean towards writing of the fantastic and the so out there it's almost but not quite parody.

Reborn is a story relating that when people die in our world they're born again into a different fantasy world. Of course in this world there is a sharp divide between good and evil. Decent people are reborn into a world of light and friendship, whereas bad people are born to the dark side which is of course intent upon encroaching onto the light side.

In the story, this really old woman named Bonnie dies and finds herself in this other world as her thirty-year-old younger self who is supposed to be some sort of savior of this new world. She meets her father, who had died on Earth when she herself was young. He is also quite young in this world. She learns of others who are reborn at the same age they died, and yet others who are born younger or older. None of it seems to make any sense. One of her dear friends is bitter because she died after her husband, but by the time she died and came to this world, her husband had grown old and died here as well.

Animals are also born into this world, and some of them seem to have appeared with the ability to speak, including this girl's cat which has gone over to the dark side because it's resentful of being neutered. Also present is her dog which cannot speak and which is the size of a small horse. The dog is reminiscent of the luck dragon in The Neverending Story movie, but it's not quite that awful. I am by no means a fan of having cute animals in stories, but here it wasn't so bad.

The savior girl has no powers and no knowledge of why she should be the chosen one, although she seems to grow powers as time passes. The problem is that when Bonnie discovers that her husband, who had died years before and whom she has long pined for, is also here, but has been taken prisoner by the dark side because they want to lure her into a trap, she abandons her world-saving role to go find him.

The story in some ways is most reminiscent of Lord of the Rings with the hobbit (in this case Bonnie) crossing from the shire to Mordor with her magic sword in hand. There's even a tower, but no eye glares balefully from its twin spires. The leader of the dark side is predictably a Lord - in this case Lord Golgotha. At first I thought he would turn out to be her husband, but later I decided Golgotha is probably her mother or maybe the sniper from the opening panels. Whether I was right or wrong (I'm usually wrong in these guesses!) you'll have to read this to find out! I recommend it as a worthy read.

MPH by Mark Millar

Title:
Author: Mark Millar
Publisher: Image
Rating: WORTHY!

Illustrated by Duncan Fegredo.

This is a sharp and entertaining comic which borrows heavily from pop culture icons like the Matrix movie trilogy, lesser-known movies such as Clockstoppers, as well as the DC Comics character 'The Flash', and so on, but manages to tell its own story, and offer some original twists and turns, including a fun ending.

The story begins when Roscoe needs some cash and is caught delivering drugs in a police sting. He thinks he can do the time, especially if he takes rehab courses (even though he's not an addict), behaves well, and shows an interest in reforming to get his sentence knocked down. The problem begins when he learns from a friend on the outside that he was deliberately sent into a trap to get him out of the way, so his drug pusher boss can have free access to Roscoe's girlfriend.

Roscoe reacts badly to this and digs a hole for himself by fighting with another prisoner. After he gets out of solitary, his cell mate once again tries to interest him in a new drug, MPH. Roscoe had turned this down before, but now he decides to give it a try and he discovers that this drug actually speeds up his mobility so much that it looks like everyone else is frozen - just like in one of those "bullet time' scenes from The Matrix and Clockstoppers. If you haven't seen either of those, but you've seen X-Men: Days of Future Past, think of the scene where Quicksilver helps to spring Magneto from the pentagon prison, and you;ll know the kind of thing to expect here.

Of course, no one actually is frozen, it merely appears that way because this guy is moving so blindingly fast. In fact he moves with such velocity that after Roscoe has left the building, he still has time to turn right around and go back to grab the bottle of MPH his cell mate is holding, which he shares with three of his closest friends. He discovers that traveling at super speed is the perfect cover for robbing banks. The downside, of course is that it does tend to attract the attention of law enforcement.

If it had gone all Reservoirs Dogs and ended-up in a bloody shoot-out, it would still have made a readable story, but it wouldn't have been that interesting to me. Fortunately, Millar takes it away from that into all kinds of explorations of the characters and their power, which is what really made this a worthy read for me. I liked the dialog, the plotting, the story, the art work and the coloring. All-in-all it's a great little book. Given the neat resolution to this story, it's hard to believe there's a second volume, but there is. I have not yet read that one so I can't comment knowledgeably on whether it's a worthy successor to this, but I suspect it features new characters who get their hands on a new supply of this drug which really puts a whole new perspective on the drug term, 'speed'!

Jupiter’s Legacy by Mark Millar

Title: Jupiter’s Legacy
Author: Mark Millar
Publisher: Image Comics
Rating: WORTHY!
Art: Frank Quitely
Colors / Letters: Peter Doherty

This is an amazing story by the creator of Kick-Ass and marks three reviews in a row I will do, starting with this one, of novels about super heroes. Funnily enough, this is the only one which is a graphic novel! It takes as its premise a question that really isn’t explored in comic books – not in any I’ve read anyway. The best known comic books tend to be about super heroes and super villains. They’re really never about family since the heroes tend not to have family. Batman lost his parents. Superman lost his. Spider-Man lost his parents and his uncle. Iron man thought only of himself – to begin with. Super heroes aren’t generally known for family life or family ties – or indeed for any real altruism when you get right down to it. Nor are they known for growing old.

This novel asks what super hero life would be like if those family ties were firmly in place, and if those families had issues just like everyday families, and it does a pretty darned good job of it, too. Some time ago, The Utopian and several of his friends gained super powers from a little trip to an island. How or why this happened isn’t explained in volume one. Now time has passed and the heroes have grown old – gray haired, a bit tired – and they have families. Some of them are not very happy with how things are, and their kids are even more disenchanted than their parents are.

Set in the USA (that hasn’t changed) during the recent economic downturn (and at other times) this story asks another question that super hero stories tend to fail at: why don’t the super heroes do more than simply punch out the villains and luxuriate in the subsequent acclaim? For example, with the genius that Batman and Superman have between them, they could revolutionize crime-fighting by helping law enforcement organizations with technology and advice, but they never stoop that low, do they? They selfishly keep all that finery for themselves.

The Utopian’s brother does ask these questions, and he’s thoroughly unsatisfied by the answers he gets. He’s even more incensed by The Utopian’s domineering attitude and old-fashioned view of the way things should be, but he can’t usurp his brother’s throne on his own. He does know that the hero’s own son is thoroughly disaffected and resentful of his father’s treatment, however. Maybe the two of them together might effect some change in leadership – of both the super heroes and the US government?

I highly recommend this graphic novel. It’s beautifully put together, richly worded, smartly conceived, and gorgeously illustrated and colored.

Starlight: The Return of Duke McQueen by Mark Millar

Title: Starlight: The Return of Duke McQueen
Author: Mark Millar
Publisher: Image Comics
Rating: WORTHY!

Illustrated by Goran Parlov
Colors Ive Svorcina
Letters Marko Sunjic

DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!

This graphic novel feels like a sequel, but I don't know if there was an actual previous volume or if it's just written that way - suggestive of a previous life which was not actually published. Either way I sure as heck isn't hell haven't read it. It's written and illustrated very much like a comic from the fifties, complete with bulbous, needle-nosed rocket ships and goldfish bowl space helmets, so you have to take everything with a pinch of sodium chloride.

I liked that this story started out differently. Yeah, it's a traditionally-illustrated traditional comic with traditionally-objectified women, but that's only a part of it. The story begins with a aging Air-Force Captain Duke McQueen, his glory days behind him Now he's gray-haired and has lost his wife to cancer.

He lives alone, his sons and daughter getting on with their own lives and not having much time for him. All he has is memories of his wife and haunting visions of his past life as an adventurer and hero - which no one here on Earth believes. His story of flying his jet through a wormhole and landing on Tantalus, a planet technologically advanced way beyond Earth, and saving the planet are the delusional ramblings of a man who's launch-vehicle doesn't exactly go all the way into orbit as far as his fellow human-beings are concerned. Maybe he half disbelieves it himself, until a kid shows up in a space-craft from that self-same planet asking for his help - again!

The wormhole through which Duke returned closed-up. Another one wasn't expected for many thousands of years, which is why Duke left - he had to get back to "his" girl. Now the Tantalans have developed technology to create their own wormholes, but Tantalus has been invaded by hostile aliens from a nearby world. The Tantalans have been at peace for forty years and evidently forgotten how to fight (yeah, right!), and of course, Duke McQueen is the only person who can save them!

So yeah, complete flaccid plot, but it's that kind of a 1950's style story, reminiscent of the 1950's sci-fi B pictures, where you have to go with the flow or reject it. I liked it enough, despite the alien kid with the manga hair, to go with it. Despite being sixty-two years old and a smoker, Duke puts on his super-hero suit with the buccaneer boots and goes once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, or close the wall up with our alien dead!

The bad guy, in true fifties tradition, has horns sticking out either side of his headdress, and he has a goatee and pointed shoulders on his long cloak - and he has a henchman! If you stick your tongue firmly in your cheek as the writer evidently did, and if you don't mind a 'pit of doom' stolen from 300 (which in turn stole it from Star Wars), and you're willing to allow for a cartoon-ish level of invulnerability and success on the part of our hero, and you like your heroes barrel-chested, bull-necked, and cleft-of-chin, then this is a worthy romp. I liked it!

Wanted by Mark Millar

Title: Wanted
Author: Mark Millar
Publisher: Image Comics
Rating: WARTY!
Illustrated by J.G. Jones

Note that some of the captions in the graphic novel images accompanying this review may have been altered by persons unknown....

If you want a graphic novel where every frame depicts neither more nor less than a sociopathic fourteen-year-old's dysfunctional wet dream, then this is the novel for you. If you like delusional stories featuring racism, misogyny, poor characterization, and mindless violence - not as part of a particular character's make-up but embedded deeply into the narrative itself, then this one's for you. On the other hand, if you like something that's intelligent, inventive, and actually has a story to tell, then you would be well-advised to look elsewhere.

If you liked the movie Wanted and think the source book might be even more interesting, you made the same mistake that I did. The movie is far from perfect, but it is decidedly leagues ahead of this cheap excuse for a story.

» Women are just bodies anyway, aren't they? «

I'm not a part of the comic book culture, although I have read plenty and reviewed many of them on this blog, and I love superhero movies in general, but my take on these things is a bit off the beaten path, which is, I guess, why I wonder what it means to say that Person A wrote the comic while Person B lettered it. I know these two things are not the same, but honestly, I still don't get that. Why do we even have lettering, when we have computers with keyboards attached which can do lettering just fine?

I don't even know how that works. Does Person A write the thing by hand or write it on a computer, print it out, and and Person B copies it? Is it done by email? On the phone? That really makes little sense to me! I assume it makes perfect sense from the inside, but if you take a step back and look from outside the box, it really looks weird.

Anyway, personal peeves aside, I loved the movie, which I also review on this blog, and which I saw long before the comic book, but while the movie was derived from the comic, the comic is really a lot different and nowhere near as good. The basic story - at least at the beginning - is the same: a down-trodden guy whose parents are not players in his life, an unfaithful girlfriend, a dead-end and miserable job, hypochondria, father dies, son inherits, and so on, but there are many more factors in play here and none of them are good or smart.

There's a lot of talk of super-heroes and super villains, which is not in the movie, and of parallel universes, which goes nowhere. The super-heroes were all wiped out in a super-villain purge in the 1980's, and the super-villains can access the parallel universes at will. I'm not sure what this is supposed to bring to the table. It certainly did nothing for me.

» Your Mom looks better half naked «

The story is set around the idea of five families, like the five Mafia families which 'ruled' new York City in the prohibition era and later, except that each of these five families rules an entire continent. Since there are seven continents, the math doesn't work here. Even if we exclude Antarctica, we're still one short: Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, America North, America South. They all begin with the letter 'A' except Europe!!!! But Europe isn't the one which is left out. The combined continents for this story are the two Americas.

There were some oddities. Some of it, such as the character 'Shithead' made of excrement from an assortment of 666 villains. This harked back to the creature of similar constitution in Kevin Smith's Dogma movie. The name 'Peking' was unaccountably used for China's principle city when the name is actually Beijing, and the term 'number plate' was used - which is a British term for a license plate and which betrays Millar's Scots roots. There was a lot of bad language and nudity, so this isn't a children's comic, but neither was the movie exactly PG-13. Unfortunately, the bad stuff fully appears to be stuck in there purely for shock value and has nothing to do with telling a realistic story.

There was none of the single-handed assault on the compound, as in the movie. Here it was a joint effort by Fox and Wesley to wipe out the villains, and it took a completely different form. Wesley is drawn to look like Marshall Mathers and Fox is drawn to look like Halle Berry.

» Don't I look a little bit like Marshall Mathers? «

So, did I like it? No, not really. It started out as a bit of a disaster for me and went steeply downhill from there. It's awash with racism and genderism which seemed to have been added for no other reason than to be obnoxious, but obnoxiousness is this comic's schtick, isn't it? It never did look like it would reach a the point where it overcame its set-backs and looked like it was actually making a point. it never captured my interest or imagination, and none of the characters were remotely appealing to me.

So in short, WARTIUS MAXIMUS!