Or he must. Having just read Nemesis #1 and seeing that on the cover it says “Makes Kick-Ass Look Like S#it”. Mark Millar, or whoever made that statement, must really dislike Kick-Ass. Read on to find out why. Spoiler avoiders beware.
Nemesis is a 4-issue ‘event comic’ about a villain who enjoys sending business cards to adversaries that state the targets name along with the specific date and time of their death. He then makes that happen.
This first issue starts with the villain standing with the Tokyo police chief. The chief obviously gets offed within the first few pages, then one of the villain’s henchman ask him where they should go next and he mentions how he thinks the chief of police in Washington, D.C. would make a formidable opponent.
YAY :
- The premise is pretty cool. I like the idea of how this guy sends people business cards and then a pseudo duel begins.
NAY :
- During the scene in Tokyo some SWAT type guys are on their way to rescue their chief. They end up showing up at a hotel, which then explodes. It turns out the villain and the chief are on train tracks. The train then shows up, the inspector gets smashed by the train, and then the train crashes where the hotel used to be. The moral of me re-capping this is, how did he trick the SWAT guys into showing up at the hotel? That’s never explained.
- Why is the villain even doing ANY of this? Because he’s bored? Because it’s fun? Later on he mentions that he has a personal connection with the police chief of D.C. and that it’s revenge for a stolen childhood. This really needs to be explored in the next few issues.
- The villain isn’t supposed to have super powers (as far as I know), because it’s supposed to be what if Batman was evil? If that’s really the case, then how does he end up on the wing of a plane, and then the front of the cockpit? Explanations please!
- Some of the dialogue is pretty laughable “Who next shall have the honor of the world’s only super-criminal?” Are you kidding me?
- I know art is more subjective than most other things, but I am not really a fan of the art in this. I put an example of the art at the bottom of this review.
Overall, as far as all the hype surrounding this issue, and the name involved (Millar), this is the most disappointing comic of the year. Something must be wrong with Mark Millar. A lot of the time it’s hard to tell if he’s a screenwriter or a comic writer. He’s supposedly shopping Nemesis for a movie version. Someone needs to let him know that in order for a comic to be a movie the source material should first be strong. Aren’t films supposed to be accused of ruining the story of the comic? I don’t see how a movie could make this any more bare bones. I was going to say I hope for Millar’s sake the next issues of this are way better. But, I think he’s one of the few authors where people will find a reason to like it no matter what.
