The Ambassadors is a comic book miniseries published by Image Comics in 2023. The series was written entirely by Mark Millar, and illustrated by different artists each issue.
South Korean billionaire tech genius Choon-he Chung makes a bombshell announcement: she and her company have invented a way to give people superpowers. But rather than keep them for herself or sell them to the highest bidder, she intends to give them to six other people of any background from anywhere in the world willing to use these powers for good. While nominations pour in and Choon-he forms her super-team, Choon-he's bastard ex-husband Jin-sung has been working along similar lines to her and is forming a team of his own with less noble intents.
The final version of the team, plus a new Pakistani member, appeared in Millarworld's big crossover series Big Game (2023).
The Ambassadors provides examples of:
- 11th-Hour Ranger: During the big battle with Jin-sung's group, Jamie, who has previously mostly been drifting around and trying to stay hidden, steps in and attacks some of the members, giving the Ambassadors enough time to regroup and turn the tide. In the end, he is a full member of the team.
- Animal-Motif Team: Not used in the actual team, but in issue #2, Choon-he mentions that her design team considered animal-based designs to represent the individual Ambassadors' countries before they settled on the flag motifs, but rejected them since a lot of them would look like felines and some countries would end up with less awe-inspiring animals than others, like Australia being represented by a kangaroo.
- Anti-Hero:
- Zee is a sharpshooting assassin working for the corrupt militia, but she joined them because she grew up in a gang-controlled neighborhood and wanted to stop them from exploiting people. Though as Father Pereira points out, she is essentially working for a gang now. In the end, he puts his faith in her and gives her the spot on the Ambassadors he was offered, resulting in her dropping her deadly style and becoming a full-fledged superhero.
- On the Ambassadors, Codename Australia is a crass old man who used to be a conservative politician known for making racist and homophobic remarks, but he claims to have mostly been putting on an act for his voters and is genuinely heroic when he's in the field. That said, he still lied about being a closeted gay man to get a foot in the door and tells his son that he mainly joined because he was terminally ill and was cured when he joined.
- Jamie McPhail is unforgivingly brutal towards people who hunt him, using his powers to kill a group of them in agonizing ways in the first issue, but also saves lives when he can and is perfectly decent to people who aren't threatening him. He is good enough to join the Ambassadors in the end after saving them in the battle with Jin-sung's gang.
- Art Shift: In keeping with the comic's international theme, each issue was illustrated by different artists from various countries, each having a quite different style from the last:
- Issue #1: Frank Quitely (Scottish), colored by Vincent Deighan
- Issue #2: Karl Kerschl (Canadian), colored by Michele Assarasakorn (Canadian)
- Issue #3: Travis Charest (Canadian), colored by Dave Stewart (American)
- Issue #4: Olivier Coipel (French), colored by Giovanna Niro (Italian)
- Issue #5: Matteo Buffagni (Italian), colored by Michele Assarasakorn
- Issue #6: Matteo Scalera (Italian), colored by Lee Loughridge
- Armored Closet Gay: Codename Australia, formerly a vocally homophobic politician, wins Choon-he's confidence by revealing that he has been living as a closeted gay man, having had sexual relations with countless men during the time that he was married to his wife. In the last issue, he reveals that he was lying about this, though.
- The Bluebeard: Jin-sung seduced Choon-he when she was a teenager and already a technological marvel, married her when she was 18 and then framed her for fraud after stealing her work. He then seduced an older woman who invested in his company and sent her off of a tall building after getting what he needed from her.
- Commonality Connection: In her application to the team, Yasmine (later Codename France) says she and Choon-he both know what it's like to have difficult ex-husbands; Choon-he's framed her for crimes she didn't commit and Yasmine's is a self-absorbed deadbeat.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Jin-sung runs his own corporation making superpower technology similar to Choon-he's and gives the powers to himself and a group of his friends, a lot of whom are corporate executives from the tech sector.
- Deconstruction: The series as a whole deconstructs and subverts the America-centrism of modern superhero media. Since the two biggest companies in superhero comics, Marvel Comics and DC Comics, are both American, most mainstream superheroes are too. Here, the creator of the superhero team and the technology that gives them their powers is South Korean, a country almost no Western reader will associate with superheroes, and none of the recruited members of the Ambassadors are from the United States, instead coming from India, Brazil, Australia, France, Mexico and Scotland, all countries that largely go unrepresented in mainstream superhero comics. It isn't until the end of the comic that Choon-he suggests having a token American on the team for the sake of diversity.
- Dirty Cop: The militia in Rio de Janeiro is portrayed as being thoroughly corrupt and not even trying to hide it.
- Evil Counterpart: Jin-sung becomes a moral invert to Choon-he: while she only picks a handful of people to get superpowers, limits the ones they have to avoid excess and picks people she believes are genuinely good at heart, he fills his group with fellow amoral billionaires to make money and raise all the hell they can without being held accountable.
- Fake Ultimate Hero: The first issue reveals that the U.S. military and intelligence services tried to create a fake Superman Substitute superhero under the codename Operation Blue Sky, filming scenes of his superheroics in a secret studio that they were going to show on the news to trick the enemy into thinking they had a superhero on their side; they eventually gave up because they couldn't make the special effects convincing enough.
- Fat Bastard: The leader of the militia Zee works for is thoroughly crooked, operating more like a gang kingpin, and has a big beer gut that's especially on display when Zee runs him out of his mansion using her powers.
- Good Shepherd: Father Vitor Pereira, a priest in Rio de Janeiro who stands up to the local corrupt law enforcement officials and gangs, resulting in over 2000 locals nominating him for the program and getting Choon-he to consider him for Codename Brazil.
- Heroes' Frontier Step: For Binnu, offering himself as a hostage in exchange for the woman with whom he was in love is what made Choon-he pick him as Codename India.
- Humble Hero: Codenames India and France are both perfectly happy to hold down normal day jobs while also being secret superheroes.
- Intelligent Primate: The prologue gives us Bonzo, an intelligent, super-powered chimpanzee who speaks with a pronounced Scottish accent and loves Simple Minds music. Subverted in that he is actually human and just looked like a chimp when he was young.
- Multinational Team: The Ambassadors are one, with each team member coming from a different country.
- Named After Somebody Famous: Jean-Luc, the son of Codename France, is said to be named after film director Jean-Luc Godard because his father is also a film director who idolizes Godard.
- Parent-Child Team: Codename France, a single mother, works as a duo with her young son, extending her superpowers to him.
- Powers as Programs: The Ambassadors have access to a database of over 50 different superpowers including super-strength, super-endurance, flight and power replication, but they can only download up to three at a time and each power can only be downloaded by one member at a time.
- Safely Secluded Science Center: Choon-he's superhero tech is run from a hidden base in Antarctica that's temperate enough to have greenery.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Jin-sung's group includes CEOs of big internet and tech companies who can use the power this gives to cover up their bloody activities.
- Shout-Out: When presenting the Ambassador program, Choon-he compares herself to Willy Wonka, after describing him as a British literary character who fetishized obesity.
- Token Good Teammate: In Jin-sung's group of malignant, super-powered billionaires, Brinn Ansen stands out as the only one who isn't a complete asshole and is partly motivated to join because his power upgrade will cure the diabetes he has suffered from since childhood. However, it's downplayed in that he still goes along with the group's murderous rampages, however reluctantly, and in the end, he never actually does anything to seriously go against them.
- Wearing a Flag on Your Head: The Ambassadors all wear costumes based on their countries' respective flags. The trope is discussed in issue #2, when Binnu thinks the design is "too on the nose", and Choon-he and her associates explain that the flag theme was the only concept her design team could agree on.
