Mark Millar

As I noted under Chatterbox, I recently read Wanted and thought it was basically trash.

I know that one reading is that it's actually a sophisticated Deconstruction of wish-fulfillment fantasies, but I think that's giving it way more credit than it deserves.

I've never read Civil War, but I've heard it's odious and worryingly pro-fascism.

Political messages are the last thing to worry about in CW. It's more the characterization failures.

I think Millar works best with characters he creates or when he's doing an alternate universe take on a character.

edited 28th Jun '11 4:46:18 PM by Nikkolas

Yeah, isn't Reed Richards supposed to be a borderline Complete Monster (albeit mostly in titles not written by Millar)?

The funny thing is that you can't even tell as much while reading it. Millar and the other writers make the Pro-Regs so retiredly Lawful Evil that I find the insistence that they were supposed to be right to be the greatest stroke of mass-fandom-trolling on bistory

The horrific thing about them being right? The fact that it was probably only massive fan backlash that resulted in Dark Reign. It seems like Millar and Quesada really did intend post-CW to be the permanent status quo. Add that to the fact that Marvel's US government has shown itself to be a Complete Monster in other stories, too...

Funny thing is that Millar says Civil War wasn't supposed to have any political message, because he just doesn't do messages, at last not intentional. For him it was all just an excuse to get superheroes beating each other. He jsut shaped it in a way that looked like was trying to tell some message and other writers jumped on board, trying to change the message into what they seen more appriorate. Which pobrably makes him greatest Troll in the industry.

Wow, nevermind the fail typing in my previous post. Stupid iphone auto-fill.

Oh, that's interesting. Come to think of it, the only places I've ever heard "Pro-Reg was right" were here and... a place I avoid these days... so maybe that was just fan rage?

The ending of the series has Captain America, leader of the anti-reg heroes, surrender after seeing the public reaction to their acts, and Stark (Iron Man, leader of the pro-regs) commenting on how it felt good to be on the right side (eg. the public's) again. I think those facts speak for themselves.

They might speak for themselves if the question was whether Millar is pro-reg or anti-reg. But the question here is whether Millar cares about the registration debate or is just using it as an Excuse Plot. I think the poorly-thought-out nature of the whole thing points to Excuse Plot. Public anti-superhero sentiment already being high enough for Stamford to be the final straw? Contrivance. Iron Man being a "futurist"? Contrivance. Cap's strategic ability failing him so badly that he stages a battle in the middle of a populated area where it causes so much damage that he ends up surrendering just to stop it? Contrivance. And Evil Clone Thor comes off as something thrown in just because Millar thought it would be shocking and cool.

Reading Civil War, I got the impression that Millar thought he was still writing The Ultimates.

In a strange inversion of most comic book writers, Mark Millar's work is actually WORSE when he's doing creator-owned stuff. This is probably because all of his 'original' properties are high-concept riffs on existing archetypes, and rely on the reader's familiarity with the source material in order to work. Fortunately for Millar, those archetypes aren't alien to the non-comics audience, but wanna bet that Nemesis would've never seen the light of day had it not been for the Dark Knight?

Lets see. Civil War? Sucked. Annihilation was better but Civil War got pressed because, who really knows? Only stuck around because a few good comics were unfortunately sucked into the mess.

Kick Ass, sucked, didn't stick around to finish though.

Wanted:see Kick Ass

Ultimates, Ultimately uninterested in the entirety of Ultimate Marvel, I do like cannibal Hulk though. I also liked Ultimate Galactus.

Marvel Knights Spider-man, I liked, mostly. Sinister Twelve were pretty underwhelming but it was okay.

Synopsis, he's better than I give him credit for, but he doesn't deserve the hype.

"I also liked Ultimate Galactus."

Written by Warren Ellis.

My opinion on Mark Millar? His earlier work on Ultimate X-men and Ultimate Fantastic Four was simply marvelous, and the first two books of The Ultimates are still my favourite superhero comics ever. I'm not familiar with his older work. But everything since Ultimates 2 has been fucking awful.

I wonder if he managed to have Lost in Imitation happen to himself; his current work reads like a sickeningly bad parody of his better days- with the intelligence sucked out and the grimdark and politics dialed up to eleven. It's hard to believe it's even the same writer.

Alternative theory- Mark Millar is gone and 'his' current output is written by a Skrull.

I go with the same theory as I've heard for Frank Miller - he's been replaced by two 10-year-olds using a big overcoat and a Mark Millar mask.

(I don't think I've read ANYTHING by Millar that didn't make me want to cleanse myself with fire afterwards - what's he written that's actually any good?)

Superman: Red Son? That's all I've ever read by him, so I can't compare it to anything else of his. But I and my friend {neither of us are fans of Superman} thought it was great.

Mark Millar has certainly become a dreaded Fallen Creator. Yes, he did make some interesting works like The Authority, and got into censorship fights. Unfortunately, he fell victim to Small Name, Big Ego. He could have done a lot to reverse the Dark Age. Instead, he grew fat on it and ended up made it even darker, which is Beyond the Impossible. He ended up making extremely cynical works, eagerly promoting Bloodier and Gorier, making extremely unsympathetic characters, and making arguments supporting extremely conservative views. Some feel that it's his fault for almost ruining Iron Man. Oh, yeah, and the film versions of Wanted and Kick Ass had to be heavily retooled to remove the unsympathetic parts and the extremely conservative view parts. In short, Mark Millar is a prime example of why it is better to be moderate than it is to be extreme.

edited 11th Aug '11 7:31:34 AM by TiggersAreGreat

(For those of you who haven't been paying attention, this is Vampire Buddha, unable to log in).

Kick-Ass was pretty good.

By the way, there's been some discussion of Millar over at the 2000 AD forum recently, and consensus is that he sucked before he even got to America.

Millar, extremely conservative? The man who dreamed of doing a graphic novel version of Das Kapital?

In my opinion, his work can be, and occasionally is, very good, but too often is sensationalistic, lurid, pandering crap.

Oh, I heard tell that Mark Millar wants to make a sequel to the movie Wanted. He intends to make it as faithful to the comic book version as possible. Yes, he wants to put in the stuff that wasn't put into the first movie. Hmm. I wonder if he is angling for a "history repeats itself" theme between the first movie and the sequel.

I'll admit that when my bro torrented The Unfunnies, I asked him if I could read it. He told me that he accidentally forgot to block their downloads and that he was just gonna believe him. I insisted since I couldn't find a physical copy of any of the four issues anywhere. He let me read them before they were deleted.

...When did a perverted 12 year old who watched too many cartoons while writing a troll fic get Mark Millar's identity? How could somebody fail so hard at even making a sociopathic comedy comic? I thought that Kickass was as low as Millar could get, but GOD. DAMN. Two issues in 2004. The last two in 2007 and somehow Millar couldn't even get his artist to use photoshop properly.

Fuck Millar. I'll always keep Red Son on my shelf, but I'll pretend the man died years ago.

I was actually fucking suprised when reading Grant Morrison's new book, that he didn't tear his former protege a new one for being the paragon of the Dark Age as he is.

There seem to be some who argue that some of Mark Millar's stories are examples of Deconstruction.

"Kick Ass shows us what it would be like if a teenager without super powers ever became a superhero (like Spider Man). The main character gets beaten to within an inch of his life in every encounter, and said life becomes even worse after he dons the mask; his only super power is that he has a metal plate in his head."

"While a few elements are questionable, The Unfunnies is still a clever commentary on how writers are corrupting the once-innocent world of comics by injecting their own perversions into it. The story begins with a stereotypical Hanna Barbera cartoon world of Talking Animals, then introduces prostitution, child pornography, and violence. Then it's revealed that the world's creator is a child rapist and murderer who's on death row, and created the world so he can switch places with a character there, and thus live forever."

What do you think, guys? Are these examples of Deconstruction, or not really?