There are too many superheroes in America. Let's go somewhere else...
Supercrooks is a 2012 four-issue comic series written by Mark Millar and drawn by Leinil Yu. Described as "X-Men meets Ocean's Eleven", Supercrooks takes place in a world full of superheroes, and follows a team of thieves, the titular super crooks, as they go about a heist after one member tries to cheat the biggest mob casino in Vegas. After he gets caught, he's given one month to repay the original $12 million debt with the added interest of $100 million... or else.
The super crooks consist of:
- Johnny Bolt — The main protagonist, our "hero" who brings everyone together. A criminal mastermind with electric powers, though he relies mainly on manipulating others with his charisma and charm.
- Kasey — Johnny's ex-girlfriend and the only prominent female character in the story. Her power allows her to make people see what she wants them to see.
- The Ghost — The world's greatest cat burglar who can become intangible and phase through walls. He favors two pistols to get the job done. Beforehand, he retired to be an architect.
- The Heat — An elderly supervillain with fire-manipulation powers, which he uses in conjunction with a heat gun. He mentored the younger ones, and he's the guy who kickstarts the plot by getting involved with gambling debt.
- Forecast — A con artist working in New York City who can control the weather with his mind.
- TK McCabe — Telekinetic supervillain who tried to go legit, and hated it. He jumps at the chance to be part of the heist.
- Roddy and Sammy Diesel — Brothers and professional fighters who have regenerative healing factors. They bicker, but work well as a duo.
- The Gladiator — A superhero with Super-Strength. The only reason he goes along with the heist is because they blackmail him, threatening to out him as a homosexual.
Johnny decides to go to Spain, where the superhero population is non-existent, and commit the heist there. Also, his target is none other than the most feared supervillain that ever lived — The Bastard. Not only does he intend to pay off the debt, but he intends to live rich by the end as well.
In 2019, it was announced that Netflix would adapt Supercrooks into an Anime series, with Studio Bones in charge of making it. Super Crooks (2021) has 13 episodes and was released Nov 25th, 2021. A live-action series was confirmed to be in development, with the news breaking out
alongside the cancellation of Jupiter's Legacy.
Tropes that apply to Supercrooks include:
- Affably Evil: Johnny Bolt is quite a charming fellow, even though he's a bad guy.
- Berserk Button: The Bastard HATES surprises.
- Bigger on the Inside: The chest containing The Bastard's fortune is small, but is a space-time container that's absolutely massive internally, allowing a convenient place to carry all the gold.
- Bullying a Dragon: After being assembled to pull off a top heist in Spain (which has no super-heroes), a pack of low-level bad guys are horrified to realize their target is the Bastard, the most ruthless super-villain to ever live. They all tell their leader it's crazy as the last guy to try and screw over the Bastard wasn't just murdered but watched just about everyone in his life (down to second grade classmates) killed before he was taken out.
- Cluster F-Bomb: As to be expected from a creator-owned Millar comic, swearing is everywhere.
- Cool Helmet: Count Orlok definitely had one.
- Cool Old Guy: The Heat. While not a good guy, he's an elderly man who takes part in the fighting, uses a heat gun in conjunction with his fire powers, and mentored the others. They respect him enough to go along with the heist so they can bail him out of trouble (and get rich, of course).
- Disproportionate Retribution: The Bastard is considered the most terrifying super-villain on Earth with a story told of one guy making the mistake of trying to rip him off. Another villain might kill the guy. Another might go a step further and kill his family. The Bastard methodically tracks down and murders every single person this guy has ever been close to. Family, lovers, his drug dealer, his banker, right down to second grade classmates. Then spares the guy so he can suffer after he begs to be killed after his girlfriend's death.
- The Dragon: Praetorian is a corrupt superhero and The Bastard's right-hand man.
- The Dreaded: Christopher "The Bastard" Matts is the most feared supervillain in the story, and truly lives up to his title. He's the kind of guy who will murder a man's whole family and friends if they wrong him, and can decide if that guy is even worth killing. And of course, Johnny chooses him as his target.
- Elemental Baggage: The Heat can manipulate fire but can't shoot it by himself. Hence, he carries a heat gun.
- Fallen Hero: The Praetorian is a well-known young hero who is introduced in the comic as this. He was acquitted of numerous charges, including those centered around his abuse of authority.
- Genius Bruiser: Roddy is a tall overmuscled professional fighter, but does hold a degree in temporal physics.
- Genre-Busting: A superhero heist comic with all that it entails, and a dose of Black Comedy.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: One part of the heist can only be done by the Diesel Brothers. Specifically, they have to get past a laser room that will instantly kill any other member of the team in a very messy fashion, but their fast healing allows them to survive and disable it. Not that it's fun.
- Home Field Advantage: The Diesel Brothers are the top dogs of the professional fighting tournaments, but they don't fare nearly as well outside of it when the circumstances aren't controlled.
- Manipulative Bastard: Johnny Bolt. He gets the team together, and flies them to Spain for the heist. What he neglects to tell them is that they're robbing The Bastard, aka the most feared supervillain ever, until it's too late to back out.
- Misplaced Retribution: The big twist at the end is after the team rip off the notorious super-villain known as The Bastard while in costume. The Bastard goes to the pack of mobsters who had threatened the gang's friend (forcing them to do this heist) and murders them all while they're baffled as to why. It turns out the mobsters were all once costumed crooks...the same costumes the team wore to rip the Bastard off so he ended up taking out their own enemies.
- Ms. Fanservice: Kasey is very busty and the art takes every chance to demonstrate it. The intro for the Anime even spends a decent chunk of it focused on her butt.
- One Last Job: Kasey prefers to pull one this with the promise of having enough money to live a simple life. The fact that Johnny continued his small-time crime spree was why she broke up with him after he was arrested on their wedding day.
- Putting the Band Back Together: The plot begins with Johnny assembling the old team together for the heist after Heat comes to him for help.
- Retired Monster: The Bastard. After spending many years as The Dreaded, he grows tired of villainy without a challenge, and retires to live peacefully in Spain with his riches.
- Sequel Hook: Though the comic is mostly self-contained to the four issues, it does end with The Bastard taking over the Las Vegas casino by force and swearing revenge. The fact that the trade is marked as Vol. 1 does suggest that Millar may continue the story should he feel the desire to.
- The Smurfette Principle: Kasey is the only female character with any amount of prominence in the story.
- Superpower Lottery:
- The Preatorian takes this literally by having a large set of powers at his disposal. However, they come up at random, which is a issue for not only his opponents, but also himself.
- Kasey was born with a powerful psychic ability that allows her to manipulate illusions to her victims. This allowed her to outsmart and overpower The Bastard, making him believe his servant was her when he blew up his head. Her power is also strong enough to pass a remote area off as his mansion.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Johnny has a no-kill policy that he enforces on everyone else, though mainly for pragmatic reasons as he doesn't want to be labelled a murderer and making them a bigger target. He has no problem with violent beatdowns that leaves their enemies heavily scarred and/or brain-damaged, however.
- Token Good Teammate: Gladiator is a superhero, and a legit one at that. The only reason he goes along is because they blackmail him into it, threatening to reveal that he's gay to the world. After the heist ends, he public comes out and is greeted with open arms and the gay/LGBTQ community, becoming more popular and well-loved than ever.
- Villain Protagonist: The main characters are bad guys, and only look good because the people who antagonize them are even worse.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: A year later, Heat, now gambling and using his fortune in the Philippines, tells his girl about what happened to the crew:
- Tk made good on his promise to his family and took them on an European vacation in a cruise ship he paid for.
- Forecast bought a space shuttle.
- Ghost took advantage of the financial crisis in Greece and bought most of the land there.
- Roddy surprised everyone by investing his fortune into time machine designs he was working on. Turns out he wasn't lying about having a degree in temporal physics from Princeton University.
- Sammy on the other hand invested his money in booze and women.
- Gladiator went clean about his sexuality and the public greeted him with open arms. He's still one of the most popular and well loved heroes to date.
- As for Johnny and Kasey, he ended up proposing to her again. She accepts.
- Working with the Ex: Johnny and Kasey used to date, but she dumped him after he was arrested on their wedding day. Kasey only decides to work with him to help Heat. Afterwards, she makes it clear she never wants to see Johnny again. Of course, Johnny views it as a challenge, that he has three days to win her heart back. He succeeds.
- Your Head Asplode: The Bastard has a psychic ability that allows him to blow up a victim's head with just a thought. He often uses a sniper rifle's scope to focus on them. He claims to have done this to his own mother, which what led to his villainy.
