Nemesis, the new book by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, hit stores last week, just happening to be not-so-far away from the release of Millar’s Kick-Ass on the big screen. But for a writer who’s now had two (yes, two) scripts already made into Hollywood movies, Nemesis is easily the most amateur comic book I have ever come across. In fact, I am trying to think of other pieces of storytelling as badly done as Nemesis, and I’m finding it difficult.
The only thing that could save this horrible, evil comic is that if Millar just wrote the comic as an experiment, an experiment to see that if you’re a successful writer, could you write a comic that is filled with the corniest dialogue you could write, delivered in the clunkiest exposition imaginable while decorated with curse words and horrific acts of violence and still get it approved by an editor? If Millar is somehow trying to buck the system here, he is doing a bang up job. Steve McNiven’s lazy and generally sloppy looking pencil work really add weight to this theory.
I’m not even sure what the concept of this story is. Is it just about a super villain (“the World’s only super criminal” according to a Japanese henchman) trying to piss off a Chief of Police while committing a massive crime that in no way seems to relate to his task at hand? Because that’s all it seems to come across as.
Nemesis is both the name of the comic and its main character, the aforementioned super-villain whose modus operandi is to select a police officer, running them through an absolute gauntlet of psychological and physical torture, which ends when Nemesis finally kills them. And if the opening of the book is anything to go by, that murder is gratuitous beyond all measure. Thus enter Blake Morrow, Nemesis’s next target, the Chief of Washington DC’s police force. He is apparently (because this is only told to us dialogue, the very best way to get information across to an audience) and I quote “You’re Oprah’s favourite cop, sir. The way you reorganized Washington D.C. has been copied by every police force in the country. Crime is down sixty percent since you took over and word is you’re getting Homeland secrurity.”
Which I think is more than enough exposition for one character, right? So it falls to yet another character to add some more tell-don’t-show depth to Morrow’s character: “Add the fact that you’re a family man and a practicing Catholic and you’re everything he loves to humiliate. He equates decency with pomposity, Chief. He strikes at people he regards as vain.”
So, what did we gather from that onslaught of pretty needless dialogue? Well, that this Chief Morrow is a very famous, very well respected cop who has risen to the top being being an all around nice, decent guy. Good for him. But in Morrow’s introduction, he is anything but a nice decent guy: in fact, we are thrust head first into a scene where four armed robbers are blown away without hesitation. It turns out the assassin is our Chief Morrow, cleverly disguising his tuxedo with a baseball cap and and old coat.
Just to recap, this is our honest, decent and family-orientated policeman who’s just snuck into a hostage situation while wielding a gun that Cable himself would think is too big, then straight up murdered five people with no regard to the safety of the hostages around him…
It appears that all Morrow wanted to do was shoot the hell out of some crackheads. We’re not meant to think act of wanton violence and aggression is anything bad, either: this is just a Hero Cop at work. He even has a team of stress counsellors on stand by, just in case any of the hostages are totally traumatised by seeing criminals with their heads blown off. No doubt Morrow’s foresight also has a team of bereavement counsellors on speed dial to console the families of the five young men he gunned down in cold blood too.
That introductory sequence for Chief Morrow is indicative of the book so far. Needless, over the top violence followed by amazingly bad dialogue handled in a very slip-shod manner: it’s almost like no one involved really cared about anything other than how cool they think they are.
But wait, there’s more.
If all that hasn’t blown your mind yet, there is a chain of events that leads to the President of the United States (thankfully, he’s not an Obama anologue, or the comic might have just exploded with such needless attempts to keep things gritty) being kidnapped by Nemesis. I won’t explain it to you, because there is no way I could tell you want happened without you thinking I made it up, all just to make Millar and McNiven look bad. So, rather than describing it, let’s just show you.
Sure, comics are a work of fiction and we’re not talking about a medium that’s bound by a lot of rules. But Nemesis is a book that seems to be bound by nothing, not even a basic understanding of how the world works. Just to be clear, Nemesis abducted the American President, killing possibly thousands in the process just to get the attention of this Blake Morrow. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but surely kidnapping the President is a federal offence? Which should of course be handled by a chief of police.
I can’t discuss the comic without discussing the shockingly sub-standard art from the usually magnificent Steve McNiven, usually known for his smooth lines and elegant rendering. The artwork on this is a mess of muddled expression and inappropriate cross hatching, not to mention a magical cape (it’s the only other excuse as to why Nemesis costume doesn’t follow the normal laws of physics): no matter what the situation is, the cape just hangs off Nemesis’ shoulders. It’s just one example of an indiscriminate lack of attention to detail that really sums up this entire book, a book which in theory is a good idea but extremely (and almost deliberately) badly done.
If a fourteen year old boy had come up with the content of this issue, questions would be asked, doctors would be seen and words like “disturbed” and “troubled” would be thrown around. But of course, Millar’s a big name in comic books, so that’s all okay then…
I’ll be back again, thanks for the info.