Catching up on the comic book universe after a marathon Walking Dead spell, I finally picked up the first issue of Mark Millar’s Nemesis. Hot on the heels of Kick Ass, his new series answers the question that apparently every comic book fan has been asking – what if the hero decided to be bad?
Touted by Millar as “Batman but a total cunt”, the eponymous Nemesis is depicted as a criminal mastermind with resources to make Tony Stark insecure. Dressed all in white with no logos, the character kills without remorse and once he sets his sights on someone, they may as well kiss their loved ones goodbye and make sure their affairs are in order.
Nemesis the character seems to be a combination of Batman and the Joker, splicing together the drive and resources of the former with the psychotic tendencies of the latter. As the image below illustrates, Millar doesn’t shy away from this comparison.
Although only one issue in, the character has captured the imagination of readers and there is already talk of a film adaptation. Millar has the knack of giving his fans what they want, even if they didn’t know that they wanted it. With Kick Ass, he provided a hero for the YouTube generation and here he shows us what would happen if Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark or Oliver Queen decided that helping people is for losers and that it’s cooler to be bad. Not an anti-hero, but just an out-and-out villain.
Some sites have given the first issue bad reviews, but the series needs to be given a chance. The main character and his next target, a media-friendly, God-fearing Commissioner Gordon-type have to be allowed time to grow – at least wait until the third issue before condemning Millar. Sure the characters are slightly one-dimensional at first glance but this is most likely a clearing of the throat before the full stories of both the antagonist and protagonist are revealed.
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