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| The flashback scene by Millar and Giordano in "Wanted" #6 makes it plain that the world before the super-villains took over was a distinctly Silver-Age one. "The skies were so blue in those days" remembers The Killer, and it seems certain that "Wanted" is in part a commentary, if not a criticism, on the post-Crisis, post-1986 tendency towards bleak and bloody super-books. |
In order to shift his reader's sympathies from the side of the traditionally noble super-gals'n'guys to that of their typically abhorrent opponents, Millar makes sure to avoid presenting most of the various members of the Secret Society as the entirely murderous and often flat-out psychopathic creatures they really are. It's not that they're mischaracterised, but rather that Millar carefully chooses the moments at which we encounter them. They're shown functioning as a community of ill-conforming individualists, characterised by relatively friendly bickering and telling bursts of sociable good humour, as well as by an entirely understandable air of uncertainty and fear. As such, Millar makes it hard for the reader not to empathise just a touch with the intense anxiety shared by each of the super-villains, while being careful not to mention that the same super-villains wouldn't ever empathise with the fear that they themselves inspire in the typical inhabitants of the DCU.
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| Millar uses the idea of children once again to suggest that the DCU's super-villains are far kinder and more generous-hearted individuals than we've previously considered. No matter how facile Amos Fortune's concern for "the youngsters" is, it helps pull our sympathies just a little further in the direction of the Society rather than the League. |
In their responses to the reunification of the League and its new pro-active policies, the super-villains put forward the same political arguments that you or I might in response to the unlimited power wielded by this new super-national crime-fighting agency operating outside the bounds of any national code of law. "Is the President going to argue with the fastest man alive, or a kid with the most powerful weapon in the cosmos on his fingers?" they ask each other, and though they're only thinking of themselves, they're also expressing the fears which anyone with even mildly democratic sensibilities might express. As the Martian Manhunter announces while masquerading as the super-villain Brainwave; "I think we all agree such awesome power in the hands of the few is undesirable ..". And of course, that's true, just as the possession of such power by the likes of the Secret Society Of Super-Villains would be an even more terrifying prospect. Superhero comics work on the premise that the politics of their worlds would be pretty much the same as ours, and yet it's obvious that nothing of the sort could ever be true. A world where the Justice League could travel anywhere and detain anyone they chose to would be an entirely different globe to ours, and the causes of super-villains and adherents of civil liberties alike might just happen to coincide there
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| The over-people. |
In the end, the effectiveness of Millar's script for The Secret Society Of Super-Villains lies in its capacity to make us frightened of the folks that Alan Moore called "the over-people". The superhero narrative typically relies upon the collective delusion on the reader's part that power rarely corrupts where the sheriffs in the white hats are concerned, and that that's true even when so many of the over-people are showing consistently behaving in appalling ways . But even if the reader's happy to accept the premise that Morrison's JLA is both entirely trustworthy and perpetually incorruptible, it's obvious that somewhere down the line, as the Justice League evolves and new members join, Lord Acton's Dictum is going to apply, and absolute power will corrupt absolutely.
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| The Martian Manhunter, disguised as Brainwave, makes a profoundly dangerous suggestion to a room full of super-villains ... |
We do know that Millar made a serious attempt to pitch The Secret Society Of Super-Villains as a limited series to DC Comics in the years leading up to the turn of the century, although whether the story which was printed in the first JLA 80 Page Giant #1 was anything more than a one-off tale eludes us. Millar has said that little remains of his original proposal for the Secret Society in the pages of Wanted, despite his explaining that the first very much led to the second project. And yet, there are clear connections between the only Secret Society story of Millar's that ever saw print and Wanted. In particular, the super-villains in Secret Society accept the Martian Manhunter's bait of a plan to join together into a great army to slaughter their right-serving costumed opponents, which is exactly how the world of Wanted ended up entirely denuded of super-heroes.
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| While in the first issue of "Wanted", we discover that the same strategy as J'onn J'onzz proposed to the Society has been adopted to wipe a planet free of super-heroes. |
To the Justice League, the suggestion that the various super-villainsof their world might subsume their individual interests in a war upon the JLA is nothing but a scheme to fool the Society into gathering together in a convenient trap. Yet Wanted shows us a world in which such a design was adopted and did result in the extinction of the more benevolent super-people. Over time, the Justice League and their various allies had succeeding in convincing their various opponents that the combined likes of Superman and Batman couldn't ever be overwhelmed by force of numbers, for, as the Wizard says to Brain-Wave/Martian Manhunter when the plan to "finish these clowns once and for all" is announced; "Odds of five to one haven't made any difference to our fortunes in the past." What an irony it would be, if the obliteration of the costumed crimefighter class in the world of Wanted had been the result of a similar ruse that the super-heroes there had once arrogantly spun.
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| Having given the Society a plan for the extermination of the DCU's super-heroes, the JLA then proceed to terrify, mock and assault their opponents. Not, it might be suggested, the most prudent of policies. |
We don't know the details of Millar's proposal for The Secret Society Of Super-Villains, but unless he'd suggested an Elseworld tale, there's of course no possibility that his original story could have ended with the deaths of all of the DCU's super-heroes. But it's hard not to believe that the small, and yet wholly enjoyable, 10 page story printed in 1998 isn't intimately connected to the notorious Wanted. Doing so means presuming a through-line between short feature, series pitch, and limited series, but Millar is well-known for never wasting a promising idea. In The Secret Society Of Super-Villains, the super-heroes surrender to hubris and create a united, fearful and murderously committed opponent out of a previously loosely-affiliated network of largely intimidated antagonists. In Wanted, versions of the same Justice Leaguers are defeated by a well-marshaled army of super-villains, before being mind-wiped and reduced to tortured, helpless amnesiacs. The line from the product of one publisher to that of another, from 1998 to 2003, may be an illusion created by hindsight, but it's a convincing illusion all the same.
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The "supervillains uniting" theme is a common one Millar seems to use many times- from Wanted to 1984 and Old Man Logan, it seems to be a given to him that the villains could easily take out the heroes, if only they were organized.
ReplyDeleteIf we look at SSoS as a precursor to Wanted, though, the actions make a little more sense. If the heroes were mounting an offense more ruthless than ever before, it stands to reason that the villains would escalate in a similar way (shades of the Dark Knight, maybe?).
However, the Villains United miniseries that became Secret Six seems, in a way, somewhat more realistic. After all, most of the villains didn't become evil outcasts by being good at working well with others. A story in which they try to unite, and then get sidetracked trying to force Catman and Deadshot to join (ironic since Wanted's protagonist is pretty much based on him) seems far more likely.
Hello Historyman:- It is a trope that Millar does return to. Another example is the Marvel Knights Spider-Man series. And given the numbers of super-villains there are, it is hard to imagine that they couldn't bump off their opponents if they just worked together. Of course, then they'd inevitably turn on each other, given the exceptionally high proportion of the mentally disordered in their ranks. The almost twenty years it takes for the war to break out seems far too long a period. As such, I quite agree with you that Villains United is more realistic, although it could be in Wanted that some at least of the wild cards in the super-villain ranks were murdered, lessening the chances of an early end to the cold peace.
DeleteI agree with you that Wanted makes more sense if The Secret Society Of Super Villains is taken as its prologue. That's why it's a shame that the two can't ever be printed together. Even the art style in the Society tale creates a sense of a more innocent-minded 1986 DC tale, which matches the sense of a more cartoony reality in Wanted's past.
Ah, you've left me seriously questioning the super samaritan in a democratic society. It's like I'm busy... no, TOO busy... thinking about comics.
ReplyDeleteI get it now!
Thanks for the articles on the subject!
Hello Isaac:- Thank you :) Can't put too high a value on a comment which makes me laugh on a morning full of lots of grinding paperwork. Thank you, sir.
Delete"...[B]ut Millar is well-known for never wasting a promising idea."
ReplyDeleteI haven't been particularly interested in much that Millar has written since Old Man Logan, but it's for a similar reason that I've quoted that I'm excited about his upcoming project with Frank Quitely. It's not that I think all of his ideas since OML have been crap, but as has been discussed here before, Millar seems content in reveling in his more... extravagant(?) tendencies as of late. I think an artist of Quitely's caliber could help reign in the stuff like the shock-for-story and the over abundance of splash pages.
Or maybe I'm just being hopeful, but I've got my fingers crossed.
That said, another knock-out article, Colin.
Hello Joe:- Thanks for the generous words. And I'm looking forward to Supercrooks too. I think you're right to suggest that FQ's work is likley to frame MM's script in a way which adds to its substance rather than collaborating with little but the spectacle there. In fact, I'm looking forward to all of the new Millarworld books, although the rape scene in Kick Ass II means that I'm less interested in Hit Girl than I would've been after the first KA series.
DeleteNothing wrong with a touch of being hopeful, but of course, fingers crossed can't hurt :) The Secret Service should at the very least be a banker.
I remember this story. That's saying something, given that I've forgotten most of the short stories from DC's late-'90s "Secret Files & Origins" & 100 page Giants. Not to suggest they were bad, but most did not stick out.*
ReplyDeleteI think The Authority is where Mark Millar came to value shock over story, and be rewarded for it. Wanted, though, solidified that "new Millar," and may be the book on which his reputation was made. The beginning and ending had everyone talking, never a bad thing even if the buzz went from positive to negative. I am impressed that he was able to experience such success largely apart from Big-2 shared universe comics, even if his methods have left me cold.
I haven't written Millar off completely, but I have trepidation about any new comic he releases, even one illustrated by Frank Quitely. I hope it's entertaining. It also has me wondering, which artists will get me to buy comics despite the writer? Bill Sienkiewicz, J.H. Williams III, maybe Marcos Martin...
- Mike Loughlin
* There was an entirely mundane Batman 80-Page Giant special featuring Calendar Man that went from 7 or so chapters of DC house-style art to a final chapter drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz. I don't remember getting that kind of artistic whiplash from any other multi-artist comic, and loved the effect.
Hello Mike:- You're quite right that a great many of those DC giants were almost entirely forgettable. In retrospect, that's really odd. For every enjoyable collection such as DC 1 000 000, there were a fair few that were as dull as dishwater. You'd think it would've been an excellant format for some ambition and daring, but it was rarely so. I never came across the Batman Giant you describe, but I'm almost tempted by the very idea of a Sienkiewicz closer to such an issue. But then, coming across his inks in Batman issues in that decade was shock enough. Still, bills must be paid ..
DeleteI can see why it might appear that the prominence of shock over substance arrived with The Authority. I've not read those issues for a while actually, so I don't quite know how I feel about them:) But you missed out, after a sense, on the six or so years Millar was working for UK comics. His Trident Comics work on Saviour contained scenes which would even today kick up a ruckus, and the vast majority of his 2000AD work was mostly all shock and very little substance at all. There was certainly, as you say, a change in Millar's work on The Authority. He said that Ellis' work inspired him to think in a new and less conventional ways, and I think that goes for style and content both. In a sense, The Authority showed Millar returning to his scripting roots, except for the fact that he was far more technically competent in 2000 than he'd been when writing the likes of Shadowmen and the Grudge-Father.
Mike, that's a really good question about which artists would inspire me to buy a book. I'd buy anything by Simon Fraser. Marcos Martin, certainly. Kevin O'Neil. I like Jamie MacKelvie's work and D'Israeli's too. I was impressed by Daniel Acuna's work on recent Avengers issues, despite having serious problems with the incredibly thin stories. Mike Mignola ... It's actually much harder to come up with names than I imagined, though I know I'll think of other names the minute I finish this :)
So, this piece has inspired me to pull out and reread both this short story and Wanted, for the first time in several years. I was... a lot less enlightened when I first read Wanted, and rereading it these days, I found it much, much more disturbing than I recalled. And the problem is, the seed of the story is quite solid, and while the path it takes is hardly the most inspired, it could make for a good, exciting tale. And you can see the seeds of that in the SSoV story (which I had forgotten/skimmed over and is damned good).
ReplyDeleteBut there's so much hate in Wanted, hate for everything and everyone in the world. The racial aspects of the story are really, really creepy; Wesley's continued emphasis of the phrase "Lesbian, African-American boss" comes across as Millar trying to be insulting to blacks/gays with the thinnest veneer of political correctness to keep people happy, and his depiction of (I apologize for the language) "stupid cholo fucks" hits everything that people were saying about the gangs in Kick-Ass. The depiction of women is also disturbing; the only woman with any agency is the Fox, and she's characterized as a greedy, violence-and-sex-obsessed liar. Wesley's mother barely gets any characterization at all, and what little we get is the idea that her main goal as a character was to (again, apologies) "turn [Wesley] into a pussy." Most confusing is the character of the Dollmaker's wife; he describes her as "the light of his life" and similar platitudes, but every scene she's in makes her come off as a controlling shrew. This makes the scene where Rictus reveals her murder come off as less tragic and more "finally!" since she's such an unappealing character.
I don't know... The only explanation that I can see is that Millar is attempting to characterize Wesley similarly to Dave in Kick-Ass, as a fanboy stereotype personified. That allows him to distance himself as a creator form the character's opinions, and makes that final bit of voiceover somewhat less abhorrent. But as much as that works as a No-Prize, it doesn't ring true; every literary instinct I have tells me that this is Millar, giving both fingers to his fans and watching them lap it up. What do you think?
Hello Colby:- Oh, I certainly struggle with Wanted. I was reading through my collection of interviews by MM at the time yesterday night & I came across the following from 2003;
Delete"However .. towards the end of the year you'll see what I've REALLY got planned for superheroes. It's horribly, horribly adult and probably the most disturbing superhero comic you've ever read in your life. It's racist, anti-gay, anti-women, anti-human, really. It's called Wanted and it's probably the most liberating thing I've ever written."
Now, I have no doubt that MM intended Wanted to read as an attack on all of those things, that he deliberately set out to present a character who's bigoted and full of hate. Elsewhere, he's described Wesley as having an anti-heroic origin, meaning that it's all part of the meta of Wanted. Just as he's describing how a world became populated solely by super-villains, he's also describing how a super-villain comes about. Wesley believes himself to be a victim, blames everyone else while doing nothing to stand up for himself, and then, given the chance, proves himself to be far worse than anyone he's a grudge against.
So, I do feel sure that Wanted is an example of a comic which expects its readers to know the conventions of the super-book and to recognise when they're being messed with to make a deliberate point. Yet that point - that Wesley was always a nasty piece of work & anyone who takes his side is the same - is, as far as I'm concerned, badly presented. There's too little ironic distance in the narrative, and too little time is spent on making Wesley's personality and back-story coherent and convincing. Because of that, the criticisms that MM expects us to make of Wesley become far tougher to make than they perhaps should. By that I don't mean that we don't get that Wesley is a monster and his acts monstrous. But there's a sense in which the book seems to be celebrating his thoughts and behaviour rather than at the very least letting them speak for themselves.
Because of that, it's really hard not to feel at times that Wanted is an exploitation text of a really unpleasant kind. If, as I said, MM had felt he wanted to focus more on the back-story in the first few issues, and had made Wesley's "conversion/liberation" seem more convincing, then that wouldn't have happened. And so, I find that part of me admires Millar's refusal to make it even more obvious that he's not celebrating the worst of the super-people genre and the worst of the wish-fulfillment it can offer. But he didn't need to make the values of Wanted more obvious, he needed to present the critique of Wesley in a more subtle and careful fashion.
The repulsion many of us feel at the end of Wanted shouldn't feel as if MM's baiting the reader. It should show that Wesley is an irredeemable monster and that his excuses and self-pity marked out his own willing road to hell. That it doesn't it the shame of Wanted. It can feel as if the reader's being mocked rather than comics which glorify power for its own sake as a sexy, ego-glorifying thing. For those reasons, my own take on Wanted is that it is intended as a moral text, and it is far more of an experiment than it's often credited with being, but it fails to convince and ends up seeming in part to celebrate the thing that it was attempting to criticise.
Hi Colin. Great piece, as usual.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that, as you note 1986 was both the year Millar cited for the last stand the year of DC's Crisis.
I recently read through Wolfman and Perez's Crisis on Infinite Earths, and was struck by how they executed that "supervillain team-up" concept Millar is so fond of, foreshadowing both Wanted and Old Man Logan, chipping away at the childish superhero fantasy by providing a rare bit of logic - since there are twenty villains to one hero, why not just gang up and accept the casualties of a full-frontal assault? In Crisis, of course, it was Luthor and Brainiac directing the assault, with acceptable casualties. It was ultimately vanquished, but Perez and Wolfman pushed it pretty close to the edge, with the literal fate of the multiverse in the balance. You suggest above that it was perhaps the final fate of the pre-Crisis DCU, and I think that's a fair point, it's also an alternate ending to Crisis on Infinite Earths.
It's odd, because I initially didn't like that mid-point plot lull. I thought it was strange to see a conventional-looking superhero/supervillain fight punctuate the two confrontations with the Anti-Monitor. However, your piece raises some wonderful points, and I can't help but associate those with Millar. Thanks Colin!
I think, as you note, Millar uses this sort of real-world common sense intruding as a means of deconstructing the fantasy, but I find it fascinating that you can really trace the concept back to Crisis on Infinite Earths itself - rather than to the aftermath. Of course, a lot of other clever things were happening as artists and writers were toying with form and structure, pulling at threads, but it's interesting to note that there was an (admittedly much lighter) deconstruction going on even in the universe-resetting event itself.
Anyway, enough pointless rambling.
Hello Darren:- That's a really good point, and I should have remembered it, having actually referred to Crisis in the first part of the above. Thank you. To add to the build up of the evidence for the importance of 1986 to Millar, I've just re-read several interviews in which he refers to the year in different ways. In the first, he talks about how the period was an incredible rush for him, as of course it was for most folks who were there. But he specifically references limited series rather than the DCU as a whole; the usual Watchman, The Dark Knight Returns and so on. The only on-going feature he mentions is the Byrne Superman, which was of course a reboot AND a limited series of sorts, with JB leaving so soon. In the second - a letter in a 1988 fanzine - he talks about his frustration with the new DCU and its convoluted continuity. 1986 was obviously a watershed with MM, in which, it seems, his love of Big Tent comics and his frustration with continuity was either formed or crystallised.
DeleteI'm really grateful to you for the points you've riffed around Crisis. Though I suspect my chances of ever getting to ask a few questions of Millar are lower than those of my winning the lottery twice in a row, one of my questions certainly would focus on the importance of that period to him, and Crisis would undoubtedly be part of that.
Pointless rambling? Not to me, Mr D. :)