Nemesis (Icon Comics)
Encyclopedia
Millar & McNiven's Nemesis is a creator-owned comic book
limited series
written by Mark Millar
, drawn by Steve McNiven
and published by the Icon Comics
imprint
of Marvel Comics
.
was the Joker
?" and in a subsequent interview Millar revealed that was only one of a number of possible lines they went with, his favourite being "What if Batman was a total cunt?" This caused concern at DC Comics
, the publisher of Batman, but Millar denied there had been threats of legal action saying:
The series also gained pre-publication attention when Millar auctioned the right to name the main policeman character, something he had done with Kick-Ass. The winning bid was $8,500 and, as with the previous auction, proceeds went to the charity run by Mark Millar's brother Dr. Bobby Millar which helps handicapped children. It proved so successful that the real name of the main supervillain character was also auctioned off.
Nemesis blows up a building in Tokyo, killing a SWAT
team, and later kills a police inspector. In Washington, D.C.
, the FBI informs metro police Chief Inspector Blake Morrow that Nemesis is targeting him next. Nemesis soon hijacks Air Force One
over the District of Columbia, taking the United States president hostage and crashing the plane, killing hundreds.
Nemesis tells the story of Matt Anderson, whose father had committed suicide after Officer Blake Morrow tried to imprison the father for hunting runaway teenagers with his rich friends. Anderson travelled the world to learn the ways of crime, hoping to fulfil his mother's dying wish to have Morrow killed.
Nemesis kills twenty-thousand people at the Pentagon
using poison gas, allowing Morrow and his aide de camp Stuart to survive in order to taunt Morrow about the inspector's projected March 12 death. Local police eventually capture Nemesis, who claims he allowed himself to be caught. Nemesis breaks out of prison, killing scores of guards and freeing the inmates, and then blowing it up. He kidnaps Morrow's children, forcing Morrow to reveal family secrets: his wife had an affair; his son is gay; and his daughter had a secret abortion. Nemesis releases the children but Morrow's daughter has been impregnated by his son, with her womb rigged to collapse if an abortion is attempted, preventing her from ever again having children. An enraged Morrow eventually believes he has discovered Nemesis' hideout, and arrives there with a police team only to find it is a trap. The house explodes, knocking Morrow unconscious. When Morrow awakens, a taunting Nemesis reveals that Stuart has been working for Nemesis for the past eight years. Nemesis kills Stuart, and tells Morrow that his "Matthew Anderson" story was made up: He is simply rich and bored, creating death and havoc for his own amusement.
Nemesis then reveals they are in the White House
's Oval Office
, where Morrow's wife Peggy and the U.S. president have bombs strapped to their chests. The staff and Secret Service
agents have all been killed, and Nemesis gives Morrow a detonator and tells him he has thirty seconds to kill either the president or his wife. With four seconds left, the president steps-up to Nemesis and tells Morrow to detonate his bomb. Nemesis survives the blast, and in a final confrontation, he and Morrow each shoot each other. Morrow kills Nemesis with a head shot, and himself is taken to emergency surgery. He flatlines
during surgery but survives, and as the series concludes is on a beach vacation with his family, including his newborn triplet granddaughters. There he is given a letter, ostensibly given to the waiter ten years earlier, congratulating Morrow and claiming to be from the head of a company that arranges for rich people to become supervillains.
gave the first issue a 1 out of 5. He said Millar's script "feels stale from start to finish ... moving through the paces at a plodding speed with nothing out of the ordinary. I wish I could say it was because Millar had tried to trade in over-the-top antics for subtlety, but [it's] almost like someone else was trying to figure out what made Millar's comics popular and then throwing most of the tricks out without bothering to replace them with anything else." He found artist McNiven's work uninteresting and McCaig's colors "muted and slightly dull."
Dan Phillips of IGN
gave the premiere issue an "Okay" score of 6 out of 10. He was disappointed by the artwork, saying it accentuates the shortcomings of Millar's script, finding McNiven's minimalistic style less impressive than his work on Old Man Logan
.
Phillips gave issue #3 the same score, describing the comic as "somewhat entertaining" but "not the least bit clever, witty, tasteful, sophisticated or original". He complains about the lack of depth to this high concept
story, seeing it only as an excuse for the next violent spectacle. He concludes that readers should skip the series unless they are die-hard fans of Millar's work.
Nicholas Yanes of SciFiPulse.net called the premiere issue "fantastic" and argued that while the series lacked heart in comparison with Millar's Kick-Ass, "this works to point out that the real world is not run by good intentions, but by selfish motivations, ego, and pride. Moreover, the stability that people apply to modern society is as much a construct as the buildings that [a] terrorist can so easily bring down."
Nemesis (112 pages, hardcover, February 2011, ISBN 0-7851-4865-5)
, with Tony Scott
set to direct it, in conjunction with his Scott Free production company.
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
limited series
Limited series
A limited series is a comic book series with a set number of installments. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is determined before production and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues....
written by Mark Millar
Mark Millar
Mark Millar is a Scottish comic book writer, known for his work on books such as The Authority, The Ultimates, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Civil War, Wanted, and Kick-Ass, the latter two of which have been adapted into feature films...
, drawn by Steve McNiven
Steve McNiven
Steven "Steve" McNiven is a Canadian comic book artist. He first gained prominence on CrossGen's Meridian, before moving onto books such as Ultimate Secret, New Avengers and Civil War.-Career:...
and published by the Icon Comics
Icon Comics
Icon Comics is an imprint of Marvel Comics for creator-owned titles, designed to keep select "A-list" creators producing for Marvel rather than seeing them take creator-owned work to other publishers.-History:...
imprint
Imprint
In the publishing industry, an imprint can mean several different things:* As a piece of bibliographic information about a book, it refers to the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication as given at the foot or on the verso of its title page.* It can mean a trade name...
of Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
.
Publication history
The publicity was launched in October 2009, with a teaser image containing the caption "What if BatmanBatman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
was the Joker
Joker (comics)
The Joker is a fictional character, a comic book supervillain published by DC Comics. He is the archenemy of Batman, having been directly responsible for numerous tragedies in Batman's life, including the paralysis of Barbara Gordon and the death of Jason Todd, the second Robin...
?" and in a subsequent interview Millar revealed that was only one of a number of possible lines they went with, his favourite being "What if Batman was a total cunt?" This caused concern at DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
, the publisher of Batman, but Millar denied there had been threats of legal action saying:
The series also gained pre-publication attention when Millar auctioned the right to name the main policeman character, something he had done with Kick-Ass. The winning bid was $8,500 and, as with the previous auction, proceeds went to the charity run by Mark Millar's brother Dr. Bobby Millar which helps handicapped children. It proved so successful that the real name of the main supervillain character was also auctioned off.
Plot synopsis
The supervillainSupervillain
A supervillain or supervillainess is a variant of the villain character type, commonly found in comic books, action movies and science fiction in various media.They are sometimes used as foils to superheroes and other fictional heroes...
Nemesis blows up a building in Tokyo, killing a SWAT
SWAT
A SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...
team, and later kills a police inspector. In Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, the FBI informs metro police Chief Inspector Blake Morrow that Nemesis is targeting him next. Nemesis soon hijacks Air Force One
Air Force One
Air Force One is the official air traffic control call sign of any United States Air Force aircraft carrying the President of the United States. In common parlance the term refers to those Air Force aircraft whose primary mission is to transport the president; however, any U.S. Air Force aircraft...
over the District of Columbia, taking the United States president hostage and crashing the plane, killing hundreds.
Nemesis tells the story of Matt Anderson, whose father had committed suicide after Officer Blake Morrow tried to imprison the father for hunting runaway teenagers with his rich friends. Anderson travelled the world to learn the ways of crime, hoping to fulfil his mother's dying wish to have Morrow killed.
Nemesis kills twenty-thousand people at the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
using poison gas, allowing Morrow and his aide de camp Stuart to survive in order to taunt Morrow about the inspector's projected March 12 death. Local police eventually capture Nemesis, who claims he allowed himself to be caught. Nemesis breaks out of prison, killing scores of guards and freeing the inmates, and then blowing it up. He kidnaps Morrow's children, forcing Morrow to reveal family secrets: his wife had an affair; his son is gay; and his daughter had a secret abortion. Nemesis releases the children but Morrow's daughter has been impregnated by his son, with her womb rigged to collapse if an abortion is attempted, preventing her from ever again having children. An enraged Morrow eventually believes he has discovered Nemesis' hideout, and arrives there with a police team only to find it is a trap. The house explodes, knocking Morrow unconscious. When Morrow awakens, a taunting Nemesis reveals that Stuart has been working for Nemesis for the past eight years. Nemesis kills Stuart, and tells Morrow that his "Matthew Anderson" story was made up: He is simply rich and bored, creating death and havoc for his own amusement.
Nemesis then reveals they are in the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
's Oval Office
Oval Office
The Oval Office, located in the West Wing of the White House, is the official office of the President of the United States.The room features three large south-facing windows behind the president's desk, and a fireplace at the north end...
, where Morrow's wife Peggy and the U.S. president have bombs strapped to their chests. The staff and Secret Service
United States Secret Service
The United States Secret Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The sworn members are divided among the Special Agents and the Uniformed Division. Until March 1, 2003, the Service was part of the United States...
agents have all been killed, and Nemesis gives Morrow a detonator and tells him he has thirty seconds to kill either the president or his wife. With four seconds left, the president steps-up to Nemesis and tells Morrow to detonate his bomb. Nemesis survives the blast, and in a final confrontation, he and Morrow each shoot each other. Morrow kills Nemesis with a head shot, and himself is taken to emergency surgery. He flatlines
Asystole
In medicine, asystole is a state of no cardiac electrical activity, hence no contractions of the myocardium and no cardiac output or blood flow...
during surgery but survives, and as the series concludes is on a beach vacation with his family, including his newborn triplet granddaughters. There he is given a letter, ostensibly given to the waiter ten years earlier, congratulating Morrow and claiming to be from the head of a company that arranges for rich people to become supervillains.
Reception
Greg McElhatton of Comic Book ResourcesComic Book Resources
Comic Book Resources, also known as CBR is a website dedicated to the coverage of comic book-related news and discussion.-History:Comic Book Resources was founded by Jonah Weiland in 1996 as a development of the Kingdom Come Message Board, a message forum that Weiland had created to discuss DC...
gave the first issue a 1 out of 5. He said Millar's script "feels stale from start to finish ... moving through the paces at a plodding speed with nothing out of the ordinary. I wish I could say it was because Millar had tried to trade in over-the-top antics for subtlety, but [it's] almost like someone else was trying to figure out what made Millar's comics popular and then throwing most of the tricks out without bothering to replace them with anything else." He found artist McNiven's work uninteresting and McCaig's colors "muted and slightly dull."
Dan Phillips of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
gave the premiere issue an "Okay" score of 6 out of 10. He was disappointed by the artwork, saying it accentuates the shortcomings of Millar's script, finding McNiven's minimalistic style less impressive than his work on Old Man Logan
Old Man Logan
Wolverine: Old Man Logan is an eight-issue storyline from the Wolverine ongoing series by writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven, published by Marvel Comics...
.
Phillips gave issue #3 the same score, describing the comic as "somewhat entertaining" but "not the least bit clever, witty, tasteful, sophisticated or original". He complains about the lack of depth to this high concept
High concept
High concept is a term used to refer to an artistic work that can be easily described by a succinctly stated premise.-Terminology:High concept narratives are typically characterised by an over-arching "what if?" scenario that acts as a catalyst for the following events...
story, seeing it only as an excuse for the next violent spectacle. He concludes that readers should skip the series unless they are die-hard fans of Millar's work.
Nicholas Yanes of SciFiPulse.net called the premiere issue "fantastic" and argued that while the series lacked heart in comparison with Millar's Kick-Ass, "this works to point out that the real world is not run by good intentions, but by selfish motivations, ego, and pride. Moreover, the stability that people apply to modern society is as much a construct as the buildings that [a] terrorist can so easily bring down."
Collected editions
The series has been collected into the single volumeTrade paperback (comics)
In comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...
Nemesis (112 pages, hardcover, February 2011, ISBN 0-7851-4865-5)
Film
The rights to make a Nemesis film have been optioned by 20th Century Fox20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, with Tony Scott
Tony Scott
Anthony D. L. "Tony" Scott is an English film director. His films include Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, The Last Boy Scout, True Romance, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State, Spy Game, Man on Fire, Déjà Vu, The Taking of Pelham 123, and Unstoppable...
set to direct it, in conjunction with his Scott Free production company.