2 out of 5

“We’ve never talked about what happened in those mountains.”  That’s because you don’t know, Mark, except that there will be some fuck-ass 11th hour “twist” that renders several plot points and issues irrelevant and the source of the power ends up being heroin produced by Satan or something.

Sigh.  Spoilers below, like it matters.

So I fell for a Millar #1 issue again.  In part it’s because of Quitely, in part it’s that the intro was surprisingly modest for Mark, and actually had more than four panels per page.  There were no swear words, and no one-bubble one liners that are supposed to be said with a smirk and fists poised upon hips while blood spatters your cheek.  There’s always a little glimmer of something lurking around Millar’s writing, and it’s that something that made most of 1985 great, that made Red Son such a loving tribute and update, and that got us noting Millar as the little Morrison that could.  But the difference has always been in the details and the meaning.  Millar’s a cynic and a smartass, so his stories are all out to prove that things are cynical and smartassy, which is fine and good if it sneaks up on you but it’s generally there from page one panel one.  Morrison is big picture – Millar is big idea.  Morrison’s big picture is clotted with details, but get in closer on a Millar big idea and… well, he truly has no idea what happened in those mountains.  Sure, he can make something up, but it’s not an integral part of the structure, because all in all, this is made for a trade, made for the silver screen (hello Kick-Ass 2), and I guess we can’t blame the guy for switching over to Hollywood style writing since the fans are supporting it.  Give ’em what they want and all.

Jupiter’s Legacy is about, I think, the sons and daughters of the first heroes.  I say ‘I think’ because I’m just going on the tagline on the back page since Mark’s general thing is to pitch us the story via ads 6 months prior to release and then drop 5 or six issues of delayed story-telling (i.e. no real story outside of that tagline) upon the planet before the penultimate issue reveal, and then the concluding battle issue.  Our intro to the parent hero generation is the first 6 pages of Jupiter’s #1, done up in that Frank Quitely grace.  It’s the 1930s, and friends and family pursue an unmapped mountain based on the dreams of one man, who knows the landmark’s discovery will herald great things.  It’s the best part of the book, and I felt more engaged with the glimpses of these characters than with whoever is featured in the rest of the pages.  So our gang finds the mountain, narratorial skipadoo and it makes them supers, and then we flash forward to 2013 where we catch up with the snotty, lazy kids.  The last page is one of the kids OD’ing on cocaine or something, collapsing and breaking the glass table off which the snortin’s taken place, and a dialogue line starting with “My therapist said that’s why I never maintain a proper relationship” while a TV in the background blazes headlines like “Financial Crisis” and “Moral Decline.”  Our big name writers are allowed to do this, write first issues that are mainly just giving us characters and plot threads, no big surprises, but I still expect – Alan Moore, for example – to give me a reason to want to read the next issue beyond that it follows #1.  But Millar doesn’t bother with this anymore.  Oooh, drugs.  Oooh, a character we know nothing about and don’t care about yet has collapsed.  And Millar picked up this clipped style of narration from Morrison, the tossing off of flippant lines, but again, it’s in the details.  Morrison’s characters speak that way because their personalities are fully formed and that’s the way they speak, but Mark’s characters are just, by default, cynical.

I don’t want to hear any comments about Morrison’s ‘Happy,’ though, because, well, no one’s perfect.

Mark Millar is like the Michael Bay of comics.  He has talent, he has a notable style, and he has opinions, but he applies it in a very crowd pleasing way.  Even when trying to break free and do something more personal (or more “edgy”), it’s tainted by a career of doing it all up widescreen.  Jupiter’s Legacy shows, initially, more patience than other Millarworld stuff, and I’ll certainly glance at issue #2, but it’s already been pocked with enough open sores to suggest that it’s going to turn out as empty as most of Mark’s creator-owned work.  If you like it, you like it.  If you don’t, this won’t change your opinion.