Wanted by Mark Millar, J.G. Jones Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Wanted
Book Review: Adolescent Wish Fulfillment
Summary: 2 Stars
I'm going to get a lot of no help votes here but I've got to say I don't get it. This book is just o.k. as stories go. It's a semi-original idea, although I like the secret society aspects of Planetary better and I'm starting to get bored with multiverses. The execution is just too mean spirited for my tastes. I can see how someone who enjoys Eminem's music might appreciate the black humor, but I'm not in that group. I'm not too familiar with Mark Millar's work but it seems as if he was listening to a lot of Eminem and his contemporaries while writing this book.
I think my biggest problem with it is the lack of a sympathetic character. The idea that freedom for someone who gets dumped on all his life is to pick up a gun and go on a killing spree is an immature notion at best. I'm not opposed to over the top violence but I do believe the violence here, with no moral center, is just senseless. It may just be a generational thing I suppose. Why would you care about an amoral killer? I just didn't feel I had anything invested in Wesley's story. Why should I care if he gets his ten million dollars? Being a super villain in a world without opposition, couldn't he just go get his own ten million dollars somewhere else?
Like an Eminem album there is a lot of anti-PC language. It's not necessarily used in an inflammatory manner but is more in staying with the ugly personalities of the characters. It should be expected in this adult themed book. There is a lot of dark humor, some worked for me some didn't. The final two page rant was interesting and you have to hand it to Millar and Top Cow for publishing a two page insult aimed at the people who spent their hard earned money on the book. That could go either way. I will give Mark Millar this though, if I hadn't borrowed my brother's book, I would have to agree with the last page, that's what I would have felt like if I had paid for Wanted.
In the end I guess it comes down to personal tastes. I love Fight Club, the book and the movie and for some reason I don't see the similarities. At the end of Wanted, I just didn't care.
Book Review: All Shock and some substance
Summary: 3 Stars
I liked the art in this, not the best I've seen but still good. The story was good at the beginning and building to be something great but I have to say I was disappointed in the ending, an ending that again was only meant to shock. Most of this novel is filled with vulgar words, situations, and ideas (The Shock of the novel) but in the end the characters never deal with there actions. in the end i felt the writer couldn't close the deal on this story. It was OK at bestBook Review: An Epanded What If?
Summary: 3 Stars
Wanted is a story about of a world without super heroes told through Wesley Gibson tinted glasses. In essence, this is a What If? told over six books. I enjoyed this book so much more than the Movie, which is why I bought the book in the first place.
I am a firm in the belief that no medium should ever insult its audience, and *SPOILER ALERT* that is exactly what the last few panels of this book do. I understand the reasons and usefulness, much like the rest of this book, it is dificult to swallow. I found some plot holes inexcsuable, like what was the point of introducing cape, it never becomes an element of the plot.
I do not read the Ultimates regularaly but I did appreciate Millar's departure from that writing style. If I had to make a final recomendation I would say read this if you're interested in a book that departs from the normal Super Hero book, use this as a palate cleanser to delve deep into the darker side of comics.
Book Review: An adolescent power trip that ignored interesting potential for shock value
Summary: 1 Stars
A friend of mine who routinely passes very good comics my way recently had me read this. Apparently I had offended him in some way. After I finished it he apologized.
The story here plays out the fantasy of every teenage boy who wasn't popular in middle school. A loser suddenly gets all the power he can dream of and uses it to murder, rape, and say 4 letter words in front of his mother. The entire plot of the book is a poor construction to drive a parade of juvenile brutality and attempts at shock value.
There's an interesting premise that drives the setting of the book: a world where the supervillians won, and reforged the world to be apparently mundane. There's the potential for something truly interesting. But the villians themselves showcase the creativity behind the book far better: a riddler knock-off covered in obscenities, a Bizzaro character named ****-tard, and a clayface made of poop. Instead of developing characters or investigating evil or any one of a dozen things that would make this book work it blows past them to fill another panel with the obnoxious main character happily shooting a pregnant woman.
After reading an entire book filled with almost insultingly juvenile substitutions of substance with pulp and lame attempts at shock the ending tops it all. After suffering through one man's painfully uneventful and dull power trip he actually insults his audience, pushing himself as free spirit and the readers as pitiful sheep. I'm sure it appeals to someone wearing a Rage against the Machine t-shirt spray-painting Che Guevara on stopsigns and thinking they're some misunderstod genius, but to anyone whose passed 8th grade it will come off as a pitiful. If you're someone's grandmother you may be distracted or insulted by the violence, sex, and profanity it's possible you'd take your offense to mean that this book actually had some meaning or message. It doesn't.
I cannot, in any way, understand why there are so many that would defend this or exalt it as worthwile. The most accurate positive statement I can make is "There aren't a lot of comic books out there like this." Which, in my opinion, is a good thing. I've seen a few comparisons to Watchmen and other icons of comic writing. They do both have violence, the problem is that Wanted stops there. There's no character development, no exploration of humanity, or evil, or violence. It's a childish indulgence that I'm suprised merited collection and publication, but I guess someone is willing to buy it.
Bottom Line: If you're old enough to buy this for yourself you shouldn't enjoy it.
Book Review: Artful, but not very deep
Summary: 2 Stars
I am not sure how I feel about this Graphic Novel. On the one hand, I did find that it engaged me and disturbed me. So its kind of like a controversial photograph or piece of art. If it makes you think, or illicts a response, it has done it job, even if you do not like the response it makes you have.
On the other hand the story line reminds me of the PO'd emo teenagers I know in high school. Its all about the bad guys winning, it is about the nastiest, most vile parts of human character holding sway in a world where the evil can act with little or no consquence because they have remade their universe to their whims. BTW some of this was done in the late 80's and early 90's in the comics to. Where the villians win. Personally I find this an immature writing style. Its easy to shock with profanity and nudity and leave the reader feeling down. Its much harder to help the reader escape reality and feel good, without being cheesy or campy. That is the challenge of super-hero story telling, show a world where good trumps evil. If I want to see a world where evil wins more often, I can just watch cnn or Fox news.
In any case the story is for the mature, as there is a great deal of profanity in keeping with the character of a world that has been remade by the vile. Sorry but just because its a 'comic book' does not mean it has be aimed at 8 year olds. Just for kicks I dare you to read this along with the Old Man Logan novel by marvel and see if you notice the paralles.