"I WANTED TO PORTRAY VERY, VERY DARK SUBJECT MATTER..."

I wanted to portray very, very dark subject matter and a deceptively complex story in the brightest colours and simplest lines possible to leave the readers reeling.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mark_millar.html

Cont'd "...and a deceptively complex story in the brightest colors and simplest 

lines possible to leave the readers reeling"

Mark Milar

I wanted to portray very, very dark subject matter and a deceptively complex story in the brightest colours and simplest lines possible to leave the readers reeling. Mark Millar
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/markmillar248660.html

I wanted to portray very, very dark subject matter and a deceptively complex story in the brightest colours and simplest lines possible to leave the readers reeling.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/markmillar248660.html

I wanted to portray very, very dark subject matter and a deceptively complex story in the brightest colours and simplest lines possible to leave the readers reeling.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mark_millar.html

I wanted to portray very, very dark subject matter and a deceptively complex story in the brightest colours and simplest lines possible to leave the readers reeling. Mark Millar
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/markmillar248660.html

Again, I'm hardly on the cutting edge of culture, but since when as that ever stopped me having my say?

Don't worry, this is only a short article.

The man himself, Mark Millar.

Recently, off the back of us talking about the Captain America film of the same name, a good friend lent me the Marvel Civil War graphic novel. I read it, and as much as I enjoyed it (and I did enjoy it) something about it I found troubling. Not that it cost me any sleep, but in some way that's hard to explain I felt like there was something unpleasant starting me in the face. It got me to thinking about the book's writer, Mark Millar, whose work has had astounding influence over the modern comic industry, and whose works have inspired a number of blockbuster superhero films- including the soon to be released Logan, Kickass, Kingsman, and Wanted.

So here's the thing. While many writers and artists may have had a hand in bringing realistic sensibilities into mainstream comics (and I stress the distinction of mainstream), including the divisive Frank Miller and Alan Moore, it is Millar whose bought in the unease of contemporary American politics. That in itself isn't a problem, but unlike his peers, Millar seems less interested in exploring the issues he pulls into frame, or offering any sort of insight, than he is simply dredging some serious real-world issues, simply for the thrill of bringing his characters into conflict. 

I hear the make-up sex is fantastic.

Take Civil War as the prime example; it's a story born from the still glowing ashes of 9/11, yet it offers no real condemnation, it simply acts as a means for bringing heroes against heroes. It feels wrong to invoke something real like 9/11 simply as a plot device, and on top of that it paints it's major cast (with perhaps the exception of Spiderman) as pretty unsympathetic- everybody makes their own personal 'deal with the devil'. And, if indeed that was the point Millar was making, which I doubt, at best it's nihilistic and at its worse, ignorant. Hell, it's saying pretty much the same thing as Team America, except without anywhere near the satire or self-awareness.

I won't deny Millar has his finger on the pulse of what sells comics, and there can be no denying his writing is solid, but he reminds me of Quentin Tarantino's more recent output, in as much as I feel like he's simply serving up the darker underbelly of the world simply for the sake of giving it a damn good leer, rather than to expose any uncomfortable truths (watching the Hateful Eight is akin to watching a bucket filled with scorpions, waiting to see which order they sting each other in- there may be death, but you won't learn anything from it). Compare that to, say, Paul Verhovan, whose work is often hideously violent, but while Verhovan flirts with the notions of evil, and our society's obsession with sex and violence, you feel like he's always making a valid point. Tarantino (and Millar in same fashion) feel less like flirting with the insidious, and much more like a back street blowjob with it; and by way of that analogy, it left me feeling sordid. Sure, I'd had my fun reading Civil War, but afterwards I felt hollow, and after it was done I realised how much simply wasn't there; cheap thrills had taken the place of anything deeper or more rewarding.

Grisly, but is it more than its surface brutality?

There's an argument to be made that, if I'd followed the entire Civil War arc and spin-off comics, then perhaps I'd have been rewarded with some epiphany, that the greater subtext would make itself apparent, but I doubt it. I've read Kickass, and that was similarly grimy, while Kickass 2 was so leery and spiteful I sold both that and Kickass because I'd done with it. Sure, Maillar's bang-on with his dissection of a warped media-obsessed society, and the malicious under-culture of desensitized modern youths, but ever rape and child murder felt like a Daily Mail headline that offered no reward beyond the grim details, and it sat very jarringly with what I guessed was an attempt at humour. Conversely, both the Kickass and Civil War films offered far more than their comic source material. And, as if to solidify my every point, when asked if Mark Millar enjoyed Kickass on it's release, he answered flippantly “yeah, but they turned my comic into a chick-flick”.

In short; I'm glad Millar is out there somewhere writing comics. Without him, better writers would be less inspired. Millar's influential legacy will, in the fullness of time, be far greater than his own work, because what started with him will be taken on by people with far more to say about the world around them, than those who simply thrive on it's unpleasantness like crows on the dung heap.

Because that's what every comedic story needs; a rape scene.