
Image Comics 2016
Created & Written by Mark Millar
Created & Illustrated by Frank Quitely
Coloured by Sunny Gho
Letters, Design & Production by Peter Doherty
Digital Art Assistant Rob Miller
The children of the superheroes didn’t want to be like their parents. They wanted to be rich, they wanted to be famous and they wanted to save the world in ways their parents never dared. So they staged a coup and murdered the old guard. Taking over America and forcing their ideas on a country that never wanted them. But one hero escaped and together with her boyfriend and eight-year-old son she set out to find all the old super-criminals to ask them to come back and save us from the superheroes.
I like that we open with Skyfox making a gift for his son before the superheroes come to remove him. I’m guessing that last part but considering what they’ve already done it’s a safe assumption. I mean he was an original member of the old guard after all. Then hitting the present and Hutch still has the gift his father gave him well it’s a great way to open up this latest volume.
There’s something about the way Mark and Frank work together that creates some of the best work. That couldn’t be any more evident than right here. I’ve never seen Frank’s work look so gosh darned good, and considering his vast library of work that’s saying something. The attention to detail, the faces-man I can get over the faces they are so mind-numbingly good, the flow through the pages and panels thanks to angles, perspective and backgrounds are used so you literally get lost in the story. Oh and by the by the trees outside the Supermax is one of my absolute favourite images from the entire series.
You know it’s time for Mark to revisit something when it comes out. Nothing forced or rushed it flows so well that it’s the right place and time for the continuation, passion and love ooze from the writing. The characterization is stunning here and it’s fun to see how Hutch and Chloe go about recruiting the folks they need. Not everything goes according to plan, but realistically when does all really go according to plan?
The pacing of this is great and that we don’t have to spend a lot time on a majority of the folks they want to recruit gives us more time for the actual story and upcoming confrontation. Provided of course that that confrontation is slotted for this run. Mark doesn’t always follow the rules so who knows if this will be a huge character, see story, driven story that sets up a huge blowout still to come or if it will end with the fight and next time around we’ll see how the pieces are picked up.
While the Supermax may be filled with so-called super villains, or in other words those that oppose what they are doing, it’s really those running it who the scariest alive. Once again the characterization and dialogue here showcase why we just can’t get enough of what Mark’s capable of doing. He makes you think when you read this and see them for who they are and what Uncle Walter is really doing.
That as a reader you can either sit back and just enjoy or become so engaged and engrossed you see the subtext of what’s happening means that Mark’s talent and skill as a writer puts him among the 1%. Of course we’re comic geeks so we all do both heh and we’re so happy for it. This is another award winning worthy saga in the Jupiter cycle.