Marvel 1985 by Mark Millar

In Marvel 1985, Mark Millar tells us the story of comics coming to real life. Young Toby Goodman sees the Red Skull one day, and wonders if his eyes might be deceiving him, but after he sees a few more Marvel characters, he realizes that the super-villains from the Marvel Universe are invading our reality. He encounters the Hulk at one point, but mainly it’s the bad guys coming to his small town: Ultron, the Blob, Sandman, and many more villains appear and begin to kill indiscriminately. But things really seem bad when the planet-destroying Galactus shows up. We begin to wonder who the mastermind is behind this invasion.

Why is this story so good? Because it’s grounded in the reality of a young boy’s daily struggles: Toby’s parents are divorced, and he doesn’t like his stepdad. He seems to get enjoyment only by escaping through comics, going to the comics shop, and han... Read More

Wolverine: Old Man Logan by Mark Millar (writer) & Steve McNiven (illustrator)

Logan, a grizzled west coast farmer whose only joy is his wife and two children, knows that the rent is due. He doesn’t have the dough, and when the cannibalistic Hulk Gang arrives, he will suffer a beating – if he’s lucky.

What if… all of the villains teamed up to defeat the heroes and then took over the country? Written in 2009, Mark Millar’s Old Man Logan was not released as a “What If…?” adventure, but it might as well have been. The heroes were wiped out long ago, and Logan, who has sworn to never do violence again, takes his beating to protect his family.

Hawkeye, now equal parts blind samurai and archer, hopes there might still be a bit of Wolverine left in the old farmer. He offers to pay Logan to drive with him in the Spider-Buggy across America to deliver a package. ... Read More

The Secret Service: Kingsman by Mark Millar, Dave Gibbons, Matthew Vaughn

The Secret Service: Kingsman, by Mark Millar, is about a young man, Eggsy, being rescued from rough, poor neighborhoods by his uncle, who takes him under his wing and trains him in a new profession. The twist is that his uncle, Jack London, is not in computer work like Eggsy thinks; actually, his uncle’s job is as a spy for his country. Our young man is sent to a spy school and, given that the rest of the spies-in-training are from upper-class families, he sticks out in a number of ways, including not being able to act with a certain amount of class socially. This story is about his learning his trade and getting to put it to good use by the end of the book.

The Secret Service: Kingsman can be divided into three storylines: First, the book is about a man wanting to do well and come back to take care of h... Read More

MPH by Mark Millar and Duncan Fegredo

Mark Millar knows how to tell a story, how to hook us with a plot, how to pace the events so that we feel as if we are in that perfect summer blockbuster we yearn for every year. He’s done it again in MPH, which he wrote with his co-creator and artist Duncan Fegredo and letterer and colorist Peter Doherty. I made the mistake of starting this story at midnight, and I could not put it down until I was done. I completely lost track of time.

MPH is the story of Roscoe, a young man with a vision and hope springing eternal, even though he’s a poor black man living a life with few legal opportunities in a physically and ec... Read More

Starlight: The Return of Duke McQueen by Mark Millar and Goran Parlov

Without a doubt, Starlight: The Return of Duke McQueen is my favorite comic book by Mark Millar. Any fan of pulp science fiction will want to read this book. It is told well, is full of wonder, and is simply delightful. Starlight both invokes and honors older science fiction stories that have as their primary aim the hope of instilling astonishment in readers as they flip quickly through the pages to find out about the hero’s adventures in space. And in Starlight, we take joy in Duke McQueen’s tale, both devouring the pages and never wanting it to end.

The ma... Read More

Huck by Mark Millar

Huck is the feel-good action movie you’ve been waiting for, except it is a comic. Of course, as with many Millar comics, there are already rumors that Huck is heading for Hollywood, so you could wait to see it in the theaters. But, why wait?

Huck is an endearing character who is based on the Clark Kent model of the good-hearted, simple-minded, small town farm boy with superpowers. However, unlike Clark, Huck isn’t putting on a simple man act. That’s who he is. He works in a gas station, and he tries to do at least one good act of kindness a day. Not all of them even require being a superhero: He might pay for someone’s lunch, or he might save a life b... Read More

Chrononauts by Mark Millar & Sean Murphy

How else can I describe Chrononauts but as a wild ride? Mark Millar, the master of the blockbuster comic book, increases the action beyond his usual by cramming more events than you can possibly imagine into a four-issue mini-series. He collaborated on the idea with artist Sean Murphy, and the result is a buddy adventure story across time and place.

Dr. Quinn first creates an unmanned time machine — more of a satellite — that allows the world to observe events in the past on live television. Then, with the help of a friend, they develop a suit, equipped with a hundred-year battery, that allows whoever wears it to travel anywhere at any point in time. The suit even allows them to transport whatever they are touching — anything from an I-phone to a car to an airplane. So at certain points in the story, they drive from century to century and country to count... Read More

Jupiter’s Legacy Volume 1 by Mark Millar (author), Frank Quitely (artist), & Peter Doherty (colorer)

Jupiter’s Legacy Volume 1 collects the first five books in Image Comics storyline co-created by Mark Millar (writer) and Frank Quitely (art), and colored by Peter Doherty. The basic storyline and themes will be familiar to anyone who has read comics in the past decade or so, or has seen some of the more deconstructive movies such as Watchmen, Kick-Ass (written by Millar), Runaways, or even The Incredibles. But as is often the case with genre, it’s what you do with the usual tropes and themes that determines the quality of a work, and so far I’ve found Jupiter’s Legacy to be an entertaining take on the familiar, th... Read More

Jupiter’s Legacy (vols. 1 & 2) by Mark Millar & Frank Quitely 

Jupiter’s Legacy (vols. 1 & 2) by Mark Millar, with art by the incredible Frank Quitely, tells the origin story of a new group of superheroes. It is told quickly and succinctly, switching between the early days and the present, years after the race of superheroes began. In the present, we meet the next generation of superheroes, and they have many problems dealing with superhero parents. Having a therapist seems to be expected when you are the child of a superhero. Mark Millar is known for his high-action, Hollywood-style comics. A lot happens in his stories, usually told in a five-issue arc, and you feel as if you’ve sat through the latest early summer blockbuster when you read one of his stories.

In Jupiter’s Legacy (Volume 1), the idealistic o... Read More

Jupiter’s Circle (Volumes 1 & 2) by Mark Millar, Frank Quitely, Wilfredo Torres

Jupiter’s Circle (Volumes 1 & 2) by Mark Millar, a prequel to Jupiter’s Legacy, is an excellent retelling and critique of the golden age of superheroes. There’s plenty of action, but it is sidelined for the primary purpose of telling the private lives of the heroes. Their trials and tribulations behind the scenes are what make this comic so good. We see what the public in the comic does not, and what we see is often not a pretty sight. And by making certain characters similar to Superman and Batman, Millar gives us insight into our own famous co... Read More

Empress by Mark Millar

Empress is another one of Mark Millar’s big-action comics. It’s about Earth’s first rulers, long ago, when apparently they had technology beyond anything we could imagine. The Empress, Emporia, lives with a terrible husband, King Morax, who is all-powerful and likes to express that power by killing his people for the smallest possible infraction. This story is about her escape from the misery of his company as she goes on the run with her family across the galaxy.

The story is fairly simple and lacks the complexity of Millar’s best work. Emporia’s bodyguard has agreed to help her escape along with her three kids, one of whom is a small baby. The action often involves monsters and other dangers, and the baby, Puck, frequently is thrown from his mother’s, brother’s, or sister’s arms as we watch what we assume will be his immediate death. At one point, he is thrown towa... Read More