fantasy and science fiction book reviewsMPH by Mark Millar and Duncan Fegredo

MPHMark 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 economically broken-down Detroit. He’s such an earnest and hopeful young man that he turns to selling drugs only as a way to eventually lead a straight life. In fact, even the cop who ends up catching him feels guilty about it at the last minute. Our interest is quickly gained because we have a main character we really care about going to jail, and we soon find out that it was all a set-up by his boss. Our empathy tank is full.

MPH 2In jail, life goes from bad to worse until he accidently takes an MPH drug that allows him to move around others as if they are standing still: He will find out he can outrun cars on the highway; he can run up the outside of a skyscraper; and more importantly at the moment, he can just walk out of and away from prison and be miles away before anybody even notices. To those looking at him, it is as if he has vanished in the blink of an eye. He soon seeks out his girlfriend and best friend, gives them some MPH, and they start amassing a fortune.

Though the main plot is straightforward, there are many surprises, particularly at the end, that make it an incredibly fun book and will make it a hit movie if it’s filmed well. The main complication in the story is that MPH was used one time before, thirty years ago, by a man who was caught by the authorities and imprisoned below ground in a secret facility. The agent assigned to this man’s case befriends the criminal over the next thirty years, even though he refuses to tell the secret of MPH or who his connections are (or who they were thirty years ago). This agent, nearing retirement, finally gets a chance to solve the MPH 1mystery of MPH when Roscoe and his friends start their robbing spree. Surprisingly, even his friend the prisoner agrees to help catch these young people.

The book is a fun, fast ride, and there are real surprises as the story comes to a close. Most importantly for a high-speed story, the art does justice to the action: Visually, the artist adds the wow factor. Another plus is that MPH is a book that stands alone as a graphic novel, so you won’t be left on a cliffhanger waiting for volume two. It’s about a 4.5/5 in terms of blockbuster writing, but I would have liked the background of the characters and their situation fleshed out a little more, so in the end, I give the book a 4/5. However, if you mainly want to lose yourself in a good book with little thought needed, Millar’s MPH is certainly a book you should pick up soon.

Author

  • Brad Hawley

    BRAD HAWLEY, who's been with us since April 2012, earned his PhD in English from the University of Oregon with areas of specialty in the ethics of literature and rhetoric. Since 1993, he has taught courses on The Beat Generation, 20th-Century Poetry, 20th-Century British Novel, Introduction to Literature, Shakespeare, and Public Speaking, as well as various survey courses in British, American, and World Literature. He currently teaches Crime Fiction, Comics, and academic writing at Oxford College of Emory University where his wife, Dr. Adriane Ivey, also teaches English. They live with their two young children outside of Atlanta, Georgia.