If I was in the mood to give Millar the credit, I would assume that he's going for a deliberate riff on DC comics, but I'm not.

Anyway, it seems to me that Spider-Man's villains could easily work here: while they're specific enough to Spidey that there is that danger of losing the archetype of the character by abstracting it (witness the characters of Firestorm and Nova, basically Peter Parker wannabees) you could sidestep that by simply iconizing the details you mention: blatantly riff on Spider-Man by going either for note for note recreations (his father died because he was a selfish prick) or simply don't address the character as much as his array of psychotic villains. The Cthulian, Coward the Stalker (Or maybe Pussycat if we're going for a typical Millar joke on the level of Fuckwit), 1001 the Face, Scavenger Bird, Bugzapper, how hard is it?

Granted, I still don't think it would be all that great, but I'm not a real fan of Millar.

What's the best thing that people here have read by Millar?

Personally, I'd say his RED SON miniseries.

I assumed the Future was T.O. Morrow based just on the name.

Wasn't Wanted originally conceived as a Secret Society of Super Villains revamp?

I think Millar's best work was during his run on Swamp Thing. Probably the River section.

David beat me to the punch -- Millar conceived this as a Secret Society of Super-Villains relaunch, and when that didn't work out, he reworked it into Wanted. Asking why his characters are DC characters with the serial numbers filed off is like asking why the Watchmen characters map so closely to the Charlton Action Heroes.

But I want to take issue with the idea that DC's villains are more archetypical than Marvel's. Beyond Luthor and maybe Ra's Al Ghul, I don't think the DC supervillains (at least, not the ones Millar is apparently using) are archetypes. And you could just as easily abstract the Marvel villains. A Marvel version of Wanted (which I'm not reading, by the way -- is it any good?) could include:

The Organized Crime Lord
The Homicidal Robot Who Hates Humanity
The Time-Travelling Conqueror
The Evil God
The Foreign Monarch
The Nazi

On top of that, there are other Marvel villains who are not really archetypical in any sense of the word, but familiar enough that you could recognizably riff on them -- create a mysterious asian mastermind with magic bracelets, and everyone who's read Iron Man should know what you're talking about. Slap a psychopathic criminal mastermind in a halloween mask, and it should be obvious you're riffing on the Green Goblin.

David:

The fascism suggests Per Degaton more strongly than T.O.Morrow. Also their styles; Morrow is more of a hands-off mad scientist.

Jason:

Wanted is well-drawn. It starts off with a most truly misanthropic wish-fulfillment vibe, like an infantile Garth Ennis--the protagonist earns his stripes in the supervillain community by going on a long string of killings and rapes basically motivated by petty revenge--and has since turned into a slightly-more-reasonable plot about a conflict within the supervillain community, that's actually moderately interesting in how the community is set up.

I would not characterize it as good.

As for comparing it to Watchmen, well.

First, Watchmen was published by DC, so its derivativeness from DC-owned properties was not an issue; that's not the case with Wanted, which is published by DC's competitor.

Second, this is a flagship piece for Millar; one would have thought that he would have been more unconstrained in his imagination than less. Instead, his SSoSV proposal appears to have had little more than a global search-n-replace done on it.

Third, one would not generate a Watchmen mapping unless one were told such a mapping existed, and one would also probably need to be told that it was to Charlton before one could complete the mapping with any accuracy. Moore worked a lot of fundamental changes on the characters that effectively obscured their origins, which had the worthwhile effect of anchoring them more deeply in the specific stories he wanted to tell.

In Wanted, I derived the mapping as a trivial exercise without even knowing about the SSoSV proposal.

Compare to Squadron Supreme, where one can, if one wants, map Nighthawk's villains Remnant, Pinball, and Mink onto Batman villains, but there's absolutely nothing to be gained from doing so--the characters are quite different and everything that's relevant about them comes from the story, not from the associations that attach to the characters they superficially resemble. Whereas in Wanted, when Rictus and the Puzzler kill the Detective, the overwhelming majority of the effect of the scene comes from the attached associations, not from the story.

Ralf:

His collaboration with Morrison on Flash was pretty good, as was his run on Superman Adventures. I thought Red Son was good, but lacked a little punch.

Basically, I think that Millar is probably about the same class of writer as, say, Gerry Conway--when writing within his limits, he's entirely readable but not great.

Greg --

I'm not sure I agree that the Watchmen to Charlton mapping is non-obvious -- it always seemed apparent to me -- but then again, I think I knew about the origins of Watchmen as Who Killed the Peacemaker before I ever actually read the book. That makes it hard to know whether I would have made the connections on my own.

I think your reply to Ralf gets to the "why" of it, though -- Millar is a journeyman writer. Not terrible, by any stretch of the immagination, but not great, either. In the hands of a master, a rejected proposal can be transformed into something new. In the hands of a journeyman, the rejected proposal either goes in the trash, or simply gets rewritten just enough to avoid offending intellectual property laws.

Oddly, concerning journeyman writers, I would have said that Cary Bates was a journeyman; he had a long run on Flash that may serve as a template for how to do a solo DC superhero.

But then, after Crisis, he turned around and turned in Captain Atom, co-writing with Greg Weisman, which was a very good solo DC superhero (including a memorable appearance by Death that showed that Bates understood how to write in a shared universe better than Gaiman) and Silverblade, which was imaginative and complex and wholly unlike anything Bates had done before.

And now I understand that sometimes a journeyman writer isn't a journeyman writer. We are the poorer that Bates is no longer writing comics.

Isn't that what Journeymen are supposed to do? Become Masters, I mean.

(In comics we are somewhat spoiled in that many of the Masters did their Journeyman (and Apprentice-level) work in a good deal of obscurity or even in another country, and others ramped up quite quickly, but still...)

Can also be the case that journeymen have one or two really special things in 'em. Bob Rozakis was a journeyman (competent 70s superhero stuff but nothing great) but struck gold with 'Mazing Man.

Millar has long struck me as a stylistic chameleon--he apes the style of other writers very well, sometimes extremely well. On Superman Adventures, he did a brilliant job of aping Bates and Maggin and produced, to my ongoing surprise, one of the best batch of Superman stories ever.

These days, he seems stuck aping the worst of Warren Ellis and Garth Ennis, to the point where I no longer pick up his work automatically (which I did for most of his career from Savior on). I am certain that he is still capable of good or even great work, but I'm not sure what would have to happen for him to start doing it again.

Gregmo, I think there's a word missing in your comment about Bates--both from my own reaction to it at the time and from your follow-up paragraph, I think you meant that his run on Flash was a template on how not to write a DC solo hero. The most memorable part of Bates's run, alas, was the final portion, the interminable "Trial of the Flash", which was bad on just about every level--not staggeringly bad, but consistently bad.

In Bates's defense, I have heard from more than one source that Bates was told almost a year before it happened that Flash was going to be canceled because of Crisis, and he decided not to waste much effort on writing a doomed book.

As you note, he poured his heart into his post-Crisis series--not just Captain Atom and Silverblade, collectively probably the best work of his career, but even Video Jack, which was better than it had any right to be. And then he was gone.

Kevin:

I gave up on Flash after about a year and a half of Infantino's return, and so I tend not to think of the last four years or so of the title as belonging to Bates. (I didn't read, for example, the trial of the Flash.)

When Bates was teamed with Novick from about 240 to the early 270s, that's the period I'm talking about when he might have been the exemplar of the DC solo superhero comic.

(There's another post to be made about my reaction as a newbie comics reader to the story of Iris's death in 270-284 and how it made me aware of multipart stories and the effect of editors.)

On the subject of Mark Millar and the dusted-off SSoSV proposal, I was actually excited by the possibility that Millar was simply refitting his old work. I remember several years back when Millar made some kind of statement about the project, how he had done all kinds of research into the development of organized crime in America and how he would rewrite DC's supervillain history to fit that pattern. I was disappointed when it seemed that project would never come to light.

I was also disappointed with the "wish fulfillment" murder and rape-fest of Wanted, and with the transparency of its allusions, although I've enjoyed the series more as the plot has kicked in. I wonder if Millar had to jettison all the stuff about organized crime from his original proposal, or if it was never going to be that prominent in the first place.

Oh, and wrt DC's iconic heroes versus Marvel's more specific, character-bound ones, I've always liked this Jonathan Lethem essay.

He's good, but clumbsy.

Like when he forgot that WW1 started in 1914 in the Jenny Sparks minniseries. (he made Hitler a veteran at 1913) Also, Hitler was a good artist. His work was sort of cliched, but it was still OK. (This comes up in the miniseries)

This has bothered me for a long time. He also has his ticks, like the times when he makes his characters say 'My god, _ just did something really extreme/is something really extreme and _ is also (usually and got away with it, or something that reinforces the statement).'

For example, 'My god I just raped an a-list celebrity and got away with it.' 'My god, I'm about to kill the most famous man on Earth and it's going to be covered up like it never happened.' Or instant characterizations, like 'Tony received his PHD at age 11' or 'Those office workers were really Nazis alliens who poisoned the water supply'.

I'm paraphsrasing The Authority, Wanted, and The Ultimates.

At the time, when I started reading it, Ultimates seemed kind of mind-blowing. Everyone always talks about real-world superheroes, but what I liked was the way that the Ultimates acted like a bureacracy meant to do good but ultimately corrupting itself with moral compromise. (By the way I'm not a libertarian) Bits like the cover-up of both the "Hulk" incident and the Wasp's abuse, the bitterness of the office politics that caused Banner to Hulk out, Cap kicking a man when he's down all built on each other. Millar seems to have a politically cynical view anyhow, but it was great political satire that can stand in for most politicians. A peace-keeping force causing the problems that make it seem heroic (and not feeling bad about it), that is literally tearing itself apart due to rivalries and basically kept going by a devious mastermind...Far from subtle, but powerful. Then it became "nazis in spaceships and I wrote the Authority, remember?"

Fuckwit...and Shithead.
Wow, character names too immature for Garth Ennis. Way to go, Millar.

Like when he forgot that WW1 started in 1914 in the Jenny Sparks minniseries. (he made Hitler a veteran at 1913)

I remember early on in Ultimate X-Men when they were visiting Japan and said that it was their first time outside the northern hemisphere. ;-)

I think Millar got to use his research into the history of crime in WANTED in a scene where the Fox lectures the protagonist about a gang of butt-naked bank robbers from during Prohibition, who she cites as an example of the first "costumed" criminals.

Having browsed throught he Ultimates but not read it in depth, I have to say it felt to me like the worst sort of juvenile power fantasy coated with a thin layer of "realism".

Just like the Authority once Millar took over, in fact...

Ultimates started off good, but I became upset after he made Henry Pym even more of a wife-abusing a$$hole than in the real comics. That bit in original Marvel continuity was imply awful and should never had happened. Once it did, Marvel made the even grosser mistake of having Jan get back together with Hank. It was not something I wanted to see repeated. And Millar made it worse.

Millar's fascist fantasies in the Authority was even more disgusting. I was rooting for the "bad guys" to take them down.

Why can't people have heroes any more?

Why can't people have heroes any more?

They can. They just want them to live in a world they recognize and not a 1950s pleasantville Donna Reed happyland.

I have such a low opinion of most politicians that it strikes me as a completely believable element to have protagonists fighting their own government. Just for instance.

To mix elements from another thread, I'd consider Spider Jerusalem to be quite heroic. Selfish at the same time, too.

Some people want heroes to live in a world they recognize.

I prefer to read about things that are better than real because that helps keep me focused on making reality better.

They just want them to live in a world they recognize and not a 1950s pleasantville Donna Reed happyland.

Ralf, this opposition is false on every level. "A world they recognize" does not equate solely to wife-beating cannibal superheroes - in fact, it doesn't equate to it at all - and non-Authority heroics don't equal "a 1950s pleasantville Donna Reed happyland" (whatever the hell that is, besides an ungainly concatenation of cliches that bears no relation to superheroes, many of whom weren't even around in the 1950s). And even if these two evasions weren't completely bankrupt, that still wouldn't mean they are the only two options for writing superheroes.

I say this as somebody who doesn't mind flawed protagonists or cynical storylines. There are sound defenses to be made for those things, but this snarkbite wasn't one of them.

Back when Robinson did that JSA miniseries in the 90s with adultery, drug addiction, etc, my comment was along the lines of, "Heroes with feet of clay is fine, in fact it's a good idea. But these are heroes with bodies of clay."

It's one thing to give the heroes a flaw. It's another entirely to make it a fatal flaw, or to make it so deep that the heroes are just villains who haven't been caught yet.

I smell a new post, guys.

Excuse me for reacting snarkily to the woe-is-me question of "don't people want heroes".

I find it believable that a hero can snap and abuse their powers. I find it believable that a group of superheroes who decide that they know what's best for the world and that no one can stop them from realizing their intentions. If that means I can't have heroes anymore, then so be it.

It's interesting that you exaggerate Authority-type books as "wife-beating cannibal superheroes". I think you'd find a lot of readers who would characterize them like that without sarcasm. I've seen so many opinions that purport to not be exaggerating for effect that that's the default stance I think of when I see similar bitching and moaning.

Ralf:

Hank Pym beats his wife in Millar's Ultimates. Similarly, the Hulk eats people. Therefore, they are wife-beating cannibal superheroes.

If you're going to object to a characterization, recognize when it isn't hyperbole.

Back when Robinson did that JSA miniseries in the 90s with adultery, drug addiction, etc, my comment was along the lines of, "Heroes with feet of clay is fine, in fact it's a good idea. But these are heroes with bodies of clay."

Then I'd rather have them with bodies of clay, since I thought The Golden Age was the best use of those characters yet. For the first time I looked at Hourman (for instance) and thought that he was an interesting character that I'd like to read about.

Hank Pym beats his wife in Millar's Ultimates. Similarly, the Hulk eats people. Therefore, they are wife-beating cannibal superheroes. If you're going to object to a characterization, recognize when it isn't hyperbole.

And are they heroes? Are they treated as such? Didn't they track down the Hulk and lock him up? Didn't they track down Hank Pym and lock him up? Didn't they use the Hulk as a weapon and then immediately lock him up again? It's not like ticker-tape parades are being thrown for these guys or that they're being shown as being positive role models.

The most interesting character to me in ULTIMATES is Thor.

Ralf, that's the point. Henry Pym has always been a hero. The objection to first making him into someone who hits his wife was that it degrades him as a character, and you're arguing that he's not a hero in Ultimates doesn't change that argument. In fact, it enhances it: he's not a hero anymore, he's someone who tried to kill his wife with bug spray. Similarly, while the Hulk's always been a fence case, he always ended up more or less on the side of good... now he's a fucking cannibal. If you wrote a story where Superman is a child-molester, it wouldn't matter if he was the villain of the piece or not... it's still Superman molesting children.

Some people are going to object to that.

Ease up on Ralf and vice versa. Don't make me turn this post around....

I would characterize Pym and Hulk (or at least Banner) in Ultimates as protagonists, which is not identical to heroes. But in a superhero comic, it's awfully close to it.

And I'm with Dave; Golden Age was very much not to my taste because it gloried in the heroes' flaws.

But we're awfully close to a dichotomy here, where some people (me, Dave) like to read about idealizations and some people (Ralf) like to read about imperfections. That's perfectly reasonable; taste is a valid basis for critical judgment.

But it does make it awfully hard to argue about productively.

But that's the point of the Ultimate line. It's presenting new takes on established characters. Sometimes they're remarkably similar, sometimes modified a bit, and other times massively overhauled. The recent use of Mr. Sinister in Ultimate X-Men made that character interesting to me for the second time ever. (the first being in Peter Milligan & John Paul Leon's Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix showing his 1850s origin, which was also miles away from any of his appearances in "the present")

I'd say I like to read about idealists, too. I'd consider Spider Jerusalem an idealist.

I wouldn't say I necessarily want to see idealizations...but I would like it if most of the "supposed to be good guys" heroes I read about are, well, better than I am. Not just more powerful, but generally at least slightly more willing to go out of their way to do the right thing. And AT LEAST as capable as I am of resisting the urge to do evil. I don't strike my students when they act like idiots, I've never sexually assaulted any of the women I've met, I've never shoplifted anything worth more than a couple of bucks.

Villains in fiction should reflect our darker selves, the things we've been tempted to do but haven't necessarily sunk to doing. Heroes, at least in superhero fiction, should reflect our brighter selves, the things we wish we had the guts or power to do in the name of right, not venality.

I tend to think like Greg and Dave Van-D, no surprise there, but I don't really have a problem if someone wants to make up some superhero characters and then play them against type or expectation, including having them act like bastards or whatever. I probably won't like it (because, in my opinion, it's kind of pointless), but that's fine. I simply won't buy it.

But I do have a problem with taking established very-much-good-guy characters and then having them act non-superheroic in various ways. Aside from being a bad idea creatively, IMO, it also feels like a fan wank thing -- "Look, I can have Batman getting sodomized by Bane in *my* comic!" (or, "Look, I can have Batman sodomize Bane in my comic!"). This is actually just as annoying to me when done with characters who are very obviously stand-ins for established characters.

I also don't buy the "Ultimates are fresh starts for these characters" argument. It may be a new continuity (more or less, and more less than more at that), but it's still the established characters, and Marvel is banking on the appeal of, or at least the interest in, those established characters generating sales.

Oddly, you rarely see heroes who are jerks but ALSO truly good guys. Oh, a lot of them start out that way, but editorial seems to dislike unlikeable heroes, so the edges get sanded off. If a hero gets to be a jerk for a long time, they're usually antiheroes, deliberate Men of Clay, rather than fundamentally good people with personality problems.

Greg, the problem isn't just that it's hard to talk around a dichotomy of tastes, but that the dichotomy as presented earlier is reductive and false. I, like Ralf, have little patience for the routine bemoaning of "Where have all the heroes gone?", but I have just as little patience for the characterization of any criticisms of Authority-style superheroics as calls for a "pleasantville Donna Reed happyland."

Too often, the blogosphere tries to boil every difference of opinion down to two simplistic and equally ignorant or repellent opposites. Clearly, just because somebody doesn't like Identity Crisis it doesn't follow that they're calling for all comics to return to Sugar and Spike.

Oddly, you rarely see heroes who are jerks but ALSO truly good guys.

I'm trying to think of some. Guy Gardner's usually an ass and shown to be disliked by other heroes. Northstar and Quicksilver over at Marvel. They do seem to be few and far between.

I'm going to be one of those who defends Millar now. His Captain America is genuinly sympathetic AND conservative. The women are generally nice people, except for Scarlet Which. Thor is a friendly hippy. Hawkeye and Samual Jackson are pretty stock. And I like the fealing that these are new characters, not entities that have somehow been around since the sixties, yet stay young, remain hip (meaning whatever the current writter thinks hip is) and so on. This part of continuity always bothered me.

As for Millar's take on The Authority, yes, it was pretty bad. But Millar didn't really have anywhere to go. Ellis ended with them fighting and winning against God; Millar couldn't just keep upping the anty.

And for jerks who are also heroes-easy. The Authority. The Punisher under Ennis. The hero in The Filth is generally a jerk. Scott Summers, Emma Frost and Fantomex. Wolverine? And that heroine from that new book...she's in red spandex. Wears a mask, and boots...from DC.

Ralf: Guy is a prime example of a jerk who had his edges sanded off. Haven't been following X-books that much lately, so I can't say if Northstar still has an edge. And Isaac? I think part of the argument in this thread is that people like the Authority or the Punisher aren't heroes. They're protagonists who are essentially villains in many respects.