Wanted, the comic, Sucks

This comic is angry, racist, misogynistic and sloppily written.

I'm gonna write a lot about how much I hate it, but really, all you need to know is the above sentence and that the movie is incomparably better.

On the second page the narrator, doing his very best Fight Club monologue, points out verbally that his boss is an African-American. Later someone else veers off their conversational road to again establish that Wesley's boss is indeed African-American. His boss' ethnicity must hinge around a plot point with the hammering they're giving it. Why else bring it up? That boss has to have something to do with this story.

She actually doesn't. The boss is verbally observed to be black twice and a lesbian once and is promptly out of the story. I don't even know if she is one of the myriad of people he shoots in his arbitrary killing spree that passes as his "training".

You see Wesley is the son of the greatest assassin evar and now he's being trained by some "Super Villains". The "Super Villains" run this secret society called "The Fraternity" which narrowly beat out "The Corporation" in a vote on "sweet names for evil organizations" among wet men. There are no "Super Heroes" cos all the bad guys teamed up in 1986 and killed them. For reasons that escape me The Fraternity then pulled an Agent Smith and reformatted the whole place (human brains and all) so that only they had any memory of it and run around the new world like a bunch of adolescent Neos killing and raping to their heart's content.

Yeah, raping. Supervillains and specifically the protagonist are super into rape. It's what Wesley does for fun now. And why not? After all, if I were in his shoes and my societal chains broke off I'd run right out and brutally assault everyone and everything. Just get my rape right the fuck on man! I mean, I get it. He's a Super Villian. He's a bad person. Bad people rape. Bad people kill. He's also the protagonist of this obscenely masturbatory fantasy of Mark Millar's. He's celebrated on every page. He's your super hero Tyler Durden, also: rapist.

I imagine that Mark Millar was drowning in the gallons of his own semen flooding his parents' basement when he looked up and asked God to save him. That must have been when the vision hit him: the ability to kill indiscriminately, to be taught how to have sex, to be able to rape anyone and get away scott free. This was the dream. This is what the unsexed 14 year old who'd let the past two decades slide right the fuck by saw as a savior: sex training and easy revenge. Also: rape.

It's far more likely however, that Mark Millar is a mediocre writer who had an interesting idea and little capability to carry it out. The question of what a society of outlaws does when no one can stop them is excellent, exploring that with a normal guy: also excellent. Millar never digs in, never gives it more than a passing thought. Everyone goes around killing and raping. That's the extent of it. Rape used as the "edgy" spice. The whole book spends so much time trying to be badass in every direction it's a dish made with every ingredient in the kitchen. Celery Salt, Cumin, Nutmeg, Rosemary, Brown Sugar, stir it all up! Yum! Piles upon piles of ideas of how to show you "Badass". Later Wesley cries about his bad deeds, but whatever cos he goes in killing on the next page (oh, sorry, now he's killing BAD guys...) then he shoots his dad at the end, says "Bitch" arbitrarily a few more times and it's over.

I'm conflicted: I think it's a talentless screed--that much is clear by now--but I love the movie. The movie of course, took the "Super assassin dad dies, hot lady finds son, trains him" part and dropped the juvenile sex talk, rape and everything else. This complete pile of shit produced a very fun movie. I suppose we should call it fertilizer, the comic.

But hey, I like to be the bigger man sometimes, so here are some small ideas that would make "Wanted" suck less:

- The Shit Man, instead of being "the collected feces of the 666 most evil people" why isn't he the death shits of those people. Hitler shoots himself, ass relaxes, shit falls out. Shit Man should be that shit specifically, not just arbitrary bad guy shits. Also, do evil people shit really tiny, cos 666 human shits would be fucking enormous. Also also, have you seen that Kevin Smith movie about God? Just curious...

- Knock off Fox's ebonics. It reads like Americans doing British accents.

- Show the Killer doing a kill that is more difficult than just shooting at a guy. Other than a few frames where he's posing like Chow Yun Fat, Wesley never comes off as any more skilled than a magically invincible psychopath.

- Knock it off with the "the authorities leave us alone cos of our pins and license plates" nonsense. Don't go there, don't explain it. The Super Villains can reprogram minds. Done. Don't show me cops going "oh shit sorry sir, I didn't see your pin" cos now I start to think, "How soon after a cop gets hired do they tell him to let the people with the pins do what they want?" and then, "Is anyone counterfeiting pins? Cos if I was a cop (and thus knew about the secret pins) I'd sure a shit make a few for myself and friends." Imagining cops kow-towing to these pins forces me to punch all kinds of holes in the reality of the world. Regular people may not be as powerful as the super villains, but it's rather unlikely that people would just sit around and take it up the ass for two decades. So either the people get their minds consistently erased or the Super Villians aren't causing all that much trouble, neither of which seems to be the case in the book, hence my issue with it all.

- That part in the beginning where Wesley's dad is about to fuck two dudes and is all "I'm not gay, I've fucked tons of women." Is written out so specifically I'm creeped out. I don't see a super killer who's banged 5,000 women as someone who'd feel the need to explain himself (even if he is insecure enough to keep track), extra especially in a world without consequence.

- As a subset to the above note, and a general writing suggestion: imagine every line you write being spoken aloud in a real world situation. If it sounds like your character is explaining a bit much, your character is explaining a bit much.

- If you're going to constantly comment on how your girlfriend character is fat, you might want to have her illustrated as such. Katsuhiro Otomo said he didn't draw attractive girls because that was too easy. But who's he?

- All I see in that two page spread of Wesley shooting his dad is cock and eyes rolling back. What word did you hold in your mind when you drew that? Roofiedudesex?

- The guy who's dick is a super villian: clever. How's that working out for you?

- Dear powers copy guy, was Wesley there with a stopwatch when you sucked the powers from the other guy? Cos man, he knew down to the SECOND when you were gonna lose them. Super assassin AND super time teller! Also, who were you? Was I supposed to care about you when you barged into the story sometime in book five, cos I was all WTF and like, maybe I missed the part earlier where anyone said anything about you at all.

- Okay, those last few weren't exactly suggestions.

- Plot based killing. People come into and out of this story so ham-handedly it's like someone opening a door for you while they say "you can't see me! you can't see me!" I suppose in a book whose central context is a world without consequence it is fitting that characters would appear lacking in all motivation.

that makes me think, what if this book is really some amazing art thing I only partially comprehend? The whole no consequences thing being more about the writing than about the actual book? An epic brilliance that will have to be dug through by scholars before I can truly see it clearly. Is this another "Night of the Carrots"?

I stand in awe.