Marvel Comics
Superior #5
By Zak Edwards
October 5, 2011 - 22:53

Writer(s): Mark Millar
Penciller(s): Leinil Yu
Inker(s): Gerry Alanguilan
Colourist(s): Sunny Gho
Letterer(s): Clayton Cowles
Cover Artist(s): Leinil Yu
$2.99 US



I guess most people can agree that Mark Millar is an inconsistent writer, at times great and at others terrible.  Others, like Grant Morrison, will say much worse, and he seems to have good reason, but I think for the most part Millar has good ideas that are mostly subjected to shock humour and crazy scenarios to make things more interesting for a perceived audience I sincerely hope doesn’t exist.  Superior, while easy on the shock humour that riddled last week’s simply awful Kick-Ass 2 issue, is more an example of Millar being inarticulate than anything else.

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I knew things were going downhill for this series fairly quickly after the surprisingly good story built from an only okay debut: it came at about the time the monkey astronaut declared himself the Devil.  Yup, you heard that right.  And while this issue does deal with the Devil in a way that is extremely disappointing, the bulk of the issue’s themes and story comes in the form of Millar’s continual return to Afghanistan.  Unfortunately, it seems Millar’s politics, which usually are fairly obvious if pseudo-challenged by characters ineffectively offering other points of view, have become mostly muddled.  Protagonist Superior, in less than seven days, effectively ends the War on Terror, arresting what seems to be every person who has ever been a member of the Taliban, and then goes on to make the world a better place for everyone, from improving crops in Africa to diverting natural disasters that have actually occurred.  This latter bit I feel is in extremely bad taste.  I don’t think anyone would have written a comic about a superhero simply stopping the 9/11 attacks in such a flippant manner as this.  I realize Brian K. Vaughan’s Ex Machina did deal with such an event, but that was handled in a very purposeful and thoughtful way, not in this throwaway use of real people’s quite real tragedy for, well, I’m not sure what.  Millar does however offer some criticism of the events he writes, certainly questioning a young boy’s ability to discern actual right and wrong, even in some of the more seemingly obvious black and white situations.  However, the entire issue deals with such major issues in simplistic ways in what used to be a joyfully simple narrative.  By adding such elements, even in the eyes-of-a-child style of story, is insulting, to the point where the ending, which involves the devil demanding the protagonist sell his soul, is so disappointingly appropriate, the concluding issue hardly even matters.  Millar, the ever undependable writer, has another dud.

I am normally a fan of Leinil Yu’s artwork.  I like his rough lines and ability to create some truly awe-inspiring action sequences.  Similarly, I really enjoy his usual colourist Sunny Gho, whose blending of vibrant and washed out colours actually works without looking like some sort of poorly replicated Schindler’s List moment.  For the most part, the book looks good, there’s just points that make things almost as bad as the script it has to translate.  Actually, it may just the script that is Yu’s biggest challenge.  The final pages, with the woman Yu has been using as an adolescent sex object, reached new heights.  She looks, as a friend pointed out to me as they leafed through my comic book purchases today, “augmented” and like a “porn star.”  And it’s true.  That being said, there are moments of beautiful work here.  Moments where close-ups of characters have a crystal clear quality Yu usually uses heavy shading to obscure.  So while parts are disappointing and unnecessary, the book doesn’t look as bad as it reads.

Grade: C-    It seems Millar has washed up, Hollywood and a moving world has made him something of the past.

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