Nemesis
by
Mark Millar (Story), Steve McNiven (Art), Dave McCaig (Colours) and Chris Eliopoulos (Letters)
My rating: 2.5 of 5 Ω‘s
Bombastic.
Adrenaline-laden.
Overly complex.
Convoluted and trying-to-be-clever.
Excellently drawn.
Keeps you guessing.
Made for Hollywood.
I reread this today, years after it first came out (two more have come that I know of and apparently more on the way?) and I can honestly say that you get what you ask for with this book and that is fine – with the central conceit I think effectively being, “What if Batman was a sociopathic, degenerate with a touch of Joker in him?”
The character of Nemesis starts of the story with mind-bending destruction and destroying the soul of a respected law-man. This sets the tone super-fast as we establish he is a seemingly all-powerful maniac who picks great law-enforcers the world over one by one and then screws with them in insane ways and then kills them, all while causing devastation in his wake. Our current story sees him come to America and challenge Washington DCs’ Chief Inspector Blake Morrow who is a highly respected top-cop, and kicks off by kidnapping the President. From there all feces has hit all fans and we spend 4 issues watching the unadulterated mayhem barrel forth. There’s a open-ending of sorts that is left which was both clever and at the same time made me think “okay that is a bit dumb…”
This is something that for sure would speak to and seems to be unquestionably designed for the purpose of being a movie or TV show. At its core it is very well crafted exploration of the basic idea; BUT that is very surface level and I get that, because this first volume is clearly designed to be engaging and draw you in with the least effort on the part of an average reader. There is minimal depth of any character, there is practically no development of anyone and things just rumble and roar along to get from thing to thing and keep you on the edge of your seat.
There are some fun-ish and interesting moments and if this concept speaks to your idea of entertainment, you’ll probably have a pretty good time. Millar is definitely a good writer, but his style and execution is historically not for everyone and the Millar World stuff I remember him starting around the time as this series and Kick-Ass started to follow a very particular path/style.
Fun as a one-off and I genuinely have no idea what a sequel would be like or even if it should have been written, let alone if it is worth reading.
One Happy Monk 
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