Abandon Strip - Part Two

Another instalment of comic-based knowledge from Gallows drummer Lee Barratt. This week he takes a look at a battle between a super cop and super villain and some teen angst of the more violent kind.

Posted Wednesday, 25 August 2010 by Lee Barratt in

Blog

Hello everyone and welcome back. The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic for me and Gallows so I've been trying to fit in as much reading as possible while playing festivals all over Europe! (Tough life, isn't it? - Ed)

Luckily I've got my hands on a good mix of stuff and what better place is there to start than with the newest Mark Millar extravaganza Nemesis (Icon). It only takes a few pages for you to realise that this is typical Millar, his snappy and offensive dialogue interspersed with all the blood and guts you'd come to expect from the man after reading his previous works Kick-Ass and Wanted. His co-creator and artist on the project Steve McNiven draws everything superbly and the gruesome scene where a Japanese cop gets his comeuppance via a bullet train will certainly stay with you for a while.

I don't really want to give too much away because Nemesis deserves to be read by every comic lover without unnecessary spoilers but the basic premise is 'super villain vs super cop'. After dispatching various high-profile cops in Asia, Nemesis moves on to Washington DC to seek out the biggest and most badass cop of them all, Blake Morrow. What follows is over the top, explosive and very, very fun. The character of Nemesis is very much the anti-Batman despite there being some similarities; it's like Millar decided to take Bruce Wayne and make him into one evil, sadistic and twisted billionaire bastard. Did I mention his cape and cowl is a bit of all white, too?

It's recently been announced that Nemesis will be made in to a feature film with a huge budget and Tony Scott (Top Gun, Man On Fire) directing. This is quite incredible considering issue #3 hasn't even hit stores yet but there's no doubt Millar is on to another winner here. Fully recommended, check it out!

I must admit, I picked up Deadlocke (Dark Horse) because the cover by Jock (artist on The Losers) looked great and I didn't really know anything about the main character at all. It turns out that this one-shot is based on a character from the young adult novel Venomous and is more of a coming-of-age story than anything else. It focuses on loner Locke Vinetti, who uses his own violent comic book creation Deadlocke to escape from the rigours of every day life. Locke must learn to control his angst and rage against another rebellious teen Casey, or face losing his new love Renee.

This was a hard one for me to get in to as I'd had no previous experience with the characters at all. I was surprised to find that Locke and Renee are meant to be 17 years old because the way they're drawn makes them look a lot older. In fact, Renee reminded me of a more sober Amy Winehouse in her Weimar party outfit! I didn't hate this but at only 32 pages long I do kind of wonder why they bothered. It reminded me of Grange Hill if it was set in New York City with better looking characters. With the original novel being aimed at young adults, I can only guess that's the target audience the comic is being aimed at too.

Check in next time for my thoughts on Hit-Monkey, Marvel's new simian assassin, and Green Hornet: Year One written by Matt Wagner.

Thanks to Forbidden Planet, the one-stop shop for everything comics-related.

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