Supercrooks #1 – Review

By: Mark Millar (writer), Leinil Yu (art), Nacho Vigalondo (co-plotter), Gerry Alanguilan (inks), Sunny Gho (colors), Clayton Cowles (letters)

A Few Things: 

1. One of Millar’s “movie properties.” – It seems like Millar has two styles for these Millarworld comics.  On one side, you have things like Kick-Ass or Wanted or Nemesis that may be good comics, but are chock full of material that will never be able to go into a movie because Millar is pushing the envelope with over-the-top story elements.  That isn’t to say that those properties can’t be made into movies, but they have to change a bit and lose some of their edginess.  Then on the other side, you have properties like Superior or Supercrooks.  In this case, you can absolutely see this being a movie right now.  Supercrooks contains zero of the material that will make you squirm in your chair: villains made out of evil feces, sisters artificially inseminated by their brother, raped teenage girls, etc.  None of that here.  Millar could just send this to a movie studio “as is” and begin production.  Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I’m not a big fan of seeing failed movie pitches getting turned into comics (because they usually failed for a reason), but I’ve got no problem with a creator keeping an eye on both markets, especially when one is WAY more lucrative than the other.

2. Crime + Superpowers. – With both this series and the recently finished Superior (by the same creative team), Millar has taken a very basic and time-tested story and poured superpowers over the top.  Superior was a take on a faustian bargain.  Supercrooks is just a crime/mob story that asks the question, why commit crimes in New York City when that’s where all the superheroes are?  But, mixed into that idea is a story of a guy who gets caught ripping off a casino and is told that if he cannot come up with a huge amount of money, he’ll be a dead man.  How many times have we seen that story before?  It’s Tony Soprano telling the hardware store owner to pay up!  Mind you, derivative story isn’t necessarily a bad thing!  How many people will go to see “The Hunger Games” this weekend or have already read the books?  THAT isn’t a new story; there are NO new stories.  What makes a story special is how well the creators execute on them!  And here, Millar puts in very strong work in this #1 issue.  It is well-written and well-paced; I like the criminal characters and want them to “win,” and more than anything I want to see what happens next.