Variant Covers: Mark Millar’s Nemesis Will Rape Your Mind and Kill Commissioner Gordon

[Variant Covers is a column every Tuesday that breaks down the various titles coming out that week in the world where Mark Millar continues to redefine absurdly awesome ultra-violence.]

Nemesis #1

Ohhhhh, fuck to the yes. Nemesis is dropping the week. Finally. Mark Millar’s latest license to print money is hitting the shelves and I’m already hyper-ventilating like the fanboy pig that I am. I’ve been waiting for this son of a bitch since it was announced, and now that it’s upon me, I’m geeking out. Let me tell you something. If my boy down at the comic shop forgets to pull me a copy of this I’m going to freak the fuck out. In something of a Hulkian rage, I may or may not flip several shelves and eat as many action figures I can before I asphyxiate and die. Just saying.

The premise is so fucking simple and obvious, even Mark Millar has admitted it’s borderline ridiculous to actually pull off as a title. Millar poses the question, what if a Batman analog was a bad guy? What if a billionaire playboy with all the sweet-ass kung fu moves and guns he could acquire, set out to kill the equivalent of Commissioner Gordon? Either you’re totally fucking stoked about this…or you’re a pretentious windbag. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I still fart towards you.

It’s a little bit of deconstruction this side of the sort of shit that Warren Ellis did with his Batman and Superman derivatives in The Authority, or his work in pretty much deconstructing every superhero archetype in The Planetary. But I think this will be a little more on the visceral, and a little less on the cerebral side. So instead of working out the essence of characters, I assume he’s just going to have lots of bludgeoning and ultra-violence. Absolutely fucking fine by me. I just spent an entire week examining freudian interpretations of Mary Shelley’s Mathilda for class. I’m ready for phallic objects blasting people into mush. Wait, that sounds freudian too. Fuck.

Millar already knows this is going to be a hit. Dude’s already planning a movie. Between Kick-Ass and this, I imagine soon he’ll be bathing in hundred-dollar bills and the alcoholic beverage of his choice. I’m there, dude.

Captain America #604

There’s like nineteen Captain Americas running around right now. There’s Steve Rogers back from the timestream, there’s Bucky back from being a Russian spy, and then there’s William Burnside, a schizophrenic raised to believe he’s Captain America. That’s roughly one for every Avengers title that Marvel is launching after the culmination of Siege. Rimshot, groans from the audience. But no, seriously. What the fuck is going on.

Brubaker continually brings the awesome. And that’s the reason a storyline about Bucky hunting down the aforementioned William Burnside in some yokel town works so damn well. Our boy Burnside, posing as Captain America, is leading a paramilitary group determined to “reclaim” America. A couple of issues ago Brubaker and company got into a bruhaha when someone penciled in some salacious shit onto a sign that was in a scene depicting a Tea Party protest. Being a hippy and a liberal, I wasn’t offended. But Fox News damn near shit their pants so hard, they didn’t just soil his pants, they soiled yours.

I’m digging on the storyline though. If Captain America is a representation of the ideals of our country, where better to examine the clash between the various factions and their competing narratives for what this country is and should stand for? I’ve always had a vague fear that Captain America, while standing for the right things, has actually been an instrument for you know, the dirty fascists that run this corporate empire. Oh shit, I’m kidding about that, okay? For the most part. Captain America as a fascist mouthpiece? It could be worse, he could be portrayed by Chris Evans in the movie. Wait. Fuck.

So hop into this shit this week, and join the examination. It’s got ideological battles, the Falcon, and some really boss action. Yeah, I said boss.

Green Lantern #54

At the end of the last issue of Blackest Night, Sinestro all went and claimed himself as the White Lantern or some shit. I was bullshit and wanted to throw my copy of the comic book into the local creak. Wait for it to be saturated in fish shit and muck, and then light it on fire while it was strapped to my chest, in front of my local comic book shop in protest. But then I sort of calmed down and thought about it for a bit. I can’t get down with it, if only because how the twist was introduced. You’ve got six issues of Blackest Night building towards some climax. And then? Then uh, they unearth some primal being in the middle of Earth. And then, Sinestro, like seizes it, and becomes the dopest most bad ass motherfuckin’ Lantern ever. I don’t know man. It felt cheap. Not the concept, but how and when they pulled it off. A sharp swerve off the narrative path I was expecting.

That said, this month’s Green Lantern obviously features Sinestro being omnipotent and shit. I mean, the guy has some good points. The Guardians of Oa do seem a bit like manipulative dick bags. They strike me as the Jedi Council from the Prequels Abortions Lucas threw our way. All-knowing, condescending blue fuck faces. There was some satisfaction in seeing their cocky asses get beat down by a legion of zombies lead by a dude named Necron. Who, if I had to guess, totally is in a death metal band.

They’re not really plugging what this issue is about, and in fact they didn’t even reveal the cover until Blackest Night came out, for obvious reasons. They’re calling it the penultimate chapter, and I guarantee 65% of comic book fans don’t know what that means. But shit is going down, there’s a white Lantern afoot, and I’m guessing someone is going to save the day. Bank that shit, yo.