Nemesis by Mark Millar – A Graphic Novel Review

Amazon Product Description:

CIVIL WAR? Nothing. KICK-ASS? A warmup. What if the smartest, toughest costumed bad ass in the world was totally evil? Meet Nemesis. He’s systematically been destroying the lives of every police chief in Asia, and he’s now set his sights on Washington, DC. Between you and me, the police don’t have a chance. Do not miss the book that EVERYONE will be talking about!

Author: Mark Millar

Illustrator: Steve McNiven

Publisher: Titan Books

Release Date: 09/02/2011

Pages: 112

My Chosen Format: Paperback

My Rating of ‘Nemesis’: 5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon UK, Amazon US, Book Depository

 

Review:

Nemesis, for me, was a total breath of fresh air. It was totally not what I expected and completely unlike most of the comics/graphic novels I have read. I will admit to thinking, at first, that it was just a Batman rip-off. To be fair, Nemesis pretty much looks like someone whitewashed Batman, so I will let myself off. In actual fact, it’s a comic revolving around the world’s greatest, most brutally violent super villain!

 I don’t just mean your average violence in a comic. It’s got some seriously creative brutality and killings. And the artwork does that creativeness real justice when it comes to all the blood and gore and downright savagery. Just how it made it to the YA section of my local library I will never know!

As the product description states, it’s a story about a super villain who spends his days targeting Asian police chiefs. his calling card (quite literally a card) is a simple white card with a sentence or two on it. That sentence: the exact time, place and way you will die. Washington’s greatest police chief finds himself the recipient of one such card. Thus begins an epic game of cat and mouse between the greatest mind of law and order and the most devious mind of villainy.

Nemesis, from start to finish, is flat out over the top. But it’s over the top to such an extent that it makes the whole thing hard to put down and just simply absorbing. Constant twists and turns in the character back stories makes it hard to know just who you should be rooting for. I still don’t know who I wanted to win and I have gotten to the end to find out who does!

I’ll also say that it reads like the kind of comic Michael Bay would have written. Lots of explosions, action scenes and massively expensive property damage! In fact, if it became a film one day, I could imagine his over the top director-skills being ideal for this over the top work. Quite simply, it reads like an action movie would read if transported from screen to page.

My only negative is that it feels short. Other than that, I loved it.