So Mark Millar has apparently found his career niche: looking at some comic book trope and making a book about that. In Kick-Ass, you get an ineffective Spiderman-like character and a way too young female assassin. In Nemesis, we get the tale of a rich playboy who uses his toys to buy all sorts of gadgets, cars and planes, but instead of fighting crime (like so Bruce Wayne), he is targeting the world's best police officers. That premise itself has loads of potential. Unfortunately, that's where the creativity ends. I'm assuming Millar saw Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. So why he is copying that movie exactly? A black Batmobile with a motorcycle hidden in it becomes a white sports car with a motorcycle hidden in it. The Joker wanted to get thrown in jail so he can escape, and so does Nemesis. At least the Joker had a reason. Once the book telegraphs that everything Nemesis does is part of his plan, the book becomes completely uninteresting. Everytime something happens, we know what's coming next. Hell, Nemesis himself is constantly telling his pursuers and captors that he meant to do whatever happens. The book both wants to be grounded in a sort of reality and then be completely ridiculous. Nemesis at one point lands on Air Force One while it is in flight, and starts walking around. They never explain how he stays on (magnetic boots maybe), but the absurdity of someone actually being able to move let alone avoid being crushed by the wind? It's silly and takes you out of the book. The only saving grace is Steve McNiven's art. At one point, Nemesis captures the President and Millar only treats him as a pawn on the chessboard, a plot device. A couple of McNiven panels provide that sense of what is really at stake in a way the script fails to do. Silly, stupid and predictable, with an ending twist that seems tacked on as a "we could write another series if this does well" ending, Nemesis is best avoided by anyone who wants more from a book than blood and swearing. * out of *****
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