Superior… It’s Not.
I really have to start paying attention to what is going on in the world of comic books again; either that, or just stop recommending them. Because if Mark Millar’s Superior is what is being considered good work at the moment, then I’ve been doing a great disservice to some of my acquaintances who tend to mock any adult who admits to reading them.
“Comics have grown up in the last twenty years”, I’ve been saying. “They offer as much to an adult as to an adolescent.” Well, maybe I’ve just been seduced because the cinema of comic books has become so good. If this effort at hand is typical, though, then they are in real trouble.
I don’t know a thing about Mark Millar except that he seems to be considered top end. He’s the creator of Kick-Ass and I only know that through the first film, which I enjoyed; the second one, not so much.
Superior starts with a promising premise: Simon Pooni is a likeable 12-year old kid who is suffering from multiple sclerosis. His parents are doing a good job of coping and so is he. Apart from his illness he has the same interests that a lot of us had at that age and he is in particular a big fan of a movie hero called Superior, who is basically Superman…same look, same powers. So far, so good; but then a talking monkey from space turns up and tells him that he is to be granted a wish. Without really thinking through the consequences, he wishes to become—you guessed it– his own hero, Superior.
Despite the fact that it’s a blatant rip off of (OK, I’ll be kind and call it a homage) the excellent Big, starring Tom Hanks; and despite the fact that a lot of really good ideas are thrown up here, it’s just a mess.
The idea of this causing difficulties for the actor who plays the celluloid hero should have been interesting at least, instead of going nowhere that didn’t make me want to squirm with embarrassment.
I can’t believe that the first seven issues of this creator-owned comic book have been collected in hardback. I got this from the library and can’t possibly imagine spending twenty-odd Euros on it. The art, though, is quite nice and is by Leinil Francis Yu. Yet even here it is like stepping back three decades: women with unfeasibly large breasts spilling out of ridiculously impractical clothes. And that should have cheered me up, but it didn’t. Seriously, lads, it might be time to grow up a bit.
And this idea of including really bad language in an immature, witless load of nonsense like this? It doesn’t make it ‘adult’; it just draws even more attention to the fact that it should be aimed at eight-year-olds.
Superior is from Marvel Comics, printed under their Icon imprint and lest ye be in any doubt, I hated it.
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