![]() Subverting Superman by turning him into a rapist just fucking sucks. I’ve read quite a bit of Ennis’ work, and I think the thing that I’ve really come around to is that Ennis’ way of “being in on the joke” and subverting the ridiculousness of superheroes as a genre just fucking sucks. I hear you, and I get that there’s a lot to unpack with both of these authors. ![]() I'm being a tad reductive with that last paragraph, but yeah, Ennis is more than 'The Boys' whereas I think Millar peaked with 'The Ultimates' and just kept on leaning into that Simpson/Bruckheimer approach to comics. Meanwhile, during the same time period you have Millar doing Nemesis, where the basic high concept is "What if Batman was the Joker?". ![]() Something like 'Dear Billy' is a rare look at a female perspective in a WW2 story with some absolutely harrowing sequences, but something that serves as this completely compelling look at the nature of conflict, vengeance and being swept up by the tides of history. 'Fury MAX' takes a similarly one dimensional Marvel character and uses him as an avatar to explore almost 50 years of bad post-Cold War American foreign policy and the devils it unleashed on the world.Įnnis' war comics too are these brutal but fantastically written stories of conflict with real nuance to them. Instead, he uses the series to explore what an absolute monster someone like Frank Castle would be, completely undermining the modern day trend of Punisher's skull icon being appropriated by police and the armed forces. It's telling that Ennis' best mainstream comics work is probably 'Punisher MAX' and/or 'Fury MAX', which are both set in a universe where no superheroes exist. ![]() Whereas someone like Millar would just veer into those same tropes and play them completely straight or "edgy". His run on 'Hitman' for D.C is essentially pointing out how ridiculous superheroes are as a concept, something he returned to with 'The Boys'. He knows cape comics are inherently problematic in some aspects and plays up the sexist tropes, the fascistic imagery, etc. The difference is though, IMO, I think Ennis is in on the joke. It's hard to make ultraviolence "fun" against the backdrop of one of the bleakest time periods in (relatively) recent history. It's not even as violent as the previous movies, which I think, ironically, is a reaction to just how horrible World War 1 was. It really felt to me like they started with a genuine Kingsman style script, down to the irreverent tone, OTT violence and whatnot, and somewhere along the line someone said "Wait, hang on, is this really going to be about WW1, the most serious of all wars?", and it seemed like they tried to rewrite the script to take the actual war part seriously, while keeping in all the crazy alternate history supervillain stuff and it's just a tonal nightmare. If they had actually done a surreal ultraviolent spy comedy romp through the early part of the 20th Century with the same tone as the previous movies I think it could have been a lot of fun (albeit in decidedly questionable taste), but that's not quite what this is. Tone is absolutely the problem with this movie. To be slightly fair, the film is definitely criticising the concentration camp at the beginning, although it does get forgotten about when it comes to mourning the death of Kitchener later.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |