Nemesis (comic book)

In October 2009, Mark Millar and Steve McNiven released a teaser poster containing the names of their previous collaborations and the name of the new Nemesis project, without any additional information except for the release date: March 2010 ^[4] . Fans on forums and message boards on the Internet have suggested that the comic is a project about X-Men or Avengers . Details became known only in December, when Millar announced that Nemesis would be an independent mini-comic book series ^[4] .

In December 2009, a new poster for the project was presented to the public, containing the headline “What if Batman was the Joker ?” (In what was Batman was the Joker? ) In a subsequent interview, Millar mentioned that “What if Batman were a complete gondon? ”( Eng. What if Batman was a total cunt? ) ^[4] . Despite the provocative nature of the campaign, Millar denied the possibility of litigation with DC Comics ^[5] .

The series received additional advertising before publication when Millar auctioned the right to anyone who wants to give a name to the main character, a policeman ^[6] . A similar action was held earlier before the launch of the Kick-Ass comic strip ^[7] . The winner’s bid was $ 8,500 ^[8] and went to a charity fund for helping children with disabilities, managed by Millar’s ​​brother, Dr. Bobby Millar. The idea turned out to be so successful that the right to give a real name to the villain was also played out at auction ^[9] .

Issue 1

In Tokyo , the SWAT group breaks into a building where, according to a source, the chief (first player) of one of the city’s police departments is in a trap . Instead of an inspector, commandos find barrels with explosives attached to them. An explosion occurs and the building collapses onto the ground metro .

Meanwhile, Nemesis, the only supercriminal in the world, is cracking down on the inspector. Nemesis leaves the inspector in the tunnel, on the train. The policeman dies, and as soon as the train leaves the tunnel, it crashes: the rails along which the train should go turn out to be broken by the building that was previously blown up and dropped on them.

In Washington, two FBI agents hand over to Chief Blake Morrow (player two) a card with a message from Nemesis informing him that Morrow will die at midnight on March 12th.

To demonstrate his strength, the Nemesis captures the plane of the President of the United States .

Soon, live, the supercriminal sitting on the throne , reports that the operation to eliminate Morrow will be personal in nature and calls it revenge for a stolen childhood . At the end of the broadcast, the Nemesis demonstrates to the audience the very president of the United States kneeling in front of his throne ^[10] . Nemesis says: "The time has come when you will greet your new fucking boss."

Issue 2

Nemesis tells his minions that his real name is Matt Anderson, and his father committed suicide after Lieutenant Morrow tried to arrest him to hunt children with his rich friends. Tired of good behavior and less excitement, Anderson traveled the world to find out if there were any crime, to fulfill his mother’s dying wish. To this end, he collects criminals to kill Morrow and avenge his father.

The Nemesis kills twenty thousand people in the Pentagon using poison gas, while Morrow was there, but the latter, along with partner Stuart, are saved. Nemesis appears before them. Morrow and Stuart open fire, but the Nemesis stands behind bulletproof glass. He says he poured the antidote into his morning coffee to mock Morrow about the predicted death on March 12th. Police officers capture Nemesis, who claims that he surrendered himself and it is better not to arrest him.

Issue 3

Nemesis bandits entered the prison. The Nemesis is freed, kills ninety-seven guards with bare hands and frees several prisoners, and then destroys the prison. He kidnaps Morrow's children to make Morrow reveal all his secrets: his wife had an affair with another; his son is gay ; and his daughter had secret sex. All these secrets were kept by him from everyone, since Morrow is a devoted person. The Nemesis begins to torture the children and Morrow's wife.

Issue 4

Enraged, Morrow eventually discovered the Nemesis hiding place and arrived there with the police team, but it turned out to be a trap. The building explodes, knocking Morrow off his feet and leaving him unconscious.

When Morrow wakes up, Nemesis says that Stuart worked all the time for him. Stewart said that the Nemesis promised to pay him ten million dollars for his work and tells Morrow that the Nemesis minions will retire after each job. The Nemesis shoots at Stuart and jokingly says, “Well, this is one way to put this down.” The Nemesis explains that his story of “Matt Anderson” was a fiction: he was just rich and bored, but he killed and wreaked havoc for his own entertainment. It turns out that the real Matt Anderson died in an Indian brothel after the collapse of his inheritance.

The Nemesis shows that they are in the Oval Office , where Morrow's (Peggy's) wife and US President are also standing, to whom the bombs are attached. United States secret service agents and agents are killed, and Nemesis leaves Morrow with a detonator and tells him that he has thirty seconds to kill either the president or his family, and if he doesn’t kill any of them, then Nemesis will shoot Morrow. With the remaining four seconds, the president runs up to the Nemesis and asks Morrow to detonate his bomb, which he does. The Nemesis survives an explosion, and in the final fight, he and Morrow shoot at each other. Morrow kills Nemesis with a shot to the head, but Morrow was wounded by a shot in the stomach and taken to hospital.

During the operation, Morrow's son takes family photographs from his wallet and finds a card from the Nemesis, and the clock shows midnight. The scene ends with a dead Nemesis, with a missing part of the head and a big smile. At the conclusion of the series, Blake is on the beach while on vacation with his family, including his newborn triplet granddaughters. There they give him wine and a letter that was sent to the waiter ten years ago, congratulating Morrow and demanding that he lead the company, which will eliminate the rich people who can also become supervillains. The comic ends on the owner of the company, sitting on the beach and enjoying the sunset. This means that although the Nemesis is already dead, it is likely that a new supervillain will replace him.

Greg McElhatton , author of the web resource Comic Book Resources , rated the first issue of the comic book at 1 out of 5 points. According to him, the script of Millard is not original from beginning to end. McElton described the artist’s work as uninteresting, and called the colors of the colorist Dave McCague “muffled and slightly dull” ^[11] .

Dan Phillips, author of IGN , rated the first issue “Good,” giving him 6 out of 10 points. He was disappointed with the illustrations, which in his opinion emphasize the shortcomings of the script. The author found McNiven's minimalist style less impressive than his level of work at Old Man Logan ^[12] . Phillips gave the third issue the same rating as the first, describing it as “quite interesting,” but “not at all smart, tasteful, witty, sophisticated, or original.” He complained about the lack of depth in this story, considering this only an excuse for another cruel sight. Phillips concluded that readers should skip the series if they are not fans of Millard's work ^[13] .

Nicholas Jans, in his review of SciFiPulse.net, described the first issue as “fantastic” and claimed that while the series lacked humanity compared to Kick-Ass , “this work notes that the real world is not driven by good intentions, but by self-serving motives, ego and pride. In addition, stability in modern society is comparable to the construction of buildings that can so easily be destroyed by a terrorist ” ^[13] .

In February 2011, the series was published as a hardcover of the same name ( Nemesis , 112 pages, ISBN 0-7851-4865-5 ).

The rights to the film adaptation of the comic were acquired by 20th Century Fox . The director of the project was appointed Tony Scott , and his company Scott Free will be involved in the production of the film ^[14] . In 2010, Joe Carnahan announced that he was working on a screenplay for the film ^[15] . On March 6, 2012, Carnahan was approved as a director and will be writing the script with his brother Matthew Carnahan. ^[16] In December 2012, Carnahan announced via Twitter that he was really working on a screenplay for the film ^[17] . On October 4, 2013, Deadline announced that Mark Millar had read the script for the movie Nemesis and praised Joe and Matthew for his comic book character, saying the film would be "massive" ^[18] . On February 9, 2015, Millar said that Joe Carnahan’s script was completed and that if “ Kingsman: Secret Service ” copes well with the box office, they could start shooting the film this year ^[19] . On August 10, 2015, it was announced that Warner Bros was adapting the film ^[20] . After that, at the time of 2019, there were no new rumors about the film adaptation.

• Nemesis at the Grand Comics Database
• Nemesis on the Comic Book DB website
• MacLennan, Michael . Kick-Ass creator reveals how Nemesis will be 'invert' superhero mythos , STV (March 5, 2010). Date of treatment March 6, 2010.