Mark Millar's Nemesis Project

[NightBeetle]

Writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven, the dynamic duo behind Marvel's "Civil War" and "Old Man Logan," speak exclusive with CBR News about their upcoming creator-owned Marvel Icon project, "Nemesis."

''Nemesis" Asks: What if Batman was The Joker?

CBR News: The two of you have developed quite a history working together, first with "Civil War" and then with your follow up, "Old Man Logan," both massive hits for Marvel. I guess teaming up for "Nemesis" was a no-brainer?

Mark Millar: I just love Steve. He's amazing. After working with somebody this brilliant, it would be heart-breaking to work with somebody ****. I'm just spoiled now. I can't stand seeing the brilliant artists I've worked with work with other guys. I'm like a psycho ex-girlfriend. The minute I come to the end of one project with Steve or Hitchy [Bryan Hitch] or John Romita Jr. or somebody, I'm just thinking of the next thing for them.



So Steve and I really had to do a third project together. We get along well, even though he's a prick and Canadian, and we work really well together too. We've only done two comics together before - "Civil War" and "Old Man Logan" - and both, like you said, were massive books. So the logical next step was a creator-owned project that shatters all records. We made Marvel a lot of money with these first two projects, and we feel we paid our dues and we had fun writing and drawing almost all of the characters that we'd ever want to do. But now we want to create something, and we want it to be bigger than "Kick-Ass." "Kick-Ass" went through five printings each [issue] and has sold something like 115,000 [copies] an issue. But we want to beat that. "Nemesis," we hope, is the next big thing. We're very excited and think we have something quite unique here.


So when Mark called, Steve, you were ready to go?

Steve McNiven: Yes, definitely. Mark is fun to work with. He writes stuff that's fun to draw, and that's great when you're not pulling out your hair. And he makes me lots of money, too [laughs].

There's nothing wrong with that.

Millar: What? I'm in it for the craft, baby. Jesus, you make me feel like Jodie Foster in "Taxi Driver." I didn't realize I'm just your wee cash cow [laughs]. Steve's Harvey Keitel and I'm Jodie Foster. [Laughs] I thought he loved me, but now I see it's just about the cash.

OK. Before, we jump into this, let's put the rumors to rest. "Nemesis" is not an Avengers project, or an X-Men project, or a Marvelman project. It's not even set in the Marvel Universe. It's another world that you've created.


Millar: Absolutely. It's a Marvel book, technically, in the sense that it's published by Marvel, but like "Kick-Ass," it comes out via Icon, and that means me and Steve own all the rights just like Johnny and I own the rights to "Kick-Ass." It's a sweet deal.


McNiven: It's great for Marvel to have an imprint there for us. It's really a great place to do this kind of thing. Just looking at how well "Kick-Ass" has done. It really gets your hope up.

 

[kguillou]

Just read the interview, wow, say what you will about millar but the guy knows how to hype and market his projects. He said he was already getting calls about movie rights for this thing? JESUS CHRIST. How does he do it?

In any case, it sounds like an interesting project, I'm not sure how DC's gonna feel about Marvel marketing this thing as "What if Batman was the Joker?".

 

[Drz]

Definatly checking this out. the price for this comic has been confirmed to be $2.99 by Millar. So thats always a good thing to get a cheap price for something so promising.

This made me lol:

BATMAN: Repercussions of Evil

Batman waited. The lights above him blinked and sparked out of the air. There were villains in the asylum. He didn't see them, but had expected them now for years. His warnings to Comisner Godon were not listenend to and now it was too late. Far too late for now, anyway.
Batman was a superhero for fourteen years. When he was young he watched the zorro movies and he said to dad "I want to be the zorro daddy."
Dad said "No! You will BE KILL BY VILLAINS"
There was a time when he believed him. Then as he got oldered he stopped. But now in the asylum of Arkham he knew there were villains.
"This is Godon" the radio crackered. "You must fight the villains!"
So Batman gotted his batraang and blew up the wall.
"HE GOING TO KILL US" said the villains
"I will shoot at him" said the Penguin and he fired the umbrella missiles. Batman bataranged at him and tried to blew him up. But then the ceiling fell and they were trapped and not able to kill.
"No! I must kill the villains" he shouted
The radio said "No, Batman. You are the demons"
And then Batman was the Joker.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Just read the interview, wow, say what you will about millar but the guy knows how to hype and market his projects. He said he was already getting calls about movie rights for this thing? JESUS CHRIST. How does he do it?

Because he's a hot item right now. Wanted was a way bigger success than the studios thought so people are really interested in getting more of his work to suck at. When/If an adaption or two of his bombs at the box office, those calls won't be coming in much sooner.

The whole hero going crazy and turning villain or anti-hero doesn't interest me so much, and I'm sure this will just end up being either a Watchmen light attempt at deconstruction or just Millar's usual nonsense filled stuff.

I'll probably pass

 

[squeekness]

This will be worth picking up just for the creative team alone. The art will be amazing! Better not be solicited as a monthly though, it'll never come out on time, not with McNiven doing the art.

 

[Drz]

The thing is. THis kinda reeks of "Batman Red Son" withouth it being Batman, hehe. One thing that must be important is why should we care? Why should we care about Nenesis causing damage to Washington DC? Why should we care about the Police men getting murdered? This is the important story aspect that needs to follow thruout the story, since we won't hear Nemesis' origin until the end of the story.

 

[Gamma Goliath]

Cool, but how come this is in the marvel forum

 

[ChelseaGrin26]

Cool, but how come this is in the marvel forum

Its being released under Marvel's Icon imprint.

 

[GyLocke]

I can't decide if I love or hate Millar frpm this interview. Saying stuff like "Movie guys are *****es" and "There are guys who sell well, and then there's Steve" makes him sound like a used car salesman creating an EXTREME! persone to sell his comic. Then again, there's something awesome about overtly confident people in the entertainment industry. If you talk and behave like a star, you are one. Millar gets that.

 

[kguillou]

I really admire the guy's confidence, he does come off a little arrogant tho with some of the stuff he says. In the interview he says something like "After working with somebody like Steve, I'd hate to work with somebody ****. I'm spoiled." Although i see what he's saying, thats kinda inadvertently offensive to any other artist that's not as popular as Mcniven. Millar's a bold dude, i'll give him that, hope it doesnt bite him in the ass.

 

[[A]]

Millar? Yay! I'll be definitely....................ignoring this s**t

 

[chamber-music]

He sounds like the typical guys you meet from Glasgow to me.

 

[bryanss3]

When I first read this I skimmed it mostly and got annoyed by the idea of it. I like Millar and I hate him at the same time. I think he writes fun stories, but get immensely frustrated at the lateness of his books. But this statement from the article sums up a lot if his creator owned works perfectly

Marvel President Dan Buckley sort of paid me a compliment, saying, "This is such a stupidly simple and obvious idea. I can't believe nobody's ever come up with it before. You are the master of the stupidly simple idea." Which I suppose is kind of flattering because everyone said that about "Kick-Ass" too. It's almost too simple.

I may check it out. I just hope it delivers like most books he's done(excluding his F4 run that did not deliver) and is monthly and on time(unlike just about everything he's done in lately)

 

[Trigger]

I'll be keeping an eye on this. I'm interested in seeing whether Millar can write such a series and keep it interesting past one or two arcs. The concept reminds me of the series Death Note, and his stuff has kept me pretty entertained in the past.

 

[NightBeetle]

MILLAR & MCNIVEN'S NEMESIS #1
Written by MARK MILLAR
Pencils & Cover by STEVE MCNIVEN
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 by the creative team that made CIVIL WAR the biggest book of the decade.
32 PGS./Mature...$2.99

 

[NightBeetle]

Double post....

 

[Trigger]

I love that cover.

 

[Drz]

I can't wait!

 

[Drz]

Bleeding Cool Exclusive: DC Comics makers Legal Move over Mark Millar's Nemesis

This is just silly. =|

 

[Drz]

Phew! False alarm!

Seems DC just didn't want the Joker and Batman examples being used again, since theres already Movie talks going on, but i feel the damage has already been done for DC's perspective. Comic nerds will spread the movie (whenever it comes, if ever) as "Batman gone evil" style.

 

[Dark Victory]

I didn't care for Civil War and hated Old Man Logan. I'll wait 'til some credible opinions weigh in.

 

[Watchman]

Well when you are describing the comic as "Batman is a c***" for the rival company you are going to raise a few red flags.

 

[NightBeetle]

Millar Makes No "Nemesis" of DC

It's safe to say that as much as they enjoy watching their favorite characters pummel each other on the page, comic fans may like to follow a good legal battle as though it were a summer blockbuster even more. From the long-standing battle over the rights to Marvelman to dozens of creator's rights issues, the legal maneuverings surrounding the world's greatest heroes have made for dramatic narratives in the comics press for decades. However, sometimes the rumor of a lawsuit can run away with itself.


That seems to be what happened with Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's new creator-owned Icon series "Nemesis" this week. After the project was announced here on CBR with pull quotes and a headline comparing the comic to DC Comics' iconic Dark Knight, the original cover failed to appear in Marvel/Icon's March solicitations. A report soon appeared from Rich Johnston claiming that DC had made a legal move to stop the original cover, and the litigious chum in the water set off a series of blog reports and message board postings worrying over the fate of "Nemesis." But according to the writer, the word on the street is a bit ahead of itself.


"In all honesty, the story has been massively misreported," Millar explained to CBR. "There is no issue at all here. Someone simply saw that the image we had planned for the first cover had been removed and assumed DC had hit us with a writ or something. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the whole thing is much more informal. What happened was that someone in DC editorial was a little worried that we were casually mentioning two of their characters in interviews and asked legal to ask us not to. The legal guys at DC, who are friends of mine, just dropped me a casual, informal email asking me to be cool, and I agreed, promising them that Steve and I wouldn't cross any kind of line in the promotion of 'Nemesis.'


"Steve and I both have a good relationship with DC, and I'm friends with about half the staff. So we chatted about it and as a courtesy removed the cover image we planned, which we both felt might just be a little too playful. DC knew this was a gesture of goodwill and appreciated it, but they absolutely didn't ask us to remove it. Everyone is on very good terms, and there is absolutely no issue here."
Asked whether it was difficult to know your legal ground in an industry where projects from "Invincible" to "The Sentry" and beyond take a page from the iconic building blocks of other companies – not to mention his own work introducing Avengers analogues in "The Authority" – Millar said, "Comics have been doing this since before I was born, and the companies are very relaxed about it.



I've seen Spider-Man, Batman, Wonder Woman and especially Superman analogues in dozens of books. Some of my favourites, like 'Invincible' and 'Irredeemable,' are running at the moment, but 'Supreme,' 'Sentry' and a million others have all played with some classic building blocks and given them a little tweak. Squadron Supreme did the whole Justice League, for God's sake. So we're all kinda on the same team on that sense. Like you said, I even wrote Marvel analogues in 'The Authority' when I worked at DC, and the guys on both sides thought it was funny. I think the companies are a lot more relaxed about this stuff than people realize."

 

[AdamTheComicGuy]

I think this new project sounds awesome. I've already seen some of the other drawings for this new comic. I love how he's Batman but his oppisite. he wears a white costume instead of black. And the whole idea of him going after the worlds greatest detectives just sounds so awesome. I wonder how long it will be until the already have the film cast. I know I'll be there when that book comes out in March.

It's looks like Batman's going to chop of Gordons ear. hahahah

 

[Drz]

MILLAR & MCNIVEN’S NEMESIS #2

Written by MARK MILLAR
Pencils & Cover by STEVE MCNIVEN
The most talked about new series of 2010 rages on! Nemesis’s tour of terror hits Washington D.C. and hits it hard. That doesn’t bode well for the citizens of the nation’s capital or the man in the house on Pennsylvania Ave. Luckily, the Chief of Police has an idea on how to stop the super-villain-- but can you stop a one man hurricane of violence and mayhem? All this, thanks to the creative team that brought you CIVIL WAR- Mark Millar and Steve McNiven.