"Supercrooks" may be the first new comic coming from Mark Millar's Millarworld comics line in 2012, but he's been working on the super powered heist story for year. "'Supercrooks' came about because I'd always wanted to see a supervillain story done like a Guy Ritchie movie -- a sort of big, over the top heist story done like 'Lock, Stock' or 'Oceans 11,' but with cracking new super-villains and interesting powers," the writer told CBR as he and longtime collaborator Leinil Francis Yu shared six exclusive pages of the Icon comic as the kickoff to CBR's Millarworld week of reveals. "I remember watching 'Lock, Stock' and thinking, 'I'd love to see something in comics done like this -- a bunch of guys getting together to pull off a big robbery.' So, 'Supercrooks' has been in my mind since back then. I thought there was such potential there for a rogues gallery who all had distinct personalities and specialties. They get together and pull one big job.
The Spanish setting played heavily into the creation of the book, both for Millar and Philippines-based Yu, and not just because there's a long history of Americans abroad stories across genres. "I love that clash of pop culture ideologies. It seems so interesting, and I've noticed that in quite a lot of the books I'm doing this year and next, the setting is more international -- superheroes in unfamiliar places," Millar said. "'District 9' was an invasion movie like 'Independence Day,' but setting it in South Africa gave it a slightly different feel. Just setting this book somewhere else makes the background different. During the day, when they're planning the robbery, these guys are hanging around Spanish markets and Spanish bars. It's also got a European comics feel to it. Leinil has drawn it in a slightly more European style. It looks more like a French or Spanish album than it does like an American comic, and I like the fact it feels distinct. It makes it something I've never seen before. I love it when I pick up a comic and see something new. It feels fresh. With American villains in an alien environment, the story almost writes itself."
At the core of "Supercrooks" are the bad guys themselves, of course, but the ragtag team isn't a unit of thieves at the top of their game -- a concept Millar owes to many classic crime tales. "The set-up is that the main guy Johnny Bolt -- one of his old friends is in trouble, so he gathers up a crew of old villains who all owe this guy a favor. They have to help out because they have a loyalty to him because he looked after them in prison and inducted them into the super-villains when the neo-nazis or the Irish or the Muslims had their eye on them. So, they go to Spain, because that's where America's biggest supervillain of all time has retired, and he has his entire haul in the mountains underneath this big villa, and they want to steal it.
Just as with his other creator-owned hits, Millar is bringing plenty of his personal interests and flourishes to bear in building the cast up in the comics pages. "The characters they bring in are all very distinctive," he said. "We've got two underground cage fighters, because I love the idea of fight clubs for supervillains. You've got this idea of wrestlers with super powers fighting illegally and using their powers against each other. These two brothers are in there. Then, you've got the main character's girlfriend, who is pissed off because she doesn't want him to be a villain anymore. She's an ex-supervillain who's trying to go straight, and he hauls her back in for one last job. Then there's his best friend who became a real estate guy because he was fed up with the superheroes taking him to prison so often. It's a bunch of guys who were trying to go straight getting back together for the biggest job of their careers. I love that idea, which we've seen in crime heist movies before, but never seen it done with superheroes."
I mean if its 4 main character that means its gonna be 4 auctions for the names, which could mean if its 8 thousand per name that makes 32 thousand dollars for charity, OUTRAGEOUS!
