Post by Grey on Nov 15, 2004 23:29:07 GMT -5
The Sunday Herald did an interesting article covering The Ultimates...
Source:www.sundayherald.com/46071
Biff! Bang! Pow! Captain America enlists to fight for Bush in Iraq
Scots Marvel writer provokes controversy by drafting iconic superheroes into war on terror
By Senay Boztas, Arts Correspondent
HE created the world’s first gay comic book stars and turned Superman into a communist weapon. Now one of Scotland’s leading comic writers has created a controversial series in which iconic superheroes are drafted by George W Bush to fight for him in Iraq.
Mark Millar, chief writer for the New York publishers Marvel Comics and outspoken opponent of Bush and the war in Iraq, has created a year-long series imagining American soldiers pushed to the extreme – as the Persons Of Mass Destruction.
Its most controversial aspect is a storyline in which Captain America is sent to Iraq.
The first of the monthly comics, Ultimates 2, will be published by Marvel across the world at the end of this month. It is being tipped to cause a huge debate, as Millar’s opposition to the war has already inspired hundreds of patriotic American comic readers to sign an online petition to have him sacked. But his right to free speech has been backed by the board of Marvel, and he states that Bush is “the most terrifying threat to the West since the Third Reich”.
This series will include characters such as Ultimate Hulk, X-Men stars, Daredevil, Captain America and The Defenders, enlisted as supersoldiers, and has been drawn by Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary, and coloured by Laura Martin.
Millar said the series is just ahead of reality; he believes thousands of Americans fear being enlisted, while the country is trying to create an all-powerful military.
The author, whose series The Ultimates described a force of Marvel superheroes caring for America post-September 11, said the next step is to draft them overseas. “The very simple notion of The Ultimates was to see how superheroes would look if they existed in the real world,” he said.
“This turned out to be Marvel’s best-selling comic in years, so a sequel was always on the cards. The concept behind this book was taking the heroes-in-the-real-world idea further and having George Bush using his mandate from an election victory to send guys like Captain America and The Hulk out into Iraq and fighting on the front lines in his war on terror.
“There’s a lot of fear right now that, as the scope of Bush’s plan gets wider, civilians are going to be drafted again. In fact, the draft offices were prepared last year for such an eventuality and there are a lot of nervous under-25s.”
Millar, who wrote the series earlier this year, said that in this universe, the President expands his power. “Bush’s second term prompts him to get a little more ambitious with his foreign policy and the remit for these superheroes, and so he decides to start using what he calls Persons Of Mass Destruction, ” said Millar.
But the results threaten the world, as these supersoldiers defuse nuclear facilities in Iran and North Korea, and China becomes an enemy. Superpeople are the new power superseding the nuclear arms race.
Millar, who has sold the ultra-violent story, Wanted, to Universal Pictures and the tale of a second coming, Chosen, to a major Hollywood name, said supersoldiers are no imaginary threat. “They’re more precise and far more deadly [than nuclear weapons] and so you see individual states developing their own supersoldiers to fight a war unlike anything we’ve ever seen before,” he said.
“This, of course, is all ripped from the headlines. The US military have already developed soldiers who can be on full alert for two weeks without sleep and are very close to creating the conditions where wounded troops can repair their injuries with a healing factor. Science fiction is always just 10 minutes into the future.”
Millar’s work reflects a longstanding trend in the comic world for realism. During his 10 years at DC Comics, he achieved international renown when he and artist Frank Quitely created The Authority, with an openly gay superhero couple. After writing the sell-out Superman: Red Son in 2003, he moved to Marvel with a mission to reinvent its tired characters.
“I like my stories to mean something and touch on current headlines,” Millar said. “It’s too easy to write stories about Spider-Man kicking the crap out of the Green Goblin.
“America’s war against this phantom axis of evil was probably the biggest factor in the election and I felt that, if superheroes really existed, they’d be under enormous pressure to get involved. [Around] 1100 mostly poor, mostly black kids have died out there, so how could someone like Captain America just stay here and fight bank robbers or mad scientists? Superheroes are all about responsibility and doing the right thing so it seemed like a nice, complex situation to throw them into this fight that some of them support and many of them don’t.”
However vocal his opposition to Bush and to the war in Iraq, Millar said the series would voice both sides of the argument: “The best work is always done in the most terrible times as we have something to react against. Superman and Batman were created in the Depression; Spider-Man and the X-Men around the time of the Kennedy assassination. What’s bad for the world tends to get creative juices flowing. That’s the little silver lining. ”
Professor John Eldridge, a sociologist at Glasgow University, said: “You have a sense that in the States there is more control on things than even a few years ago , and it is interesting that the voice of dissent is in the comic book market.
“Power is a narcotic, and anything that can be an antidote is helpful. It reminds us that we might be sane and to counter the madness and idiocy.”
Mark Betty, assistant manager of Forbidden Planet comic booksellers in Glasgow, said: “There has always been a market for political work: Captain America featured the attack on the World Trade Centre and Superman was sent to fight Hitler. But Mark Millar’s comics are always popular.”
14 November 2004
Source:www.sundayherald.com/46071
Biff! Bang! Pow! Captain America enlists to fight for Bush in Iraq
Scots Marvel writer provokes controversy by drafting iconic superheroes into war on terror
By Senay Boztas, Arts Correspondent
HE created the world’s first gay comic book stars and turned Superman into a communist weapon. Now one of Scotland’s leading comic writers has created a controversial series in which iconic superheroes are drafted by George W Bush to fight for him in Iraq.
Mark Millar, chief writer for the New York publishers Marvel Comics and outspoken opponent of Bush and the war in Iraq, has created a year-long series imagining American soldiers pushed to the extreme – as the Persons Of Mass Destruction.
Its most controversial aspect is a storyline in which Captain America is sent to Iraq.
The first of the monthly comics, Ultimates 2, will be published by Marvel across the world at the end of this month. It is being tipped to cause a huge debate, as Millar’s opposition to the war has already inspired hundreds of patriotic American comic readers to sign an online petition to have him sacked. But his right to free speech has been backed by the board of Marvel, and he states that Bush is “the most terrifying threat to the West since the Third Reich”.
This series will include characters such as Ultimate Hulk, X-Men stars, Daredevil, Captain America and The Defenders, enlisted as supersoldiers, and has been drawn by Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary, and coloured by Laura Martin.
Millar said the series is just ahead of reality; he believes thousands of Americans fear being enlisted, while the country is trying to create an all-powerful military.
The author, whose series The Ultimates described a force of Marvel superheroes caring for America post-September 11, said the next step is to draft them overseas. “The very simple notion of The Ultimates was to see how superheroes would look if they existed in the real world,” he said.
“This turned out to be Marvel’s best-selling comic in years, so a sequel was always on the cards. The concept behind this book was taking the heroes-in-the-real-world idea further and having George Bush using his mandate from an election victory to send guys like Captain America and The Hulk out into Iraq and fighting on the front lines in his war on terror.
“There’s a lot of fear right now that, as the scope of Bush’s plan gets wider, civilians are going to be drafted again. In fact, the draft offices were prepared last year for such an eventuality and there are a lot of nervous under-25s.”
Millar, who wrote the series earlier this year, said that in this universe, the President expands his power. “Bush’s second term prompts him to get a little more ambitious with his foreign policy and the remit for these superheroes, and so he decides to start using what he calls Persons Of Mass Destruction, ” said Millar.
But the results threaten the world, as these supersoldiers defuse nuclear facilities in Iran and North Korea, and China becomes an enemy. Superpeople are the new power superseding the nuclear arms race.
Millar, who has sold the ultra-violent story, Wanted, to Universal Pictures and the tale of a second coming, Chosen, to a major Hollywood name, said supersoldiers are no imaginary threat. “They’re more precise and far more deadly [than nuclear weapons] and so you see individual states developing their own supersoldiers to fight a war unlike anything we’ve ever seen before,” he said.
“This, of course, is all ripped from the headlines. The US military have already developed soldiers who can be on full alert for two weeks without sleep and are very close to creating the conditions where wounded troops can repair their injuries with a healing factor. Science fiction is always just 10 minutes into the future.”
Millar’s work reflects a longstanding trend in the comic world for realism. During his 10 years at DC Comics, he achieved international renown when he and artist Frank Quitely created The Authority, with an openly gay superhero couple. After writing the sell-out Superman: Red Son in 2003, he moved to Marvel with a mission to reinvent its tired characters.
“I like my stories to mean something and touch on current headlines,” Millar said. “It’s too easy to write stories about Spider-Man kicking the crap out of the Green Goblin.
“America’s war against this phantom axis of evil was probably the biggest factor in the election and I felt that, if superheroes really existed, they’d be under enormous pressure to get involved. [Around] 1100 mostly poor, mostly black kids have died out there, so how could someone like Captain America just stay here and fight bank robbers or mad scientists? Superheroes are all about responsibility and doing the right thing so it seemed like a nice, complex situation to throw them into this fight that some of them support and many of them don’t.”
However vocal his opposition to Bush and to the war in Iraq, Millar said the series would voice both sides of the argument: “The best work is always done in the most terrible times as we have something to react against. Superman and Batman were created in the Depression; Spider-Man and the X-Men around the time of the Kennedy assassination. What’s bad for the world tends to get creative juices flowing. That’s the little silver lining. ”
Professor John Eldridge, a sociologist at Glasgow University, said: “You have a sense that in the States there is more control on things than even a few years ago , and it is interesting that the voice of dissent is in the comic book market.
“Power is a narcotic, and anything that can be an antidote is helpful. It reminds us that we might be sane and to counter the madness and idiocy.”
Mark Betty, assistant manager of Forbidden Planet comic booksellers in Glasgow, said: “There has always been a market for political work: Captain America featured the attack on the World Trade Centre and Superman was sent to fight Hitler. But Mark Millar’s comics are always popular.”
14 November 2004
