Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Valerio Giangiordano
Dark Horse Comics, July 2024
Nemesis: Rogues’ Gallery picks up where Mr Millar’s title Big Game ends. The world’s deadliest costumed assassin (at least the only one surviving after the events of Big Game) is wrapped from head-to-toe in bandages and unable to move from the neck down. Reduced to being fed chicken soup by a well-meaning nurse, and under guard by two soldiers with automatic weapons, Nemesis’ career seems to be at a dead end. Good, you might say. Supervillains with two-dimensional amorality don’t deserve the ink. But, by the end of this first issue, Nemesis has spat a chicken bone fragment into the eye of a guard, been rescued by henchmen in a daring raid, ordered the nurse to be gratuitously blinded, bathed in the blood of the recently murdered as a means to sorcerous recovery from his injuries, and seems to be contemplating enlisting a sidekick in the form of a visibly deranged man in a guarded cell. “Such is life,” to quote the understated final words of Ned Kelly, a notorious and violent colonial Australian bushranger (bandit).
Here is publisher Dark Horse Comics’ pitch to readers:
Millarworld and Dark Horse Comics are proud to present the debut of a brand-new arc of the bestselling thriller: Nemesis.
Immediately following the events of the smash-hit Big Game, Nemesis lies broken and destroyed, but hell-bent on vengeance against every single person who wronged him. The bloody fire back begins here as he marshals together a plan for the ages.
• From best-selling, award-winning creator Mark Millar (Civil War, Kingsman)!
• The return of Millarworld’s most popular character.
It is not inspiring advertising copy.
It is easy to say that Mark Millar’s concept has not dated well. (We noted Nemesis‘ 10th anniversary four years ago – see https://www.worldcomicbookreview.com/2020/09/11/happy-10th-birthday-nemesis/ .) The popular consensus is that edge gore in superhero comics has passed its zenith. When it first was released, Nemesis was a startling interpretation of the question, “What if Batman was evil?” That particular bathtub has since been entirely drained, mostly by DC Comics itself with characters such as The Batman Who Laughs, Owlman, and its Batman/Punisher mash-up called The Grim Knight (see https://www.worldcomicbookreview.com/2019/03/17/the-batman-who-laughs-the-grim-knight-1-review/ ).
But that it is far too easy to be dismissive of the title as merely an example of “edgelord cape comics” of the early 2000s, a subgenre Mr Millar practically invented. (Mr Millar should be properly recognised as the equivalent of Quentin Tarentino of the genre, save that the American comic book industry’s fickle audiences would never give him that recognition.) Grim repartee, Mr Millar’s strength, will always amuse readers, and there is always an audience for gory schlock horror even within the superhero genre.
The actual problem as we perceive it is that, in the reworking of Nemesis, the slick aspects and commentary of the original book have been sheered away. The anonymity of the title character worked with the theory suggested at the end of the first title that Nemesis is a rotating cast of the rich and cruel trained in martial arts for blood sport on a mass scale, centred around police commissioners. A controversial aspect to the 2000s renditions of Batman was that he is “always prepared”: a god-like anticipation of every eventuality which was over-worked and heavily mocked by incredulous readers. The original, 2006 version of Nemesis took that to a new level. The bearded man behind Nemesis was able to predict the outcome of Nemesis’ confrontation, with unerring accuracy. He leaves a note and a congratulatory bottle of champagne at a beach resort for the surviving police commissioner, three years before the events of the story occurred. Ridiculous nonsense, and quite deliberate: Mr Millar was making a smirking observation about Batman’s comic book omniscience by stretching the suspension of disbelief to breaking point.
Nemesis Reloaded took a different path: mystics, an apprenticeship at the hands of a cabal of supervillains, and the revelation that Nemesis was a singular, rich, murderous spoilt brat named Anderson trained by the supervillain cabal from Mr Millar’s other popular title, Wanted. It was deflating. Anderson in the original series was a decoy to the mystery. Nemesis: Rogues Gallery sadly does not try to claw it back. Without the mystery, Nemesis is merely a vicious thug with some snappy lines in a silly white costume.
