Wanted #6
As I stated below, I'm not especially good about actually reading comics when they come out - I tend to stockpile things, so I can read a big chunk in one shot. That said, I did actually read Wanted each month when it came out, but it's taken me a while to really come up with an even partially solid opinion on it.
At first, I had some high hopes for the series. After the first issue (once I got past the kind of shameless decision to cast Eminem in the lead role), I was sort of convinced it had the potential to analyze the appeal of the trend towards anti-heroism throughout the 80's (which eventually pulled me away from comics in general). I'm not sure what sort of analysis I was expecting, given that this is Millar, but after a few issues, it became pretty clear that Millar mostly just wanted to write a "feuding crime elements" story.
Which makes the ending a little surprising. For those who haven't read it, Wesley (our protagonist who is following in the footsteps of his supervillain father), after making a variety of fairly amoral choices, spends the last couples pages directly confronting the reader for being (and I'm paraphrasing here) a fat, fearful individual who is wasting his time living vicariously through the story of an amoral, self-centered bastard, after which he (in a full-page splash), lets the reader know that he's the face of the man who's fucking the reader in the ass (again, paraphrasing).
It's certainly not a conventional way to end a series, but it's certainly direct. Like (I assume) most people, I sort of resent a story (comic or otherwise) resorting to a direct assault on the reader (and, of course, Millar's obsession with anal rape is troubling - between this, the ending of Chosen, and what I'm assuming is the many instances of anal rape I'd have found if I'd read more than three pages of The Unfunnies, I'm a little concerned by Millar's single-minded obsessiveness on the subject). After letting it simmer for a bit, though, I started thinking about the last time a comic ended with its foul-mouthed, blonde-haired protagonist directly addressing the readers.
Wesley really does seem like the complete opposite of Dane. Dane encourages the reader to engage in liberation through creation (which is a bit of an oversimplification, but works for this argument), whereas Wesley goes for liberation through materialism. Wesley's approach is a zero-sum-game; for him to win, everyone else has to lose (i.e., get fucked in the ass). All of which makes the series to date kind of a cohesive argument. The first few issues are kind of fun - Wesley gets to kill all the people who make his petty life unbearable, start sleeping with a Catwoman analogue, and generally act however he pleases - but by the end, we sort of forced to realize that such a path A) isn't achievable for everyone and B) is really kind of apalling (Jones really does a very nice job in making Wesley really unpleasant looking in that last panel).
Dane's path is clearly much more difficult. He spends most of the first volume on the run. His family betrays him. He experiences guilt the one time he does kill someone. Clearly, it would be much easier to jump on the path of amorality, but that's not going to get Dane where he needs to go. This isn't really a terribly new idea, of course, but I think Wanted actually illustrates the end result of the quicker, easier path pretty nicely.
I suspect I'm really giving Millar a lot more credit than he deserves.
At first, I had some high hopes for the series. After the first issue (once I got past the kind of shameless decision to cast Eminem in the lead role), I was sort of convinced it had the potential to analyze the appeal of the trend towards anti-heroism throughout the 80's (which eventually pulled me away from comics in general). I'm not sure what sort of analysis I was expecting, given that this is Millar, but after a few issues, it became pretty clear that Millar mostly just wanted to write a "feuding crime elements" story.
Which makes the ending a little surprising. For those who haven't read it, Wesley (our protagonist who is following in the footsteps of his supervillain father), after making a variety of fairly amoral choices, spends the last couples pages directly confronting the reader for being (and I'm paraphrasing here) a fat, fearful individual who is wasting his time living vicariously through the story of an amoral, self-centered bastard, after which he (in a full-page splash), lets the reader know that he's the face of the man who's fucking the reader in the ass (again, paraphrasing).
It's certainly not a conventional way to end a series, but it's certainly direct. Like (I assume) most people, I sort of resent a story (comic or otherwise) resorting to a direct assault on the reader (and, of course, Millar's obsession with anal rape is troubling - between this, the ending of Chosen, and what I'm assuming is the many instances of anal rape I'd have found if I'd read more than three pages of The Unfunnies, I'm a little concerned by Millar's single-minded obsessiveness on the subject). After letting it simmer for a bit, though, I started thinking about the last time a comic ended with its foul-mouthed, blonde-haired protagonist directly addressing the readers.
Wesley really does seem like the complete opposite of Dane. Dane encourages the reader to engage in liberation through creation (which is a bit of an oversimplification, but works for this argument), whereas Wesley goes for liberation through materialism. Wesley's approach is a zero-sum-game; for him to win, everyone else has to lose (i.e., get fucked in the ass). All of which makes the series to date kind of a cohesive argument. The first few issues are kind of fun - Wesley gets to kill all the people who make his petty life unbearable, start sleeping with a Catwoman analogue, and generally act however he pleases - but by the end, we sort of forced to realize that such a path A) isn't achievable for everyone and B) is really kind of apalling (Jones really does a very nice job in making Wesley really unpleasant looking in that last panel).
Dane's path is clearly much more difficult. He spends most of the first volume on the run. His family betrays him. He experiences guilt the one time he does kill someone. Clearly, it would be much easier to jump on the path of amorality, but that's not going to get Dane where he needs to go. This isn't really a terribly new idea, of course, but I think Wanted actually illustrates the end result of the quicker, easier path pretty nicely.
I suspect I'm really giving Millar a lot more credit than he deserves.
posted by padgett at
11:03 AM
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