The New Millar Thing

Dr.Strangefate

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Bleeding Cool said:
Mark Millar has had an idea. And he's talking about it to Joe Quesada today.

Whatever it is he's decided to "move the artist on my next creator-owned gig back into the Marvel stable and do what's very possibly going to be the most commercial and yet radical Marvel project I have ever done."

The Full Article Here: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2009/09/28/mark-millar-doing-something-no-one-quite-sure-what/

Any Ideas on what it could be? What you want it to be? What you don't want it to be?

Think this will curtail his run on Ultimates 3?
 
I bet he'll be announcing that the Millar Hype Machine will now be running on greener, cleaner alternative fuels.

I hope so. New statistics indicate that gas produced by Mark Millar is responsible for as much as 10% of the Earth's pollution.
 
I'm a big Millar fan but I'd prefer him to stick to smaller character or title based stories rather than doing another big event. I'm sick of events in general and he's already did one.

Remember that him and McNiven are also doing a run on a Marvel character next... I'm guessing maybe Thor or Iron Man.

I'd like him to go back to that 616 X-Men project he was planning before he did Fantastic Four.
 
Cool. I think this is exactly what Millar needs right now, another original concept that will be executed with as little story movement per issue as possible and run on a tri-yearly schedule. And as a bonus, the issues of his other unfinished, painfully slow projects will probably come out even farther apart. So awesome.
 
Cool. I think this is exactly what Millar needs right now, another original concept that will be executed with as little story movement per issue as possible and run on a tri-yearly schedule. And as a bonus, the issues of his other unfinished, painfully slow projects will probably come out even farther apart. So awesome.

Maybe he can have another, unknown writer come in and write the final issue that's supposed to be the culmination of all the disparate threads that have been seeded since the beginning of the project. ;)

Fingers crossed that whatever this project is, the time schedule for it will mess up the pace of books being put together by other writers, leading into a finale where the hype and anticipation outweigh the final product and everyone involved suffers for it.
 
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Should've changed the site name to The Cynic Board....
 
I think Old Man Logan was great... And I've been loving Kick-***...

I mean, Ultimate Avengers seems like a disappointment, but I still think that Millar has some of the most interesting ideas in comics today outside of Ellis and Morrison... Sometimes he fails to express them, but I'm not going to write him off completely any time soon.
 
I think Old Man Logan was great... And I've been loving Kick-***...

I mean, Ultimate Avengers seems like a disappointment, but I still think that Millar has some of the most interesting ideas in comics today outside of Ellis and Morrison... Sometimes he fails to express them, but I'm not going to write him off completely any time soon.

He does some interesting things now and again, but the frat boy enthusiasm and frequent shock over substance tactics sometimes get on my nerves. A lot of the time he feels like Garth Ennis without the heart or insight.

I mean, Old Man Logan was a lot of fun, but ultimately mindless.

But yeah. I'd put a long list of writers ahead of him in the field. Joe Casey, Joe Kelley, Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Garth Ennis, and possibly Geoff Johns are all consistently and reliably better writers with bigger, more interesting ideas. He'd possibly scrape into my top ten, but just barely.
 
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Old Man Logan and 1985 were great, Kick-*** is pretty good, Ultimate Avengers is decent and will probably get better as it goes along, Fantastic Four was okay but kind of boring and I liked the idea behind War Heroes despite the fact it never comes out.

His comics can be hit or miss but I think they're always entertaining and I love his perspective on these characters and worlds.

I know he was doing an original project with Dave Gibbons - could it be him?
 
Yeah, I forgot about Fantastic Four, which I enjoyed a lot. I didn't mean to come off as harsh, it's not like I hate Millar all of a sudden, but with War Heroes and Kick-*** it seems like these days whenever he's starting a new, original idea, you can expect a cool premise hampered by massive delays and storytelling so decompressed that it takes a few minutes to read each issue. If he could pack more into each issue I wouldn't be so annoyed, and it feels like he does it on his superhero books.
 
Yeah, I forgot about Fantastic Four, which I enjoyed a lot. I didn't mean to come off as harsh, it's not like I hate Millar all of a sudden, but with War Heroes and Kick-*** it seems like these days whenever he's starting a new, original idea, you can expect a cool premise hampered by massive delays and storytelling so decompressed that it takes a few minutes to read each issue. If he could pack more into each issue I wouldn't be so annoyed, and it feels like he does it on his superhero books.

My problem with those two comics (and I guess all of his original comics) is not only the delays but the fact that they were all created just for a movie deal. Sure, I would probably do the same thing but movies are being made from these comics and they're not even finished!

Even though they're often out of character, I much prefer Millar's work with established company characters. He has a unique perspective on a lot of these characters and I'm always interested to read what he does next with them. His original work... not so much.
 
He does some interesting things now and again, but the frat boy enthusiasm and frequent shock over substance tactics sometimes get on my nerves. A lot of the time he feels like Garth Ennis without the heart or insight.

I mean, Old Man Logan was a lot of fun, but ultimately mindless.

But yeah. I'd put a long list of writers ahead of him in the field. Joe Casey, Joe Kelley, Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Garth Ennis, and possibly Geoff Johns are all consistently and reliably better writers with bigger, more interesting ideas. He'd possibly scrape into my top ten, but just barely.

The list you just mentioned includes some of the finest writers in comics. Add Millar to the list, as you said, scraping your top ten, and I'd say he's still in pretty good company.

So what's the problem here?
 
The list you just mentioned includes some of the finest writers in comics. Add Millar to the list, as you said, scraping your top ten, and I'd say he's still in pretty good company.

So what's the problem here?

I think the problem is that there aren't that many great writers in comics right now, and the more I think about it, the lower Millar drops on the list of the guys who are there. Abnett and Lanning, Jeff Parker, Gail Simone, Jonathan Hickman would all rate higher, and if I kept sitting down and thinking about it, I could probably come up with a half dozen more. I don't really hate Mark Millar's stuff, but I have a number of problems with his work, most of which I've already mentioned above. His product rarely if ever matches his hype.
 
I think the problem is that there aren't that many great writers in comics right now, and the more I think about it, the lower Millar drops on the list of the guys who are there. Abnett and Lanning, Jeff Parker, Gail Simone, Jonathan Hickman would all rate higher, and if I kept sitting down and thinking about it, I could probably come up with a half dozen more. I don't really hate Mark Millar's stuff, but I have a number of problems with his work, most of which I've already mentioned above. His product rarely if ever matches his hype.

Gail Simone, really? I mean, sure, she writes a great Wonder Woman, but... I wouldn't put her up to Mark Millar standards. He sells books with his name. She doesn't.

Let's give credit where credit is due. This isn't the music industry, where you can publish a catchy song on Myspace and get a record deal out of it. Comics is one of the creative industries where you still actually have to prove yourself. He did that with Red Son and Authority and now he's riding on that crest. Will it crash? Maybe.

He still sells ****loads of books... by the seashore. And by the mall, where my local comics shop is, because I live in north Texas where there is no shore. I ask my shop owners what the bestsellers are on a regular basis, and Millar's books are always on that list. Even his crap. That says a lot.

Millar, weather you like it or not, could sell a Dasani bottle full of desert sand to a thirsty man. He might be a snake oil salesman, but he's one of the very best at selling that snake oil. I probably like Ennis and Ellis (pattern there?) better but I always look forward to what Millar will do next because he's pretty ******* unpredictable.

Millar/Sienkiewicz

Howard the Duck

You know you want it

Tell you what... get that started and I'll f'in read it.
 
I'd argue that Gail Simone absolutely does sell comics with her name. She's the only reason I gave Secret Six a chance and now it's one of my favorite titles.
 
I'd argue that Gail Simone absolutely does sell comics with her name. She's the only reason I gave Secret Six a chance and now it's one of my favorite titles.

Not to the general public though. That's a very small list of writers that can do that - Bendis, Millar, Morrison, Ellis, and Moore are the only ones I think that can really do it. Brubaker and Johns are close but not quite there.
 
Not to the general public though. That's a very small list of writers that can do that - Bendis, Millar, Morrison, Ellis, and Moore are the only ones I think that can really do it. Brubaker and Johns are close but not quite there.
I can see what you're saying, but Millar over Johns?

Gotta disagree. If it was true before Blackest Night, it certainly isn't anymore.
 
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