Wanted (Assassin's Edition) [Hardcover]

Mark Millar (Author), J. G. Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2008

The smash limited series by Mark Millar (Civil War, The Ultimates), JG Jones (Final Crisis, 52), and Paul Mounts (The Ultimates) is now available in a deluxe "Director's Cut" hardcover edition! Everyman Wesley Gibson just discovered that his father has been killed and that he is next in line to take his place in a secret fraternity of super villains. And Wesley's life will never be the same! This edition features the complete limited series, plus the Wanted Dossier, excerpts of Millar's script, interviews, and behind-the-scenes developmental art.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Top Cow Productions/Image Comics; First Printing edition (April 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582409331
• ISBN-13: 978-1582409337
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 6.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (120 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #841,273 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Along with Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar has been one of the key writers for Marvel Comics in the 21st century. After proving himself in the '90s as a talent to watch while writing for DC Comics and the UK comic 2000AD, his arrival to Marvel came at a time when Ultimate Spider-Man had just shot up the sales charts. It was in this environment that Millar made his first major contribution to Marvel with Ultimate X-Men, as Millar integrated forty years' worth of X-Men history, characters and lore into a solid two-year run, making the companion title to Ultimate Spider-Man every bit the creative and commercial success. Next up was The Ultimates, a new rendering of the Avengers that was to continue building on the success of the Ultimate line. He and artist Bryan Hitch pulled it all off in spades: The Ultimates and its sequel, Ultimates 2, were ensconced at the top of the sales charts every month; what's more, they were critical successes, as well. Meanwhile, Millar was invited to enter the regular Marvel Universe to take a stab at two of its most iconic characters: Spider-Man and Wolverine. Paired with industry heavyweights to draw his stories -- Terry Dodson on Marvel Knights Spider-Man and John Romita Jr. on Wolverine -- Millar brought the same fast-paced and cleverly constructed plots with which his Ultimate fans were already familiar. Amid building a small library of Millarworld indie comic books -- including the titles Chosen and Wanted, the latter of which was turned into a Hollywood blockbuster starring Angelina Jolie -- he managed to write Civil War, the epic seven-issue miniseries that definitively reshaped the landscape of Marvel's heroes. Kick-A**, a Marvel Icon project done in tandem with John Romita Jr., made an impressive impact on the sales chart before also being adapted for a major motion picture. In addition, Millar has reunited with Civil War artist Steve McNiven in both the pages of Wolverine and their creator-owned book Nemesis.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

141 of 156 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A subversive masterpiece certainly not for everyone, May 21, 2008

By 

Clifford A. Hicks (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wanted (Paperback)

It's kind of amazing the type of reactions that Millar and Jones' "Wanted" evokes in people. Some people absolutely despise it. Other people absolutely adore it. I personally think it's wonderful, but I also understand why a bunch of people don't like it. Let me explain.

Upfront, let's say this: This is a book about villains. They're going to do villainous things. They aren't going to hold hands. They aren't going to be nice people. They aren't going to have a change of heart. They aren't going to see the error of their ways. Not because they couldn't, but because they don't care. Many of the criticisms people have leveled at this book take that one thing for granted. They want the protagonist to be a nice guy (he isn't), they want him to do good things (he doesn't), they want the story to have a happy ending (the jury's sort of out on that one). Make no mistake, this is not intended to be mainstream fiction. And to me, that's part of the appeal.

Wanted is the story of Wesley Gibbs, an office drone who's been walked on his entire life. He's been kicked by nearly everyone who could have a chance, and twice on Sundays. His girlfriend is sleeping around on him, his boss is abusive without cause, and Wesley takes it, because he can't envision any other way to live. Until someone comes along and tells him he's the son of the greatest killer who ever lived, and that he's just inherited his legacy. And while he fights it at first, he comes to embrace it, and that's where things start getting complicated.

I don't want to walk you through the book. I don't want to tell you that you should like it, because, frankly, I understand why a lot of people wouldn't like this book. It's violent, it's unsympathetic to, well, everyone, it's remorseless, it's brutal, it's needless cruel... but that's sort of the point. While I see a lot of people in other reviews comparing "Wanted" to "Fight Club" (fair) and "The Matrix" (not really applicable), in many ways, "Wanted" is an extension of some of the ideas presented in a much older book, "The Lord of the Flies." What DOES happen in a society without rules? What would you do if there wasn't a law you had to follow? What would you do if there wasn't anyone to tell you no, or stop you from doing whatever you put your mind to? The easy answer is to say that you'd just go on living your life, but with some improvements, but at the cost of what? The world is about systems. Give yourself a ton of money, money goes down in value, suddenly you have less money than you intended. Don't want to pay a speeding ticket? Now you're breaking laws, just because you can. Millar takes that concept and runs with it about as far as he can, then keeps running past where it was before.

If "Fight Club" wasn't your cup of tea, then steer clear from "Wanted." If you're looking for something with a positive message, steer clear of "Wanted." If you want a story where you agree with the actions of the protagonist, steer clear of "Wanted." It's not a book for kids. It's not a book for people who want a story that holds their hand the whole way. It is, to borrow a phrase, very bad men doing very bad things. Again, I return to my original point -- this is a story about villains.

With all that said, Jones' art is fantastic, the dialog is crisp and leaps off the page, the characters are memorable and the story is a wild roller coaster ride that asks the question "When there are no rules, and the only people who can tell you no are your fellow degenerates, what do you do?" It's uncomfortable, it's vile, it's twisted, it's darker-than-dark... and that's why I love it, and why most of you probably won't...

44 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars 98% shock value, March 9, 2006

By 

Babytoxie (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wanted (Paperback)

Sporting a cover image that is simple yet sure to grab attention on the shelves, Mark Millar and JG Jones' WANTED trade paperback had been on my "to buy" list for some time. I finally plopped down the cash for the book this week with high expectations, as Millar had accomplished the near-impossible several years ago by piquing my interest in the Authority, as well as producing some interesting work with DC's Superman: Red Son and Marvel's Ultimates. After reading WANTED, I have to say that, while the premise is quite fascinating, the story itself was yet another case of shock value substituting for good writing.

WANTED collects issues 1 - 6 of Millar and Jones' series, plus a great pin-up and sketch gallery. Let's get the basics out of the way first: Wesley Gibson is the ultimate loser - he has a dead-end job, a cheating girlfriend, and no backbone. This drudgery is interrupted when Wesley is surprised by the information that he has just inherited the legacy of his deceased deadbeat dad, the rapid-firing supervillain The Killer. He is even more surprised by this information because no one is aware that superhumans even exist! Over the following months, under the tutelage of arch-criminals Professor Solomon Seltzer and The Fox, Wesley learns of the shadowy history of superhumans on Earth and is transformed into a killing machine in the mold of his father, while slowly coming to the realization that things aren't quite what they seem to be. Rumor has it that Millar pitched this idea to DC Comics as a story of the son of either Deathstroke or Deadshot, and I can believe it, as almost every character contained within is an analogue of some DC character (with a few Marvels thrown in for good measure).

Jones' art is excellent - seriously: WOW! It couldn't be better. His skill with faces, physiques, action sequences, and layouts are all on good display here. My favorite aspect of the art, however, is the backgrounds, which often consist of glimpses of thinly-disguised DC and Marvel villains. It's much like the "spot-the-hero game" readers could play with Alan Moore and Gene Ha's Top Ten.

As for the story... it started out quite well; in fact, the first 2 issues really had my attention. But it quickly slides into a mess of blood, guts, cursing, sex, and general amoral behavior, and while this story IS indeed about super-villains, I don't feel that the gruesome details were necessary to make that point. In some ways, these elements undo a lot of what Millar was trying to accomplish by showing Wesley's growth from weakling into warrior. For example, you can have heroes, and you can have anti-heroes, and while villainy may not a noble profession, you can't help but root for Wesley to leave his dreary life behind and accept his destiny. But when the writer then dives so deeply into the nature of that character, to the point that the anti-hero is no longer just a victim of circumstance, but revealed to be a mass murderer, terrorist, thug, thief, elitist, and serial rapist (and what's more: just for the thrill of it), there's nothing left for me to root for. In fact, as I neared the end of the book, I was hoping that it would conclude with Wesley taking a bullet to the brain, as that's the only way I could see this story ending on a high note: you live by the sword, you die by the sword. As for the ending, by the time I reached the final chapter, I realized that Millar had pulled a fast one, where the events depicted in the beginning of the story were not quite as they appeared. While he did leave himself some leeway for this, he took great liberties with the introductory narrative, to where the ending was essentially a cheat, pure and simple. If that was the plan all along, then chapters 2 through 5 seem pretty unnecessary, upon reflection. In spite of all of this, I will give Millar a thumbs up for the way in which he blurs the line between fantasy and reality. The supervillain community has indeed pulled a fast one on the general public, and it's something that could conceivably be based in our own reality, depending on how much you trust in conspiracy theories.

In conclusion, if that rumor involving DC is true, I think they may have missed out on a good thing here. If this story would have been anchored in the DC Universe (even as an Elseworlds), with some tighter editorial control and toning down of the shock value, it might have been much better.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Desires of a Spoiled 10-Year-Old, January 4, 2009

By 

P Chastant "Constant Reader" (Mesa, AZ, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wanted (Paperback)

I knew this series was going to be different when I found out where the idea came from--a younger brother asked what happened to the superheroes and the creator told him "They all got killed by the bad guys."

Then I got to read it and couldn't look away--much like a train wreck.

The protagonist ("hero" doesn't fit) is a guy working away at a dead-end job, mistreated by a bad girlfriend he doesn't seem to have the guts to break away from, a lousy boss and a dreary life. In other words, the lonely, destitute world that (apparently) we ALL live in. He doesn't seem to want to do anything ABOUT his lot in life, just bemoans the fact it stinks.

Then a girl named Fox drops into his life and tells him he's the son of a notorious assassin, and that he has the skills to follow in his footsteps. Oh, by the way, supervillains run the world because they all got together and decided to make the world FORGET about them, even having the heroes forget that they are heroes. (Sounds James Bondian in its apparent simplicity.) Now, due to a near-death experience, he also gets the morality issue out of the way by deciding there's no God.

There is, of course, a plot afoot (apparently by some of the same villains who got along well enough together to make The Big Plan work) and the hero has to train himself in order to be the professional murderer his father was. In the meantime, he gets to satisfy every teenage-boy impulse by shagging the same woman who was shagging his father, raping the women just to prove how powerful he is, and basically murdering everyone who gets in his way.

The last page is the kicker--a big shot of his face as he laughs at everyone who isn't as "fortunate" as he was. It's almost as if the writer wants to pull the same stunt he played back then. "All the good guys got killed off and now the world is run by punks like me."

Normally I'm not expecting a happy ending by this time, but being mocked by the main character for being a sucker is perilously close to being mocked by the writer for buying this.

There's a serious amount of belief suspension you have to do, even for a comic book about superheroes and supervillains. But Killer here expects you to think that just because he has money and power and a girl who'll part her legs for him at any time (loyalty not required), that that is the New American Dream, and he found it, and we can't.

Wesley doesn't become more mature, he does the opposite--he regresses into teenage wants and desires (nailing who I want, getting what I want). As far as ideals, his aren't much different than those boys at Columbine who wanted to get back at everyone, or Tim McVeigh who felt blowing up women and children were justifiable, or the 9/11 terrorists who wanted to make the world over in their own polluted image, and felt it was possible if ONLY they can kill as many people as they can to get it. The Killer is someone to add to the list of heroes of revenge fantasies and immature wants.

In the end, when the Killer laughs at us, I just want to laugh back at him. He has become a cartoon, a caricature villain who isn't old enough to grow a moustache to twist between his fingers.