Customer Reviews

Wanted

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

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...

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.

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.

What would happen if the bad guys won? What would happen when the last superhero dies and the super villains take over the Earth? It's an intriguing concept that Millar and Jones attempts to utilize in this unique story, however, despite their previous work, they fail miserably on this one. There is very little character development, logic and the comic attempts to be edgy for the sake of being edgy. There is no reason to connect to these characters. No reason to care for them. In the end, you feel nothing for the main character and nothing for the characters that die. The final result just feels juvenile and poorly thought out.
From my understanding, the movie shies away from much of the source material of the comic. These can only be considered as improvements.
(Edit: After seeing the movie, it's definitely an improvement over the source material. What you think of the movie, however, is a different story.)

I liked the art in this, not the best I've seen but still good. The story was good at the beginning and building to be something great but I have to say I was disappointed in the ending, an ending that again was only meant to shock. Most of this novel is filled with vulgar words, situations, and ideas (The Shock of the novel) but in the end the characters never deal with there actions. in the end i felt the writer couldn't close the deal on this story. It was OK at best

A friend of mine who routinely passes very good comics my way recently had me read this. Apparently I had offended him in some way. After I finished it he apologized.

The story here plays out the fantasy of every teenage boy who wasn't popular in middle school. A loser suddenly gets all the power he can dream of and uses it to murder, rape, and say 4 letter words in front of his mother. The entire plot of the book is a poor construction to drive a parade of juvenile brutality and attempts at shock value.

There's an interesting premise that drives the setting of the book: a world where the supervillians won, and reforged the world to be apparently mundane. There's the potential for something truly interesting. But the villians themselves showcase the creativity behind the book far better: a riddler knock-off covered in obscenities, a Bizzaro character named ****-tard, and a clayface made of poop. Instead of developing characters or investigating evil or any one of a dozen things that would make this book work it blows past them to fill another panel with the obnoxious main character happily shooting a pregnant woman.

After reading an entire book filled with almost insultingly juvenile substitutions of substance with pulp and lame attempts at shock the ending tops it all. After suffering through one man's painfully uneventful and dull power trip he actually insults his audience, pushing himself as free spirit and the readers as pitiful sheep. I'm sure it appeals to someone wearing a Rage against the Machine t-shirt spray-painting Che Guevara on stopsigns and thinking they're some misunderstod genius, but to anyone whose passed 8th grade it will come off as a pitiful. If you're someone's grandmother you may be distracted or insulted by the violence, sex, and profanity it's possible you'd take your offense to mean that this book actually had some meaning or message. It doesn't.

I cannot, in any way, understand why there are so many that would defend this or exalt it as worthwile. The most accurate positive statement I can make is "There aren't a lot of comic books out there like this." Which, in my opinion, is a good thing. I've seen a few comparisons to Watchmen and other icons of comic writing. They do both have violence, the problem is that Wanted stops there. There's no character development, no exploration of humanity, or evil, or violence. It's a childish indulgence that I'm suprised merited collection and publication, but I guess someone is willing to buy it.

Bottom Line: If you're old enough to buy this for yourself you shouldn't enjoy it.

As a kid I loved comics and to me it was more than a hobby. As an adult I find my affinity for them is just as strong. After reading "WANTED" I'm forced to admit that I was disappointed.

As a male, I'm natually drawn to graphic and senseless violence (fictional violence, not the real stuff), which the author/artists do a great job of providing. I would NOT show this book to a child, and TBH I wouldn't show it to a teenager either, but maybe thats just the Liberal-Conservative in me. Anyways..... The artwork is beautiful, as is the binding and dust jacket (which doubles as a poster). The artwork is not the really awesome CGI stuff thats been hitting the market, its the oldfashioned style of comic making.

Those being the positives, here's the negative from my perspective. The story line, is utterly boring. The story does have a well thought out twist which gives u some excitement at the end. The beginning is also pretty cool (seeing a layman become a super villian), but the middle part..... Well... I would have enjoyed it more having read the beginning, then the end, and just browsed the middle.

If your wanting good artwork, showing what few have been able to produce (without censorship), then this is your book. If your looking at the book purely from a story telling aspect.... Continue browsing (might I suggest "Red Son"??).

Understand I love Mark Millar's work! His run on Ultimate X-Men is genius and his run of Marvel Knight's Spider-Man is the best Spider-Man I've ever read in the world of crazy cross-over's and lord knows how many years of history! But I just couldn't like this book!

I also love Fight Club, and WANTED is just too similar a set-up for my liking. Okay, I hate my job, lets go beat up each other and then blow up our old coporate bosses to feel free and alive - THAT kind of motivation I can understand. But my white collar job sucks and my girlfriend is cheating on me with my best friend - lets kill, rape, mame, and torture anyone and everyone for a kick....hmmmm....yeah.....not so much with the empathy.

I tried to give it a go. I tried to look past it all. But the whole time I kept thinking "This is Fight Club taken to extremes that don't need to be taken with a dorky protagonist that looks like Eminem". It's just a story that thinks it's cool when it's really not....like the protagonist, and I hope, NOT like the author.

There is something eerily reminiscent in the style of Wanted to the writings of an adolescent school shooter. At one point in the story, the main character brags that while some of the other characters can ride sound waves or walk through walls, he's just good at killing people, and that's fine with him. Swell. From start to finish Wanted is an adolescent power trip for disturbed teenage boys. Anyone else is going to find the graphic novel either dull or silly (at times it is both).

Every page of Wanted is pervaded with a palpable feeling that the writer has seen Fight Club a whole bunch of times, and is determined to bring the super-cool underground sensibilities of that mass-market mega-blockbuster to the pages of comics. Fine. Be prepared for a lot of swears, and even more violence. That wouldn't be a deal-breaker if the story were in any way interesting, but it isn't.

The plot of Wanted revolves around a loser main character who suddenly finds out that the world is run by super-villains, and he is heir to the throne. Murder, rape, and general mayhem ensue. The idea that super-villains have won their war against heroes is a good one, and begs the question, what next? What do super villains do when they win? Apparently they set up a bureaucracy and then make a lot of money. OK. If that's all they wanted, why didn't they just get jobs in the field of finance? If this sounds boring, then guess what? It is! The author tries to liven things up with random murder and rapes, but the attempts feel increasingly forced.

Wanted is a poor, violent, vulgar graphic novel. But worst of all, it is boring. Go read Watchmen or the Sandman books instead.

Life, apparently, is unfair to Wesley Gibson. Oppressed by his wimmenfolk and talked down to by his various minorities, he dresses like a tool and feels sorry for himself. Then, kazam. He turns out to be a supervillain.

Wesley reacts to his new powers by raping and murdering his way to the top of his supervillain game without a single hesitation. I think there may have a moment or two where he stopped and tried to generate some empathy, but I probably blinked and missed them. Fortunately, he's surrounded by a cast of equally vapid monsters, with nary a bit of depth between them.

Wesley is a dweeb as a mundane human, but as a supervillain he's actually one of the most genuinely unlikeable characters in comic history. I imagine that I've missed the post-modern/ironic twist, but I wasn't going to go rooting through it in this pile of nihilistic fanboy trash.