Mark Millar Brings Us "The Flash on Drugs" in MPH

Mark Millar has made quite a name for himself not only in the comic book industry, but now in Hollywood. This year's Kingsman: The Secret Service is based on a mini-series written by Millar, just like another one of his book-turned-film; Kick-Ass.  Mark started out writing great tales for DC and Marvel Comics like The Flash, Ultimate X-Men, and Marvel's Civil War.  But Millar has his own universe of characters he's been building for the last decade, and if you look closely, you can see Mark is drawing his inspirations from heroes already in the DC and Marvel pantheon.

MPH is about two small time criminals, Roscoe and Chevy, who work on the streets of Detroit.  Roscoe is caught by the cops selling drugs and is sent to the Big House for a fifteen year sentence. While in the Joint, Roscoe takes a pill that makes everyone move really slow, allowing him to escape and settle some old scores.  But in hindsight, Roscoe was actually moving at super speed and plans to use this miracle drug for his benefit.  He shares his super pills with Chevy, his girlfriend Rosa, and her brother; nicknamed Baseball.  The four rob from the rich who they feel caused the destruction of their city, and while making millions, also give millions back to the people of Detroit.  But the charity part of their plan doesn't sit well with Chevy and Baseball.  Neither does the fact that they've only got a week's supply of the MPH pills.  Soon the team begins to divide, and the FBI is hot on their trail, led by a mysterious man known as Mr. Springfield who knows their every move.

So basically, this story is Chronicle meets The Flash, and it's pretty entertaining.  As a guy who has read comics his who life I know that Mr. Millar has created his own universe off the backs of classic comic book characters.  Kick-Ass is about ordinary people who experience tragedy and then decide to fighting crime; which is Batman.  Superior is about a young boy who turns into a Superman-like being; which is Shazam.  And then of course there's MPH; which is Flash, or Kid Flash, depending on how you see it.  However, the modern twist is what makes these books great reads.  Millar makes the center piece of his stories nerds or thugs, and then makes a much more believable scenarios as to what these people would actually do if they were given these powers.

MPH has a good twist at the end that you should see coming a thousand miles away, and also left me really satisfied.  If you're into superheroes I recommend anything by Mark Millar because I haven't disliked any Millerverse book yet. They're a nice break from the DC and Marvel corporations, and always entertaining.  I'm excited to read Chrononauts because I've heard nothing but good things about it.  And I'm drooling to pick up the sequel to Jupiter's Legacy.

So while I admit Millar just seems to be recycling old characters and themes that are fifty to sixty years old I'm of the mind set that I don't care.  Just give me something good to read.

  

'Kingsman' is Royally Fun

This weekend millions of movie goers rushed to their local theater to see a popular book adapted into a movie.  And the rest of the people went and saw 50 Shades of Grey.  Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class director, Matthew Vaughn, has brought another Mark Millar adaptation to the big screen for all of us to enjoy.  In preparation for seeing Kingsman: The Secret Service I made sure to read the original source material, and now part of me wishes I hadn't. 

 Eggsy is a juvenile delinquent whose father was killed when he was just a boy.  When he runs into some trouble with the law he calls an emergency number and Galahad shows up to bail him out.  Played by Colin Firth, Galahad is part of an organization known as Kingsman.  They are a privately funded secret service that saves the world on a daily basis, and Eggsy is offered a chance to be one of them.  Eggsy undergoes harsh training, but he biggest obstacle is helping to stop a billionaire known as Valentine; played by Samuel L. Jackson. Valentine has a plan to cleanse the Earth in order to save it, but doing so means killing billions of people.

Having read the comic book the film was based off of, the differences immediately stood out to me.  In the book, Valentine was a young, white, nerd instead of an older, black, nerd.  Eggsy's dad had nothing to do with Kingsman and Eggsy was actually Galahad's nephew.  Also,  Galahad's journey in the film ends differently.  With all that said, this is fun movie to watch.  It's about a British secret service so the entire film is poking fun at itself in a way, self aware of the James Bond and other spy comparisons.  I think if the film didn't mention these references the entire film would not have worked.

Colin Firth was the perfect choice as Galahad.  As an Oscar winning actor he has a great amount of respect in the film community so he was the right choice for this character, who had to come off as a better version of 007.  It was also refreshing to see Samuel L. Jackson play a character who is not "a bad ass mother f*cker" much like his other stereotypical roles.  Michael Caine and Mark Strong were good supporting cast members, though I felt like Strong was under used given his potential.  This is the first time I've seen Taron Egerton in a film and I'm sure it won't be the last.  He did a good job making Eggsy a likable lead.  Though I wasn't overly impressed with his acting abilities, I look forward to see what else he can do.  I've even heard his name thrown around this week as possibly a candidate for the new Spider-Man.

While Vaughn is not one of my favorite directors I enjoy that all of his films seem so different from each other.  Kingsman: The Secret Service is nothing like X-Men: First Class, which is not like Kick-Ass, which is not like Layer Cake.  If I go see a Martin Scorsese film I know what to expect, but Vaughn always seems to be changing up his style.  This film is similar to Kick-Ass, but with both films being based off Mark Millar comics you can't really blame Vaughn for that.

I think if I walked into this movie without a preconception about what it was supposed to be I might have liked it more.  I may even have to go back and re-watch it again just for perspective purposes.  But either way I still think it's entertaining.  My wife came out of the film saying, "I want to visit London."  I came out of the film saying, "I want to buy a double-breasted suit."

RATING:  B-