With Netflix dropping its Marvel shows and fully committing to original content, the streaming service has had to turn somewhere else for a way to address the all-important comic book adaptation genre. It landed on Mark Millar, the guy behind Wanted, Kick-Ass, and the Secret Service comics that inspired the Kingsman movies (not to mention the comic that inspired Captain America: Civil War). Netflix bought the rights to all of Millar’s creator-owned comics and got to work adapting all of them, but it also has been working with Millar to create new comics specifically so they can be adapted, with the first being last year’s The Magic Order.
Now, Netflix is ready to move forward with its live-action version of The Magic Order, with a press release announcing that James Wan from Aquaman and Lindsey Beer from Netflix’s Sierra Burgess Is A Loser have joined the project. Beer will serve as showrunner and write the series, while Wan will direct the first episode and executive produce. Despite the title, the series is not about someone who knows exactly what to say to their waiter. It’s actually about a group of magic families that live normal lives while secretly protecting mankind from some kind of magical threat—sort of like secret Harry Potter Avengers, but created by Mark Millar (and all that implies to comic book readers).
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Your regular reminder that Mark Millar licks goats.
Leading with his best quality, I see.
Everyone knows frogs are the way to go.
Cool. Something that, if at all like Millar’s writing, will be mean spirited and hateful.
And if its at all like every other adaptation of Millar’s writing, it will remove or soften most of that nastiness, to the point where I wonder why people keep paying him money when they seem to realize the work they are buying/adapting is toxic in its original form.
I mostly enjoyed Magic Order. The art was excellent.
And the story was brutal as hell. Actually can’t wait for this show now!
“The art was excellent.”Isn’t that true of almost every Millar book? He consistently hires the best artists for his work and gives them some fun stuff to draw (probably pays well initially and I know he also gives them co-ownership so they make bank when the comic rights are inevitably bought by Hollywood). Millar books are frequntly ugly because of his ideas and crutches as a writer, but that nastiness is always rendered beautifully by some of the best artists in the industry. I just got Chrononauts from the library a while back, and I remember nothing about the plot or characters (except thinking that Millar didn’t seem to realize how unappealing his asshole protagonists were), but I DO remember the awesome Sean Murphy artwork of cars vs. barbarians and other time shenanigans.
I do typically have mixed reactions to Millar’s works, and he rarely sticks the landing, but it is incredible how much of the current superhero cannon is based off his books. He first concocted that Nick Fury was Sam Jackson, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Thor are all very much based on his take on the characters from Ultimates, Civil War, and Fox’s Logan is based off Old Man Logan, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a few. The fact that he still puts out so many books of occasional high quality is pretty remarkable.
“he still puts out so many books of occasional high quality”
When you say ‘still’, do you mean over ten years ago and for a period of about six years?
I thought ‘Empress’ with Immonen was kinda cool and Magic order is decent.
I got Empress from the library (I will still give a Millar book a chance if its free for me to read and has an artist I like) and I actually enjoyed it! I enjoyed some Millar stuff back in the day too, when he ignores his worst instincts/crutches he can write fun (if thin) stuff.
I would say what’s really incredible is how much credit, cultural cachet, and money Millar has collected for movies that take nothing from his work but a title or a cosmetic detail.Civil War had aboslutely no resemblance to the comic except that Iron Man and Cap were pissed at each other. I still haven’t seen Logan, but from trailers and reviews it seems the ONLY thing it takes from Old Man Logan is the fact that Logan is an old man, but puts him in a completely different setting, story, and cast of characters. I would be really surprised if the movie had incestuous cannibal Hulks eat Logan’s family, or any of the other noxious shit he wrote (and I am equally sure it doesn’t have the few fun ideas he came up with which all require larger Marvel universe characters who couldn’t be used like blind Hawkeye, the Spide-mobile, and Venom-dinosaurs).
The idea of “Avengers formed in the modern day” came from Marvel inventing the Ulitmate line, not Millar. Sam Jackson as Fury is one of the only direct links, and even that is also partially attributable to Bryan Hitch’s photorealistic style allowing for celebrity “casting” in the comic. Hawkeye is pretty close to his Ultimate version, but that’s because “under-written government agent with a family and no other defining characteristics” is a failing of both the movie and the comic. Same for Widow, although the movies eventually gave her more characterization and screen time than the comics. Thor is nothing like his Ultimate version, who was an eco-terrorist, everyone thought he was crazy and not a god, and thanks to Loki even Thor doubted himself eventually. They called the aliens in the Avengers movie Chitauri like in the Ultimates, but nothing else about how they worked or their plot reflected the comic. Even works directly “adapted” from his original comics tend to take some of their set-up from the first issue or two of the Millar series and then go a completely different direction. The Wanted movie had a society of killers who curve bullets, but completely ignored the central premise that they were a society of super-villains who ran the world after killing/capturing/brainwashing all the heroes (plus James McAvoy’s character didn’t have to rape and murder random people as part of his initiation). Kick-Ass movie changed the central premise that Big Daddy was an insane asshole who kidnapped and brainwashed his daughter to be a murder machine (this might be the only case where I think Millar’s “edgier” original idea actually had value in the story and improved it vs. the movie version).
Again, don’t really disagree that he writes some really dumb stuff, but of the hundreds of thousands of storylines marvel has to choose from, they keep taking his big ideas (probably the only thing he is actually good at) and morphing them to fit their needs.As for the Ultimates being a directive of marvel execs, that is true. But to hear Bendis tell it (one one of his podcasts, couldnt for the life of me tell you which one) marvel approached basically every big name writer of any note to help build the ultimate universe and they all told them off saying what a horrible idea that was. Five years later they were all pitching ideas for ultimate books, and they all got turned down. Bendis didn’t name names so no telling if this is true or not. But fact is that Millar and Bendis were and those books are now classics, and Millars’ version of the ultimates undeniably inspired the MCU.But again, Millar is a frustrating writer that also writes some really dumb stuff ¯\_(ツ)_/¯