Like almost every sane person in the world, I love Batman. When I was a kid, I wanted to be Batman when I grew up. Still do. However, no matter how hard I train in martial arts, or how many mail-order criminology degrees I receive, I will never be able to get the one thing that makes Batman special: obsession. He is able to push the limits of human performance in every field because he is obsessed with preventing anyone from experiencing a tragedy like his own, and that obsession drives him to do amazing things. It drove him to be the best detective, the best martial artist, and the most dangerous human alive; one that strikes fear in the hearts of street criminals and space gods alike. I love stories where his obsessive drive gives him the strength to do the impossible, but anyone who has ever been obsessed with anything can tell you, it can also bite you in the ass.
The hero is an alien who has declared war on earth. The villains are greedy humans, lab grown super-babies and ideas too dangerous for human consumption. The love interest is a bondage-masked assassin. This is just scratching the surface of the depth of beauty and madness in Marvel Boy, the 2000 Marvel Knights series with art by JG Jones and written by one of my favorite writers, Grant Morrison. It is the story of Noh-Varr, a crew member of an alien diplomatic ship that is shot down to Earth by Dr. Midas, a clandestine corporate pirate who made his trillions by torturing aliens and stealing their advanced technology. Noh-Varr’s entire crew, including his girlfriend, is killed, and he is captured so Midas can steal his ship’s cosmic ray engine, which he needs to give himself Fantastic Four-like powers. Noh-Varr escapes using the weirdest superpowers ever, like mind-controlling nanotech spit, and promptly declares war on Earth. That’s just issue #1. Read more...
