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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. After I finished it he apologized. Apparently I had offended him in some way. It's a childish indulgence that I'm suprised merited collection and publication, but I guess someone is willing to buy it. 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. There's no character development, no exploration of humanity, or evil, or violence.
The entire plot of the book is a poor construction to drive a parade of juvenile brutality and attempts at shock value. 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. 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. A friend of mine who routinely passes very good comics my way recently had me read this. 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.
It doesn't. I cannot, in any way, understand why there are so many that would defend this or exalt it as worthwile. 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. The story here plays out the fantasy of every teenage boy who wasn't popular in middle school. I've seen a few comparisons to Watchmen and other icons of comic writing.
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. 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. They do both have violence, the problem is that Wanted stops there. Bottom Line: If you're old enough to buy this for yourself you shouldn't enjoy it.
The protagonist is Eminem. His likeness is that of the star of this book.GIVE ME A BREAK.The action was silly and fantastical beyond that which I find acceptable in graphic novels. The white rapper who made it big in 1999. Yes, that guy. I'll bend a lot, but there was no mythos in this story, just "oh, that's science" or "oh, that's alien technology."That would work if i were 10.Sorry, WANTED, you lose. WASTE OF TIME.
What if you suddenly were told that you got to be one of them as well.These questions essentially make up the premise of "Wanted." Wesley Gibson, your average underappreciated, depression riddled cubicle rat with a cheating girlfriend, has a bomb dropped on his life when he learns that his deadbeat father was one of the greatest supervillains of all time, and one of the "fraternity" a group of villains who essentially control the world. Things are moving, but where are they moving, and who is behind it.If you're looking for a dark story with a cynical, satirical edge, this is the place to go. What if all crime in the entire world, all governments-everything, was controlled by these supervillains and you didn't know. What if the supervillains all teamed up and killed off the superheroes, and then used their advanced technology to make everyone in the world believe that heroes and villains are a thing of fantasy, as well as the kind of technology it would take to wipe your brain of its memories. What if superheroes really existed. If you want to know, read this book. Wesley is thrust into their realm at a time of great unrest. Everything is not well in the world of supervillains though.
Besides the cynicism, though, is a great sort of right-of-passage story with a twist.its about a villain, not a hero. Oh wait, but there's a catch. What if supervillains really did too. Millar grounds the story in ours, allowing his average American character to go about criticizing what he sees as a boring, monotonous world where we can expect to be pushed around, spit on, and degraded by everyone around us. Did I mention his father's supervillainry led to him accumulating a fortune, and that he left it all to his illegitimate son. In order for Wesley to inherit his father's wealth, he must first take up his father's old costume, his weapons, and his identity, and prove that he's worthy of it all. So how does the son of a villain go about proving that he's worthy of his father's fortune. You won't be disappointed.
I bought this comic because I liked the movie Wanted.I realized that the story was quite different and I wanted to read it.It really surprised me, as it was quite better than the movie.A must.
This is a great book with fun details in every part of the storyline. Definitely a must have for any comic lovers.
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