So what if BATMAN was the JOKER? New Comic Book NEMESIS Explores the Possibilities
Creator of Kick-Ass, Mark Miller, has a new Marvel comic book series he is currently working on called Nemesis, which pretty much explores the possibility of a person with the same status of someone like Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark only he uses his status and money to carry out evil deeds.
Nemesis -- created and owned by Millar and his Civil War collaborator -- doesn't just look like the Joker's smile painted on an all-white-costumed Batman's face, it's literally "What if Batman was the Joker." This is one hell of a ballsy comic book and I can totally see DC eventually taking legal action. Millar explained to Comic Book Resources:
Yeah, a lot of people who've read it have been coming up with hilarious tag-lines. "What if Batman was The Joker?" is the tame one. "What if Batman was a total cunt?" is maybe my favourite, although it's hardly going to be an ad. [It's] is a reversal of the Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark archetype. What if this genius billionaire was just this total shit, and the only thing that stood between him and a city was the cops? It's Batman versus Commissioner Gordon, in a weird way. Or maybe a super-villain version of "Se7en." A billionaire anarchist up against ordinary people. The Joker's the best thing in the Batman movies, so this guy is a bit of an amalgamation of all the stuff we like.
Millar's explanation of the series makes it sound like a psychological thriller with an unlimited special effects budget.
All the cops are needed to go up against a guy as formidable as this. He's almost supernatural, he's so good. But he happens to just be in a costume. Hopefully nobody's ever seen anything like it before. We're so used to supervillains fighting superheroes, I just thought, "Imagine if there was only one person on the planet like this, and he was actually a bad guy." How would cops deal with him, even though he has no super-powers? ...Very simply, I wanted to do a book about the world's greatest villain up against America's greatest cop. I just liked the high concept of that - the idea of a villain going around from country to country and having a battle of wits with the best guy that he can get his hands on. And he sends them a little funeral wreath with the date and time of when they're going to die on it, every one dying at precisely that time. All these cops in the Pacific Rim are dead, and then we come in at the American side of the story and see the struggle of this guy in just trying to stop him.
I am intrigued by where Miller is taking this story and character. The series will debut in 2010, and Millar admits in the interview that Hollywood is interested in turning it into a movie.
What are your thoughts on Mark Millar's new comic book idea?
Here are a few panels from the comic:
