Entertainment and show. Those would be the 2 most accurate terms when describing most of Mark Millar's works. The British writer long ago created his Millar World label as a springboard from which to sell his comics to film production companies. And the truth is that it is not a bad idea: a comic drawn by an artist hot It is always a much better cover letter for a future film than a script in docx or a simple storyboard.
Jupiter's Legacy published its first issue in the US back in 2013, reaching the first compilation volume in Spain by Panini in November 2015. And it was not until June 2018 that we have been able to see on the shelves the second volume that closes the history. It was time!
Millar and the heirs of the superheroic epic of the "Golden Age"
The comic is written (how could it be otherwise) by Mark Millar himself and drawn by Grant Morrison's inseparable friend, the great Frank Quitely - seriously, everything this man touches is pure gold. In it we discover the story of Sheldon Sampson, a kind of Superman - in this case we will call him Utopian- who obtains his powers after visiting a magical island that appeared in one of his dreams. Both he and his future wife, his brother and all those who travel to the island become super-powerful beings, giving rise to the golden age of superheroes, in the purest Marvel and DC style of the 50s.
We could say that he is the Superman from Kingdom Come (with another mentality, of course) and nothing would happen either.But the years pass, and the heroes have descendants. Children who are not capable of reaching the standards of excellence of their parents. Some children - also with superhuman powers - who are more reality meat, parties, drugs and rock'n'roll, than anything else.
In this sense, it is a comic that makes a similar approach to Watchmen, but with a more popcorn approach and "for fun." Although in Alan Moore's work the classic heroes were nothing more than a facade where much misery was hidden, giving rise to a rather bleak present, in Jupiter's Legacy we see the opposite: our ancestors were too good, too noble, how could we be up to the task? It is impossible! Pass me that bottle of Jack Daniels, come on ...
In the end, this lack of interest, that numbness of the new generation, is taken advantage of by “the bad guys” –it is not a matter of making spoilers- and leads to a coup by the superhero branch that is most critical of the good-natured attitude of Utopian and the policy developed by the United States government in recent decades.
In the Quitely comics, the vignettes have special non-computer-generated effects.Frank Quitely, dynamism and expressiveness in its purest form
The truth is that the plot of Jupiter’s Legacy is quite interesting, and it takes a frenetic pace, which makes you devour each page almost without realizing it. And so it would be if it weren't for Quitely's pencils, the other 50% of the creature, which makes you stop at each panel to appreciate all the details and the great work behind them.
In fact, that's the great thing about Frank Quitely, his vignettes are so dynamic and fluid that you can read multiple pages with hardly any need to read the speech bubbles, and yet they still understand each other. But at the same time, leisurely readings are much more welcome, as they add a large number of nuances.
Attentive to the detail and cinematic of this scene.Quitely is a "slow" artist, which is probably the reason why the 10 original staples that make up the complete comic took almost 4 years to publish in the USA. Personally, I prefer that a comic takes longer to come out if then the result is as worthwhile as in this case.
In short, a comic full of action, betrayals, witty dialogues and stunning drawings. Very much in the line of other works by Mark Millar, with the plus of having one of the best pencils in the current industry.
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