Acting Out – Anomie and Roleplay in Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's Nemesis

Mark Mllar has become a comic writer superstar with runs on Ulitmate X-Men, The Ultimates, and Civil War. He’s also become synonymous with comic ultraviolence on the titles The Authority, Wanted, and Kick-Ass. This ultraviolence has arguably reached a peak that’s hard to top in his creator-owned title (with artist Steve McNiven) Nemesis which debuted in May 2010 and completed a four issue story arc in February 2011.

Nemesis is an extremely violent super-criminal who dresses in a completely white suit, cape and cowl. After terrorising and killing law officials in Korea, Singapore, and Japan, he turns his attention to America and supercop Blake Morrow who aspires to be head of America’s Homeland Security. Nemesis’s intentions are clear in sending Morrow a card which states precisely when Morrow will die by his hands – ‘March 12th at midnight Flatline still counts’. Nemesis’s first terrorist action in America is to hijack AirForce One and take the U.S. President hostage. He then kidnaps Morrow’s children and threatens to kill them unless Morrow reveals his three “dirty little secrets”. These secrets are Morrow’s wife had an affair with Morrow’s police partner because he was an inattentive husband and poor lover; his teenage son hid his homosexuality from him; and his daughter hid an abortion she had from him. Morrow reveals his secrets but while Nemesis keeps to his promise of not killing the children he instead artificially inseminates the daughter with the homosexual son’s sperm, and booby traps the daughter’s womb so a termination is impossible.

Finally with Nemesis’s real identity apparently deduced, Morrow closes in only to find he’s fallen in to a trap and is instead captured. Nemesis, who has now also kidnapped Morrow’s wife, then presents Morrow with an ultimatum: choose to kill either the president or his wife. If he kills neither, Nemesis will kill both. The president then sacrifices himself, which surprises Nemesis, allowing Morrow to fight and ultimately shoot him dead. However Morrow is also mortally shot and dies but is resuscitated during surgery. As the card predicted, ‘Flatline still counts’ and Nemesis’s goal of killing Morrow is achieved. With the threat over and Morrow retiring from active law enforcement, a twist is revealed. A letter is delivered to Morrow which reveals Nemesis is just an extremely rich and bored person who has paid to live out a super-criminal fantasy. Nemesis shocking actions have been years in the planning down to the finest detail.

Rich and Bored

Why does Nemesis conduct his reign of terror? What is his driving force? The Nemesis narrative provides two reasons for Nemesis’s violent actions. Initially Nemesis says he targets people who are vain. This simple explanation doesn’t hold water and, like the majority of Nemesis’s explanations, is a lie. In his crisp white suit and magnificently muscled body, Nemesis is the epitome of vanity. Indeed the catch-cry on the cover of issue two: ‘Crime is awesome and so am I’ backs this claim. Later when pushed by Morrow for an explanation of his actions, Nemesis reveals, ‘I’m rich and I’m bored. What else do you need to know?’ (Millar 2011 8). It’s my contention that Nemesis’s actions are the result of a condition called anomie. This anomie drives Nemesis’s desire for an obscene and excessive self-obliteration; an egoistic suicide. Why else would he proclaim on the cover of issue four: ‘Shoot straight @*%hole!’? Witness also the array of dangerous situations he puts himself in – jumping onto an airborne aeroplane; allowing himself to be imprisoned and then escaping by fighting nearly 100 prison guards. Investigating why being rich and bored is the reason behind Nemesis’s actions begins with an understanding of anomie and how it relates to suicide.

For sociologist Emile Durkheim, society constrains individuals through integration (being attached to socially given purposes and ideals) and regulation (moderating potentially infinite desires and aspirations) (Taylor 11). These moral rules and constraints are tantamount to an imaginary wall around an individual containing their passions. When passions are contained or limited they can be satisfied. ‘Anomie’ which Durkheim he calls a ‘malady of infiniteness’, occurs

when the moral system... is shaken, and fails to respond to new conditions of human life, without any new system having yet been formed to replace that which has disappeared’ (Durkheim 174). 

Essentially there is a breakdown, a mismatch, of social and moral norms. That is, society’s integration and regulation is weak or missing, leaving individuals with a feeling of a lack of guiding principles in their lives. When a society’s moral boundaries are weakened leaving the individual less constrained or lacking in social norms, values or ideals, the individual’s desires and wants are no longer kept in check. Weakened or non-existent barriers permit the individual to ‘devote themselves, without hope of satisfaction, to the pursuit of an end that always eludes them’ (Durkheim 173). An individual’s desires thus become limitless and unable to be satisfied. An example is the accumulation of wealth – ‘it is possible that the more wealth he accumulates, the more dissatisfied he becomes, because the horizon of his ambitions expands’ (Giddens 15). I would argue this is the precise predicament in which Nemesis has found himself. Nemesis is extremely, even obscenely, wealthy. Evidence of this is all the cars he gives to prison inmates on escape from incarceration, the huge mound of drugs he offers his henchmen, and his secret high-tech lair. He doesn’t commit crime for money, he commits crime because he has money. As Durkheim describes ‘it is because morality has the function of limiting and containing that too much wealth so easily becomes a source of immorality. Through the power wealth confers on us, it actually diminishes the power of things to oppose us’ (173). Nemesis’s horizons have become limitless due to his wealth his wants and desires are unable to be satisfied. As the quote suggests, because of his wealth Nemesis has nothing and no-one to oppose him. He may be rich and bored, but he’s bored because he’s rich.


Egoistic Behaviour, Anomie, and Suicide

Durkheim positioned anomie as explaining four kinds of suicide – egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic. Egoistic suicide results when the individual has become detached from his community leading to an excess of individualism and this is strongly depicted in Nemesis. But you may well exclaim, “Nemesis doesn’t commit suicide! Morrow kills him!” True, but this is ‘Suicide by Cop’. Suicide by Cop describes an ‘incident whereby the suicidal subject engages in a consciously, life-threatening behaviour to the degree that it compels a police officer to respond with deadly force' (Stincelli). 

Durkheim states that “Man is the more vulnerable to self-destruction the more he is detached from any collectivity, that is to say, the more he lives as an egoist” (Durkheim 113). Egoists are more likely to commit suicide because ‘they think primarily of their own interests and desires and are not sufficiently integrated into social groups around them’ (Taylor 14). The characteristics of ‘egoistic’ or ‘excessive individualism’ are ‘hedonistic self-fulfilment instead of social solidarity; ruthless pursuit of one’s own interests while using others as a mere “means” in strategic actions’ (Mesner, Thome and Rosenfeld 172). Nemesis exhibits all the traits of an egoist. His wealth is the source of his anomie and seen him become detached from society. He has no social bonds to keep him in check– no partner (sexual or otherwise) –and no family. He doesn’t even have a permanent “gang”, employing new henchmen in every city and then murdering them once he’s finished. 

So how does Nemesis go about achieving his desire of an excessive self-obliteration? Well, Nemesis isn’t the criminal terrorist mastermind we’ve been led to believe. In a neat piece of outsourcing Nemesis buys the role of super-criminal in an elaborately designed real-life roleplaying game. Buying and “acting out” the role of super-criminal is an instance of egoistic behaviour, a ruthless pursuit of his own interests to allay his boredom. Not only is he rich and bored but he’s also devoid of ideas paying a secret organisation that has created the Nemesis super-criminal persona and meticulously planned the campaign of terror, all years in advance. As the letter which Morrow receives at the end of the story states: ‘I run a business, you see, where the rich and the bored can savor adventure for a few short weeks of every year’ (Millar 2011 6). The whole thing resembles an adventure holiday. Graham Dann writes– 

related to anomie, the fantasy world of travel seeks to overcome the humdrum, the normlessness and meaninglessness of life, with more satisfying experiences. As regards ego-enhancement, travel presents the tourist with the opportunity to boost his ego in acting out an alien personality (188).

But this isn’t any holiday­–it’s a holiday from himself (whoever that was before becoming Nemesis), acting out the alien super-criminal personality, which like a pre-rolled roleplaying game character, was ready to go!

However, being a super-criminal in an elaborate game is a waste of time if you have no-one to play with. Playing a game involves a goal: to win. Without competition there can be no definitive “winner”. Nemesis must have an opponent. Luckily the organisation Nemesis has paid has also handpicked his target/opponent, and that someone is Blake Morrow. Nemesis has no grudge (except spurious, invented ones for the game) against Morrow. He’s simply someone to ‘play’ with, in an elaborate, high-stakes game.[i] 

The question then must be asked – if it’s all a game, what constitutes Nemesis winning? On the surface it would appear the killing of Morrow would be the answer, but I am arguing that as a sufferer of anomie, his own death constitutes him winning. The card Nemesis sends to Morrow reads, ‘flatline still counts’. This short statement constitutes a “rule” of the game, a technicality that means ultimately it doesn’t matter if Morrow doesn’t remain dead. That Morrow dies and is resuscitated, means Nemesis still “wins” the game for which he’s paid. On the other hand because Nemesis’s real goal is pursuing an egoistic suicide, if he is killed, he also wins. When Nemesis states: ‘I’ve beaten all of my opponents...’ (Millar 2011 7) this in fact means his suicide attempt has been “defeated”. In issue four Nemesis proclaims –‘I’m too rich to fail. Don’t you understand? People like me never lose!’ (Millar 2011 16) Why? Because either way his underlying desire to die will be achieved. He’s too rich to fail because even if Nemesis had killed Morrow and survived we can safely assume he would continue his reign of terror against another hand-picked opponent, and this would continue until he was killed. Standing trial and incarceration is not an option considering the scale of carnage he has caused. However, the more he “wins” the more he loses. With limitless horizons, Nemesis is unlikely to retire, so like in his rich and bored life, his anomie can’t be excised by killing an ongoing succession of opponents, whoever they may be. If Nemesis keeps “winning” this twisted game can only regress to the level of everything else in his life–a bore. His excessive individualism due to wealth means the only limit, the only goal left, is excessive self-obliteration: death. In death Nemesis is finally “cured” of his anomie, making him eternally happy, evidenced by his grinning “death mask”. Before this he only exhibits the pretence of happiness as shown by his smearing of a massive red grin over his mouth and cheeks. Why doesn’t Nemesis just let himself be shot? The game gives his death meaning. He will be remembered. In the end he has bought himself a legacy.

So why at this particular time does Nemesis decide it’s time to go? The answer lies in the unknown mastermind’s letter to Morrow explaining: ‘my client-list has been growing healthily even in the current financial crisis’ (Millar 2011 23). This is because ‘economic booms or depressions undercut the predictable material goals from which individuals would ordinarily derive satisfaction’ (Orcutt). Thus in times of economic crises the prevalence of anomie increases and suicide rates rise (Taylor 15). In fact it is because of the financial crisis that the client list has been growing.

To a different degree Nemesis’s rampage has also taught Morrow to have limits. Morrow’s family has suffered due to his constant desire for “more”; placing career before his family. By the end of the story he no longer seeks to be the head of Homeland Security and is contented being a father and grandfather. In an ironic twist Nemesis has saved Morrow from anomie.

In conclusion, Nemesis’s excessive wealth has seen him lose sight of any horizon, any goal, and become dissatisfied suffering from anomie. His desires become limitless and thus can never be satisfied. The result of his pursuit of excessive wealth is a detachment from society, and thus Nemesis suffers from an excess of individualism. This leads him down the path of committing egoistic suicide which he achieves by buying the Nemesis character in an elaborately planned “game”. Nemesis’s personal goal is death which ultimately, is the only thing which can “cure” his anomie and make him happy.


Reference 

Dann, Graham. “Anomie, Ego-enhancement, and Fantasy.” Annals of Tourism Research 4.4 (1977): 184-94.

Durkheim, Emile. Emile Durkheim: Selected Writings. Ed. Anthony Giddens. Trans. Anthony Giddens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.

Giddens, Anthony. “Introduction.” Durkheim, Emile. Emile Durkheim: Selected Writings. Ed. Anthony Giddens. Trans. Anthony Giddens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.

Mesner, Steven F., Helmut Thome and Richard Rosenfeld. “Institutions, Anomie, and Violent Crime: Clarifying and Elaborating Institutional-Anomie Theory.” International Journal of Conflict and Violence 2.2 (2008): 163-181.

Millar, Mark (w) and McNiven, Steve (art). Nemesis. Vol. 1 #4 (Feb 2011). New York: Marvel Worldwide, 2011.

—. Nemesis. Vol. 1 #1 (May 2010). New York: Marvel Worldwide, 2010.

Orcutt, James D. “The Anomie Tradition: Explaining Rates of Deviant Behavior.” <http://deviance.socprobs.net/Unit_3/Theory/Anomie.htm>.

Stincelli, Rebecca. “Suicide by Cop Defined.” 2008. Suicide by Cop: Victims from Both Sides of the Badge. <http://www.suicidebycop.com/7922.html>.

Taylor, Steve. Durkheim and the Study of Suicide. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1982.

Footnotes

[i] Supporting that the whole thing is a kind of game is shown in issue one where Nemesis is introduced as ‘Player one’ and Morrow as ‘Player two’.

Review - Nemesis #4 by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven

Millar gives us the final installment (for now) of his twisted supervillain comic Nemesis.

WARNING: Some Spoilers Ahead

With supercop Blake Morrow believing he's found out the identity of the despicable Nemesis, he closes in. Unfortunately it's just another trap in a long line of traps. Morrow finds himself captured alongside his wife and the President of the United States and forced to choose which one to kill. The reason why he's doing all this? Nemesis provides no in-depth reasons. No big statements. No revenge tale. He’s just rich and bored.

Fed up, the President volunteers his life and ends up as human meat all over Nemesis. A knock-down, kick-out the jams fight ensues between Nemesis and Morrow with Morrow coming out the winner. Or does he? As with each issue of this macabre and dirty tale (sometimes dirty enough to make you want to wash your hands after reading) Millar has a wicked sting in the tail.

The Nemesis saga is far from finished.

 

Unlike the previous three issues there’s actually a bit of meat (not just human) to this issue, which for a climax issue there should be. The story is far-fetched, that’s hardly worth saying, but it is done very well. The time frame and planning of the events in the story would be impossible to carry out successfully, but who cares? We’re on a wild ride, we paid our ticket, so let’s scream till we’re hoarse. As usual McNiven’s artwork is outstanding. There’s not much more I can say than what I already have in previous reviews (#1, #2, #3). His depiction of action and carnage is quite stunning. Only familiar with his previous work on Civil War McNiven has become one of my favourite artists.

I mentioned in my review of Nemesis #1 that the trick would be in how Millar would handle who the reader would be cheering for. In other words who holds the moral centre? Initially it’s family man Morrow but as Nemesis extracts his secrets we find Morrow isn’t as pure as we might believe. In fact he’s really just a fallible man who’s made mistakes albeit one who is very good at his job. Nemesis is the bringer of chaos of almost unstoppable force. His attraction lies is in the pure escapist power fantasy he represents.

Cleverly Millar gives both up and downbeat endings to satisfy both parties. Morrow 'wins' in the sense that he defeats and kills Nemesis and unlike normal superhero comics he’s promised he won't be targeted again. He also wins in the idea that he now values his family over his career (a hard lesson taught by Nemesis). Yet he loses as Nemesis managed to kill him - 'flatline still counts'. Nemesis loses - he's killed, but 'wins' because he did manage to kill Morrow. Ultimately it is Morrow who is the hero as he opts to (finally) choose family over career and good-heartedly deal with the lifelong consequences of Nemesis’ actions against his family. Morrow's conundrum is does he go up against the 'next batch of supervillains' armed with the knowledge he's been given? Or is this just further bait? A little knowledge can be dangerous. Let’s wait and see…

This: Most excellent.

Forthcoming: Don’t know when, but I’m in.

Review - Superior #2 by Mark Millar and Leinil Yu

Superior is Millar's attempt to return to more traditional type of comic story, one filled with magic and wonder. In this Millar follows in the footsteps of Kurt Busiek's Astro City and Alan Moore's Tom Strong. This may not seem much of a talking point but since Millar's stories (The Authority, Wanted, Kick-Ass and Nemesis) are generally wall-to-wall blood-filled, over-the-top, action extravaganzas, a little magic and wonder is definitely a different tack for Millar.

I haven't reviewed issue one because, while I bought it, I lost the copy! Where it went...

Anyway here's a quick recap. Issue one saw multiple sclerosis sufferer Simon Pooni granted a wish by Ormon, a talking monkey in spacesuit. The last talking monkey I saw was in Grant Morrison's The Filth - and a foul-mouthed simian he was! Simon's illness has left him wheelchair-bound with his parents having to help bathe and feed him - terribly embarrassing for a budding teenager. Simon is also bullied and spends most of his free time immersing himself in movies. All pretty standard stuff but let's face it, anything with a talking monkey instantly elevates the story to comic book gold! Simon's wish? To become Superior - the superhero star of the Superior movie franchise played by actor Tad Scott. Wah-lah! The monkey grants Simon's wish. This has echoes of Captain Marvel/Billy Batson and smells of adolescent power fantasy. Well, really, which superhero comics aren't adolescent power fantasies... None of it's subtle but Millar doesn't do subtle.

Issue two sees Superior/Simon convincing his friend, Chris, that he's actually Simon in Superior's body. Thankfully we're spared the "I'll tell you something that only you and I know" scene. They test out Superior's super abilities to see if they're the same as the Superior movie character version or the comic book version - some pretty standard "new superhero learns how to use their abilities" stuff, but at least a little amusing. Simon uses his frustration of living with multiple sclerosis to fuel the control of his new powers. The climax sees Superior confronted with his first major disaster. There's also a hint that Simon may not be Superior forever.


As I've come to expect from Millar the story jumps along at a nice clip but like Nemesis I feel that Millar is delivering only just enough per issue. This issue could've been told in half the pages which means we could have double the amount of story! Do we really need half page splashes of Simon/Superior learning to fly? Or him learning to use his supervision?

The issue's high point is Leinil Yu's realistic styled artwork. Each panel is meticulously drawn and striking really producing a big look.

The one thing that was disappointing was the comic's colouring, especially on Superior's face. It just looks heavy-handed at best, amateurish at worst, and takes away from Yu's fine pencil work. Pages with just Yu's pencils are reproduced in the back of the issue showing the detailed and crisp line work.The colouring really obliterates this detail. I'm assuming the colouring has been done digitally I've found this on any number of occasions in comics. It used to be worse, especially in the 1990s when the use of computers and digital imaging was just beginning. Thankfully proficiency and programs have improved but like anything it can be done badly and here, I think it is. I sometimes think that I'd prefer to see the comic printed just as pencils without the coloring.

If there's one other small criticism, while Yu's work is fantastic, the poses Superior strikes are still in the vein of superheroic. There's less conveyance of a young goofy boy in a hulking unfamiliar body. Nothing like how Frank Quitely brilliantly managed to pull off making Clark Kent look completely different, and actually hold his body different, to Superman in All-Star Superman.

Superior #2 is entertaining enough and is setting up the longer story nicely. Millar is one of the superstars of comic writing at the moment and it's easy to see why. He's developed a distinct style in his storytelling - bold in style, big in concept. Millar produces a spectacle, leaving lots of room for his artist to work. Still, I just wish there was more...

This: Solid and interesting
Forthcoming: Why not? Talking monkeys (and ones that grant wishes) are always a drawcard. Let's see where it's going...

Read review of Superior #3

Review: Nemesis #1 and 2, by Mark Millar (writer) and Steve McNiven (art), Icon (Marvel) Comics.

Managed to pick up the first two two issues of uber comic writer Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's creator owned Nemesis at the incredibly excellent Minotaur pop culture shop in Melbourne.

Nemesis is a very nasty man. He has a vendetta against police of all nations having had his very privileged upbringing torn from him when his parents were arrested for running a hunting club. With the father committing suicide and the mother sent to the chair, the young man who'll become Nemesis inherits a massive fortune and travels the world acquiring the skills that will make him a criminal genius. All to eventually to take revenge on Blake Morrow, the cop who "stole his life away".

Nemesis asks the question, basically, what if Batman were a criminal? It reverses the "good guys wear black" to "bad guys wear white" (and it doesn't even add any weight to Nemesis at all).

I have to say I was pretty impressed with these two issues. This sort of storytelling reminds me of the early Image comics, only much better.

Millar hits all the cool points and sets up the Nemesis' motivation cleverly and succinctly. He doesn't waste any time on needless exposition - the mark of an accomplished writer - and heads straight for the action. These action sequences filled with train wrecks, exploding buildings and the required high body count are spectacular and plain over the top, which unfortunately for meant for a fairly quick read, with few pages sporting more than four panels.

Even so there's a lot to get into with McNiven's art (previously combining with Millar for Civil War) verging on stunning. McNiven seems to have pared back his line work since Civil War but the art loses nothing for it. It's detailed and highly individual. I've been going over the panels just taking in the intricacies. There's not one flaw or unnecessary line.

Millar writes in an Afterword that since the Wanted and Kick-Ass movie adaptations there's been many a person sniffing around Nemesis. Whoever gets the gig won't have much work to do in adapting it because whether deliberate or not  Nemesis could easily be translated to the big screen with little trouble. It verily screams "summer blockbuster".

The challenge for Millar will be in making the "everyman" hero cop Blake Morrow more interesting than the supervillain-genius, Nemesis in the too cool all-white costume. Otherwise you won't want him defeated. I mean, this guy is bad - murdering cops and indiscriminately slaughtering civilians by the truckload. But, you know, carnage can be appealing. At this point I think Millar's got it about right with it looking like it's going to a battle of intellect and wits even though there's sure to be more high-stakes action.

These: Highly recommended. Forthcoming: Highly anticipated.