Millar and Quitely's Jupiter's Legacy #1

[superboyprime]

"Joe Casey and Piotr Kowalski are easily out-filthing us with their new book Sex, my old friends Steve Niles and Tony Harris bring the horror with Chin Music, Millar and Quitely finally deliver their superhero epic Jupiter's Children, we get more Hickman and Dragotta brilliance with East of West, and Greg Rucka/Michael Lark's Lazarus looks fucking amazing. Five fantastic books, and the only thing they have in common is being 100% owned and controlled by the writers and artists who created them. Nice one, [Image publisher Eric] Stephenson." - Brian K. Vaughan

Comments

[freezer]

So... Infinity Inc.: Generation Y?

[glprime]

Nailed it.

[michaelhealy]

So bets that the short haired old guy pulls an Authority in the near future?

[comicoz]

He did already, and finished the coup in October's issue. The issue shown here came out in April

[korvar]

I'm always confused by this notion that superheroes are defined purely by their villains. Are there no natural disasters for these superpowered folks to rescue people from? I mean, there's a brief mention of a house fire rescue, but that's it.

[icon_uk]

You can't really demonstrate much in the way of your personality when faced with an implacable, inanimate force of nature. Another person is something that allows sparks to fly.

[michaelhealy]

From a meta-perspective certainly. In universe it makes little sense for (anti-)heroes to complain about lame villains when there are earthquakes and hurricanes to save people from that would put them in just as much spotlight and let them do just as much good.

[wizardru]

I disagree. Seeing superheroes stand up to the challenges of natural disasters and those kind of threats could be thrilling and interesting, if written well. There's plenty of opportunity to play off of each other, 'normal' rescue workers, civilians and officials. The Utopian can move a mountain, but how does he help the 80 year-old man who refuses to leave his cabin when Mount St. Helens is threatening to explode? What can Miss Liberty do when a local official refuses to grant an access visa for refugees from a mudslide?

An example being when Kid Flash had to get a heart transplant across the country during a blizzard in Young Justice. There are plenty of ways this could be interesting, but it takes some effort on the part of the writer. But that IS their job. :)

[halloweenjack]

So... this "fantastic book" has superheroes-as-celebrities, superheroes debating whether they should get involved in the real problems, and yet another real-life-celebrity lookalike with whomever Russell Brand is supposed to be. It's really a shame that Frank Quitely isn't working with someone with at least a speck of originality, unless he just wants to try to remake the Authority and get a better share of it this time.

[jlbarnett]

how about a book where a superhero tries to change the world, not through directs threats or conquest, but doing things like letting dictators know it's very hard to hide things from them and they don't like gulags and mass executions

[donnblake]

Something like a Super Amnesty International could be interesting. On the other hand, given Amnesty International and dictators both exist in the real world, it's hard to see how much Superheroes could accomplish without direct action.

[jlbarnett]

well, assume the hero does things like stop villains, save the world from aliens.

"Did you see much punch that ten ton rock monster to pieces? Are you a ten ton rock monster?"

Just the insinuation that "You don't want me personally, as your enemy."

[fifthie]

Oppressive dictators don't typically get to be oppressive dictators by caving to implicit threats

[halloweenjack]

Still sounds like an implicit threat.

[jlbarnett]

well, yes. I said no direct threats.

[espanolbot]

Could go with the International Rescue route, a private organisation that is able to respond to threats as they happen both around the world and off it due to a complex system of satellite and media observation. No one gets punched, just people saving people from industrial accidents, natural disasters and the occasional instance of human error/malice (nuclear meltdowns and the like).

Then they could have drama from when they decide to get involved in using pacification tech on war zones that they aren't technically cleared to go into, which leads to debates as to whether humanitarian actions by a nebulous organisation is just another form of imperialism.

[jlbarnett]

I'm mostly interested in if heroes could have a positive effect on the world by forcing dictators to not be able to use their tactics.

In the real world the lack of desire to go to war in distant lands that don't directly affect you can give them cover from consequences.

[espanolbot]

Hm, could work as a story about an independant journalism group, I guess. Like a benevolent version of the bad guy from Tomorrow Never Dies.

[jlbarnett]

at least this one has the hero pointing out the obvious, the superpowers doesn't make them economic geniuses.

[espanolbot]

A lesson Reed Richards knows all too well, particularly since he went bankrupt that one time.

[fifthie]

Reed Richards presumably is an economic genius, in which case he knows the related lesson that being an economic genius doesn't necessarily make you any good at managing your personal finances.

[razsolo]

I like this a lot more than I expected to!

[qalchemist]

Ditto! I may have to pick up an issue or two to see if I like it in full.

[mrstatham]

This, like Superior, is a lot better than I expected from Millar. I'm... I'm actually vaguely curious. There's still the bullshit endorsement of stuff that reeks of Millar looking for his next movie deal, but unlike Nemesis or whatever, this doesn't feel like something that could easily be turned into a film.

[espanolbot]

I think that it sounds interesting as well, from these scans at least these seem to be people with genuinely good intentions rather than people with superpowers who revel in being "better" than other people, or enjoying how they can do whatever they want with no consequences (like his version of the Authority, or the villains in the Boys).

[junipepper]

Granted, it's not 100% different from anything that's ever been done before, but so what? I thought the question of second and third generation heroes was interesting in Kingdom Come; I still find it interesting, and there's certainly room in the world for more explorations of it. I could get into this, I think, depending mainly on how the characters develop. We don't have enough here yet to come to any conclusions. I'm holding at 'mildly optimistic,' and my thanks to the OP for sharing it here.

[mrosa]

Where does the BKV quote come from?

[superboyprime]

Saga's letter column. Why do you ask?

[wizardru]

This is...OK. It's not bad, not great. I feel like this ground has been trod multiple times, but this isn't really bringing much to the table that hasn't already been done, by these very same creators, even. I mean, the whole 'young superheroes partying and railing against silver age attitudes' was done by them in The Authority several years ago, with the continual partying and such. Likewise the 'we are super powerful but we stand back and do nothing' stuff.

The thing is, I don't see anything about this take that feels like it's offering something that isn't just rehashing existing material without adding anything new. I don't know that it has to do that, but it feels like it should to me.

[fifthie]

Oh look, millar's shitting on Young People And Their Texting while jacking off to his fantasy that he was part of the WWII generation and not yet another worthless dickheaded boomer.