''Millar & McNiven's Nemesis'' is a
creator-owned
In the United States, creator ownership in comics is an arrangement in which the comic book creator retains full ownership of the material, regardless of whether the work is self-publishing, self-published or published by a corporate publisher.
I ...
comic book
A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...
limited series
In the field of comic books, and particularly in the United States, a limited series is a comics series with a predetermined number of issues. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is finite and determined ...
written by
Mark Millar
Mark Millar (; born 24 December 1969) is a Scottish comic book writer who first came to prominence with a run on the superhero series ''The Authority (comics), The Authority'', published by DC Comics' Wildstorm imprint. Millar has written ext ...
, drawn by
Steve McNiven
Steven McNiven is a Canadians, Canadian comic book artist. He first gained prominence on CrossGen's ''Meridian (comics), Meridian'', before moving onto books such as ''Ultimate Secret'', ''Marvel Knights 4'', The New Avengers (comics), ''New Aven ...
and published by the
Icon Comics
Icon Comics was an imprint of Marvel Comics for creator-owned titles, designed to keep select "A-list" creators producing for Marvel rather than seeing them take creator-owned work to other publishers.
History
Icon Comics was launched in 200 ...
imprint of
Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics is a New York City–based comic book publishing, publisher, a property of the Walt Disney Company since December 31, 2009, and a subsidiary of Disney Publishing Worldwide since March 2023. Marvel was founded in 1939 by Martin G ...
.
Two
Image Comics
Image Comics is an independent American American comic book, comic book publisher and is the third largest direct market comic book and graphic novel publisher in the industry by market share. Its best-known publications include ''Spawn (comics) ...
-published sequels followed: ''
Nemesis: Reloaded'', and ''
Big Game'' (both 2023), with a two further sequels, ''
Nemesis: Rogues Gallery'' and ''
Nemesis: Forever'', published by
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book, graphic novel, manga and Artist's book, art book publisher founded in Milwaukie, Oregon, by Mike Richardson in 1986. The company was created using funds earned from Richardson's chain of Portland, O ...
in 2024 and 2025 respectively.
Publication history
The publicity was launched in October 2009, with a teaser image containing the caption "What if
Batman
Batman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. Batman was created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in Detective Comics 27, the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on M ...
was the
Joker?" and in a subsequent interview Millar revealed that it was only one of a number of possible lines they went with, his favourite being "What if Batman was a total cunt?"
This caused concern at
DC Comics
DC Comics (originally DC Comics, Inc., and also known simply as DC) is an American comic book publisher owned by DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for "Detective Comics", an American comic book seri ...
, the publisher of Batman, but Millar denied there had been threats of legal action:
The series also gained pre-publication attention when Millar auctioned the right to name the main policeman character, something he had done with ''
Kick-Ass''. The winning bid was $8,500 and, as with the previous auction, proceeds went to the charity run by Mark Millar's brother Dr. Bobby Millar which helps children with special needs. It proved so successful that the real name of the main supervillain character was also auctioned off.
In 2017, a
one-shot
One shot may refer to:
Film and television
* One-shot film, a feature film shot in one long take with no edits, or manufactured to look like so
* ''One Shot'' (2005 film), a Sri Lankan action film directed by Ranjan Ramanayake
* ''One Shot'', a ...
, ''Nemesis: We are Nemesis'', written by Steve Lawrence and illustrated by Marcelo Salazo, was published by
Image Comics
Image Comics is an independent American American comic book, comic book publisher and is the third largest direct market comic book and graphic novel publisher in the industry by market share. Its best-known publications include ''Spawn (comics) ...
as part of the ''Millarworld New Talent Annual 2017'', an
anthology
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and g ...
annual
Annual may refer to:
*Annual publication, periodical publications appearing regularly once per year
**Yearbook
**Literary annual
*Annual plant
*Annual report
*Annual giving
*Annual, Morocco, a settlement in northeastern Morocco
*Annuals (band), a ...
consisting of one-shot specials containing winning entries from the online contest for up-and-coming creators held by Millar in 2016. Set during the events of ''Nemesis'', the story is told from the perspective of one of Nemesis' followers.
A follow-up miniseries, titled ''
Nemesis: Reloaded'', launched in January 2023 with Jorge Jimenez serving as artist, with the series serving as a soft reboot of the character, helping to better integrate the character into the greater Millarworld
shared universe
A shared universe or shared world is a fictional universe from a set of creative works where one or more writers (or other artists) independently contribute works that can stand alone but fits into the joint development of the storyline, charact ...
, with a new Matthew "Nemesis" Anderson being trained by Wesley "The Killer II" Gibson. Following the conclusion of ''Reloaded'', Nemesis then appeared in ''
Big Game'', a crossover with every
Millarworld
Millarworld Limited is an imprint of comic books published by Scottish comic book writer Mark Millar as a creator-owned line, featuring characters created by him in a shared fictional universe, the Millarworld, or Millarverse. These characters ...
property illustrated by Pepe Larraz in July the same year. In December 2023, it was revealed that Millar had signed a deal with
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book, graphic novel, manga and Artist's book, art book publisher founded in Milwaukie, Oregon, by Mike Richardson in 1986. The company was created using funds earned from Richardson's chain of Portland, O ...
to become the new publisher of the Millarworld titles, including a new ''Nemesis'' series, ''Nemesis: Rogues' Gallery'', written by Millar with Valerio Giangiordano serving as artist, released in July 2024, and a fourth series written by Millar, ''Nemesis: Forever''.
Plot synopsis
The
supervillain
A supervillain, supervillainess or supercriminal is a major antagonist and variant of the villainous stock character who possesses Superpower (ability), superpowers. The character type is sometimes found in comic books and is often the primary ...
Nemesis destroys a building in
Tokyo
Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
, killing a
SWAT
A SWAT (''Special Weapons and Tactics'') team is a generic term for a police tactical unit within the United States, though the term has also been used by other nations.
SWAT units are generally trained, equipped, and deployed to res ...
team and a police inspector. In
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
informs metro police Chief Inspector Blake Morrow that Nemesis is targeting him next. He is given a card reading "Blake Morrow, March 12th at midnight, Flatline still counts". Morrow has his family put in protective custody. Nemesis hijacks
Air Force One
Air Force One is the official air traffic control-designated Aviation call signs, call sign for a United States Air Force aircraft carrying the president of the United States. The term is commonly used to denote U.S. Air Force aircraft modifie ...
over the
District of Columbia
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...
, taking the
United States president
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed For ...
hostage and crashing the plane into Washington D.C., killing hundreds. Nemesis makes an international broadcast, revealing the President hostage in front of him.
Nemesis reveals to his henchmen that his real name is Matt Anderson, and his father had committed suicide after Morrow tried to imprison him for hunting runaway teenagers with his rich friends. Bored of well-behaviour and less excitement, Anderson travelled the world to learn the ways of crime, hoping to fulfil his mother's dying wish to have Morrow killed.
[''Nemesis'' #2]
Nemesis kills twenty-thousand people at the
Pentagon
In geometry, a pentagon () is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is 540°.
A pentagon may be simple or list of self-intersecting polygons, self-intersecting. A self-intersecting ...
using poison gas while Morrow is there but Morrow and his partner Stuart survive. Nemesis appears in front of them and Morrow and Stuart fire, but Nemesis is behind bullet-proof glass. He reveals he put the antidote in their morning coffee in order to taunt Morrow about the inspector's projected March 12 death. Police capture Nemesis, who claims he allowed himself to be caught.
Nemesis' henchmen have already infiltrated the prison. Nemesis breaks free, kills 97 guards with his bare hands, and frees the inmates, and then destroys the prison. He kidnaps Morrow's children, forcing Morrow to reveal secrets: his wife had an affair; his son is gay; and his daughter had a secret abortion. All of these secrets were kept from him as Morrow is a devoted Catholic. Nemesis releases the children but he has artificially inseminated Morrow's daughter with the son's sperm, with her womb rigged to collapse if an abortion is attempted. An enraged Morrow eventually believes he has discovered Nemesis' hideout and arrives there with a police team, only to find it is a trap. The house explodes, knocking Morrow unconscious. When Morrow awakens, Nemesis reveals that Stuart has been working for him. Stuart reveals Nemesis promised to pay him $10 million for his work and tells Morrow that Nemesis' henchmen retire after every job. Nemesis shoots and kills Stuart and jokingly says: "Well, that's one way of putting it". Nemesis reveals that his "Matthew Anderson" story was made up: he is simply rich and bored, creating death and havoc for his own amusement. The real Matthew Anderson died in an Indian whorehouse, after squandering his inheritance.
Nemesis reveals they are in the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...
's
Oval Office
The Oval Office is the formal working space of the president of the United States. Part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, it is in the West Wing of the White House, in Washington, D.C.
The oval room has three lar ...
, where Morrow's wife Peggy and the U.S. president have bombs strapped to their chests. With the staff and
Secret Service
A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For i ...
agents killed, and Nemesis gives Morrow a detonator and tells him he has thirty seconds to kill either the president or his family. With four seconds left, the president steps-up to Nemesis and tells Morrow to detonate his bomb, which he does. Nemesis survives the blast, and in a final confrontation, he and Morrow shoot each other. Morrow kills Nemesis with a headshot, but Morrow is injured from a shot to the stomach and is taken to a hospital. He
flatlines during the surgery but survives, during the surgery Morrow's son goes through his wallet looking at family photos and finding the card from Nemesis, and the clock shows midnight. The scene ends with a dead Nemesis, with part of his head missing and a big smile. As the series concludes, Morrow is on a beach during a vacation with his family, including his newborn triplet granddaughters. There he is given a letter, ostensibly given to the waiter ten years earlier, congratulating Morrow and claiming to be from the head of a company that arranges for rich people to become supervillains. The comic ends with the owner of the company (revealed as an older
Wesley Gibson in ''
Nemesis: Reloaded'') sitting on the beach, enjoying the sunset. Although Nemesis is dead, it is likely that a new supervillain will rise.
Reception

Greg McElhatton of ''
Comic Book Resources
''CBR'', formerly ''Comic Book Resources'', is a news website primarily covering comic book news, comic book reviews, and comic book–related topics involving movies, television, anime, and video games. It is owned by Valnet, parent of publicat ...
'' gave the first issue a 1 out of 5. He said Millar's script "feels stale from start to finish ... moving through the paces at a plodding speed with nothing out of the ordinary. I wish I could say it was because Millar had tried to trade in over-the-top antics for subtlety, but
t'salmost like someone else was trying to figure out what made Millar's comics popular and then throwing most of the tricks out without bothering to replace them with anything else". He found artist McNiven's work uninteresting and McCaig's colors muted and slightly dull.
Dan Phillips of ''
IGN
''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...
'' gave the premiere issue an "Okay" score of 6 out of 10. He was disappointed by the artwork, saying it accentuates the shortcomings of Millar's script, finding McNiven's minimalistic style less impressive than his work on ''
Old Man Logan
Old Man Logan is an alternative version of the superhero Wolverine appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. This character is an aged version of Wolverine set in an alternate future universe in which the supervillains overth ...
''.
Phillips gave issue #3 the same score, describing the comic as "somewhat entertaining" but "not the least bit clever, witty, tasteful, sophisticated or original". He complains about the lack of depth to this
high concept
High concept is a type of artistic work that can be easily pitched with a succinctly stated premise. It can be contrasted with low concept, which is more concerned with character development and other subtleties that are not as easily summariz ...
story, seeing it only as an excuse for the next violent spectacle. He concludes that readers should skip the series unless they are die-hard fans of Millar's work.
Nicholas Yanes of SciFiPulse.net called the premiere issue "fantastic" and argued that while the series lacked heart in comparison with Millar's ''
Kick-Ass'', "this works to point out that the real world is not run by good intentions, but by selfish motivations, ego, and pride. Moreover, the stability that people apply to modern society is as much a construct as the buildings that
terrorist can so easily bring down".
Collected editions
The series has been collected into the
single volume ''Nemesis'' (112 pages, hardcover, February 2011, ).
Film
The rights to make a ''Nemesis'' film were optioned by
20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the ...
.
Tony Scott
Anthony David Leighton Scott (21 June 1944 – 19 August 2012) was a British film director and producer.
He made his theatrical film debut with ''The Hunger (1983 film), The Hunger'' (1983) and went on to direct highly successful action and t ...
was set to direct it before his death, in conjunction with his Scott Free production company. In 2010
Joe Carnahan
Joseph Aaron Carnahan (born May 9, 1969) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and actor whose films include '' Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane''; '' Narc''; '' Smokin' Aces''; ''The A-Team''; '' The Grey''; and '' Boss Level''. He ...
was reportedly working on the screenplay for the film. Carnahan was confirmed as the director two years later, also as a writer of the script with his brother
Matthew Carnahan. Later in December, Carnahan said via Twitter that he was indeed working on the screenplay for the film. Mark Millar has seen the script for ''Nemesis'' in Autumn 2013 and has given praise to Joe and Matthew's take on his comic book character, stating the film is going to be "massive". The script by Joe Carnahan was finished in February 2015. Millar said if ''
Kingsman: The Secret Service'' did well at the box office, the film might start filming that year. The rights however lapsed and in August the same year
Warner Bros
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American film studio, filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios Burbank, Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and th ...
acquired them to adapt it. In May 2021, Millar revealed that
Emerald Fennell
Emerald Lilly Fennell (; born 1 October 1985) is an English actress, filmmaker, and writer. She has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, and nominations for three Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe ...
had written the latest draft of the screenplay.
Notes
References
*
External links
*
*
{{Mark Millar
Fictional mass murderers
Image Comics male supervillains
Marvel Comics limited series
Marvel Comics male supervillains
Parodies of Batman
Supervillain comics