"Wanted" #6...

[Illiterati-migration]

Well?

 

I'm a little surprised that no one has complained about this story yet. It took over a YEAR to produce six issues with an incredibly contrived, dull, Mark Waid-ian anti-climax and NO ONE has anything to say about it?

 

What a colossal disappointment that was.

[(un)cooldude]

I cannot comment, as I haven't gotten a copy to read yet. I never had a chance to pre-order a copy, since that occured about 3 months before my recent return to comicdom!

 

The timeline on releases in this series have been absolutely ridiculous overall, but I've liked the story to date. I've read some other comments on #6, and I think I'm in for some disappointment...which sucks!

 

Ah well, once I actually get a copy, I'll let you know...

[Foolkiller]

I'll comment.

 

I totally agree with MK.

[LastStarfighter]

Snow storm last two days kept me away from the LCS and this is a comic I've "wanted" for a very long time!! Will let you know tonight or tomorrow afternoon what I think about it. The wait between 5 and 6 was ridiculous and hurt this title's momentum big time.

[Canadian Machine]

I was greatly disappointed in issue #6. After I read it I thought "thats it?!?". We waited months and this is how the story ends. Dont get me started on the variant covers that were released with issue #6.

[NeuroZombie-migration]

I just got a copy and agree 100%. This is by far the biggest letdown, [#@$%!!!] ending that I have ever read in my life. I have seen better climaxes in childrens stories, to be honest. Totally [#@$%!!!]-tastic in every way. Now for my real opinion...

[Robert]

I agree 100% with MK as well. This was even worse than IC #7.

[Illiterati-migration]

Whew... well, fellas, I'm glad I'm not alone! I'm starting to wonder if comic books aren't severely lagging (once again) in their level of "narrative sophistication". It seemed like there were a number of quality writers working in comics for a while, but maybe they're all burning out?

 

Is it possible that after a few years writing comics, writers simply exhaust all the creative possibilities in terms of standard "Story" (note capital "s") structure? Maybe that's why we see once-quality writers (Millar, Bendis, Straczynski, and to a lesser extent, Winick) stagnate and ultimately crash-and-burn.

 

I would think it to be very difficult for a writer to reconcile his/her creative urgings with the demons of continuity, mass appeal, and more than anything, a sense of originality in a medium where very literally almost everything has been done before.

[SpideySense-migration]

If you take away writing it wasn't a half bad comic.

[Illiterati-migration]

If you take away writing it wasn't a half bad comic.

 

But if comic books are half writing and half artwork (and in terms of the aesthetic values of a comic, they are), and you take away the writing, it could only possibly be half good... and the art wasn't THAT fantastic.

 

So maybe it wasn't half bad, but it was also only like, one-quarter or one-third good.

[SpideySense-migration]

If you take away writing it wasn't a half bad comic.

 

But if comic books are half writing and half artwork (and in terms of the aesthetic values of a comic, they are), and you take away the writing, it could only possibly be half good... and the art wasn't THAT fantastic.

 

So maybe it wasn't half bad, but it was also only like, one-quarter or one-third good.

 

I read it last night and here was my conclusion. It was written in such a way to leave the reader wanting. Like, possibly wanting a better ending to the story. I think it was Millar's way of being extremely sarcastic and basically saying FU to the reader. Thanks for buying my comic sucker.

[Illiterati-migration]

If you take away writing it wasn't a half bad comic.

 

But if comic books are half writing and half artwork (and in terms of the aesthetic values of a comic, they are), and you take away the writing, it could only possibly be half good... and the art wasn't THAT fantastic.

 

So maybe it wasn't half bad, but it was also only like, one-quarter or one-third good.

 

I read it last night and here was my conclusion. It was written in such a way to leave the reader wanting. Like, possibly wanting a better ending to the story. I think it was Millar's way of being extremely sarcastic and basically saying FU to the reader. Thanks for buying my comic sucker.

 

I think that's a very generous interpretation. In fact, endings like that are typically more "cop-outs" than the product of actual well-crafted stories. I think Millar ran into the "Everything's Cliche" paradox and he opted for the sassiest escape hatch he could find.

[Robert]

Whew... well, fellas, I'm glad I'm not alone! I'm starting to wonder if comic books aren't severely lagging (once again) in their level of "narrative sophistication". It seemed like there were a number of quality writers working in comics for a while, but maybe they're all burning out?

 

Is it possible that after a few years writing comics, writers simply exhaust all the creative possibilities in terms of standard "Story" (note capital "s") structure? Maybe that's why we see once-quality writers (Millar, Bendis, Straczynski, and to a lesser extent, Winick) stagnate and ultimately crash-and-burn.

 

I would think it to be very difficult for a writer to reconcile his/her creative urgings with the demons of continuity, mass appeal, and more than anything, a sense of originality in a medium where very literally almost everything has been done before.

 

I think the problem for at least two of the writers listed - Bendis, Millar - is that they are textbook one-trick-ponies.

[jduran1]

I was shocked at how bad this issue was. Especially waiting as long as we did Where did all the hype for this particular issue come from ? What am I missing.

[500]

Dear Mr. Millar,

 

I just wanted to write to you and tell you how much your comic series, "Wanted" has changed my life for the better. You see, I, much like everyone else that read the series waited months for the final two issues. It was so cool how you changed everything in the comic in issues 5 and 6. Like, remember how you had the Professor tell Wesley that Mr. Rictus would eat him for breakfast, but in the end Rictus went down faster than a Times Square hooker. Another one of my favorites was when Sucker confronted Wesley and Fox. Since Sucker had stolen all those awesome powers I thought the reader would get to see a nail-biting action scene, but once again you surprised your readers by simply having Sucker's powers run out and we got to see him fall to his death without Wesley having to even pull the trigger once. Then, at the end of issue five, simply outstanding. I could not believe the return of the orginal Killer, that was like the only time, in all the comics I have ever read, that a character actually came back from his supposed death, and you did it in five issues too!

Then issue six came, totally life changing. I was expecting some kind of dramatic confrontation between Wesley and his Dad, maybe even Fox, I even had the fantastic idea that it was a superhero revolution, but you pulled the rug right out from under my feet. They walked around and talked about how hot Wesley's mom was, and then Wesley got to shoot his Dad in the head. But you didn't stop there. After reading Wesley's final salute to the reader, I cried. I realized how pathetic I was for eating fast food, for buying dvds, and all that other [#@$%!!!]. I think it must have happened when I was a kid. I was brainwashed by my parents and teachers who told me I could do whatever I wanted. Now, I realize that they were just a bunch of liars and phonies, because I can't shoot and rape random people like Wesley can. So with my new-found principles I decided to become more like Wesley, but the problem is that I don't have a gun. So I've had to put up with kicking things until I can buy my guns. I've gotten pretty good at it, the first day I kicked a rock at this dude's car. He got out of it and yelled, but I was already half a block away and he never caught me. The second day I had worked my way up to kicking cats and dogs, and this one little kid playing in a sandbox, when I came across this karate dojo. I figured it was a great place to hone my kicking skills so I went in and signed up. I figure I have super kicking powers cause I took down my sensei in one swift kick to the crotch and he's a 3rd degree black belt.

So anyways, I guess I'll keep kicking people even after I get my guns. But I really can't wait for my guns cause then I can really be free like Wesley cause I'll just be able to shoot everyone like Whitey and Carnies.

 

Thank You Again,

P. Loser

 

P.S. I thought it was sweet how you guys drew Wesley like Eminem so he can play Wesley when the movie comes out.

 

P.P.S. I noticed Marvel has your name as the writer for Wolverine, I don't know if you are mixed up, or Marvel is cause every time I pick up a Wolverine comic I think I'm reading Elektra.

[chrisco37]

Read it this morning and couldn't agree more. Lame! Lame! Lame!

 

Could it have been anymore cliched? It's not like the final issue was rushed (how many weeks was it delayed???). The art even looked rushed.

 

Extremely disappointing. I think I'm done with buying mini-series.

 

It seems that comics, in general, have started to suffer from lack of quality. When I returned to the hobby (almost 3 years ago now), there were so many consistantly good titles. In the past 6 months, most of the titles I collect have dropped off in entertainment value.

 

Thank god for 100 Bullets. If you are looking for a book that won't insult your intelligence or make you feel like you've wasted your money and time, that's your book.

[helionaut]

I guess I'm in the severe minority in enjoying issue 6 more than the previous 5. I can see now that, tactically, the series was about some freaky villains and evil stuff Millar enjoys writing about. Strategically, though, it was a statement on the last 20 years of comics. The story, as it was, was going nowhere because it could go nowhere. If there is no conflict, if there are no heroes, if there is no conflict between "good and evil" for lack of better terms, then there's not going to be much of a story. Like a story on Earth X or the Bizzaro world, without the regular heroes appearing, normal goals don't apply, so how can we enjoy or even understand a story centered solely on them? Do you enjoy watching supervillains kill muggles just because they can? The motivating factors for the series through the first 5 issues were to see Wesley come into his own as the world's greatest assassin or whatever. There was a very uninvolved mystery over what happened to his father. There was the power struggle between all the major crime figures, but I don't think we were really supposed to care about all that in the overall. The final issue showed the whole series to be a metaphor for what's happened to comics since Dark Knight. The arrival of the anti-hero as protagonist, cool as some might be, has pretty much washed away all that went before, as shown in this comic. Reading DK compared to, say Detective comics of the 60s, you'd be hard-pressed to see them as the same character, as though all had been erased and redrawn and reinvented.

 

So while I guess I'd have to say that I was underwhelmed by the series, that could be the lag-time annoyance talking. Coming back to it in a year or so and reading all 6 in a row I think I might find more going on than what I got out of it the first time.

[LastStarfighter]

Horrendous. Appalling. Disgusting. Perhaps the single worst final panel in any comic...ever. I am beyond disappointed in this piece of trash. This garbage should never have even been printed. For anyone who has not read the issue, let me summarize by saying that the last two pages go off on the reader about how much of a pssy loser we all are and how comics only provide a momentary 15 minute relief from how hard they (the secret society of villians) are enslaving us at our jobs. We (as readers) are "killing [ourselves] working twelve-hour days, getting fat on cheap take-out food, and {our} girlfriends [are] almost certainly other guys. Just because you've got a plasma screen TV and a big DVD collection doesn't mean you're a free man, mother . You're just a well-paid slave like all the other cattle out there. Even this comic was just a fifteen minute respite from how hard we're working you...You're just going to close this book and buy something else to fill that big, empty void we've created in your life."

And then the last full-page panel which has a gross eminem character face yelling "This is my face while I'm f you in the a ."

 

I am completely insulted with this writing and story. Actually ill. I have never been this insulted by the comic medium EVER. How dare this guy insult his readers and fans like this.

 

I will never buy a Millar book again. I think a lot of you would agree with me if you saw this. He is a first class jerk.

 

I am now ashamed to say I was ever a fan of this trash. Screw you Millar.

[NewtSamson]

I think the real question is which of the four different covers did you like best on Wanted #6?

[LastStarfighter]

They only had two at the LCS, both sucked. The Rictus and Sh-thead covers with giant red X's. Terrible lame-o covers.