Wanted (2005)

A friend of mine recently told me that the movie (with Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman) was better than this book. I had liked the movie, but I was skeptical, because how often does a movie version improve things? By my count, only twice so far (that would be The Prestige and The Children of Men). When I picked this up from the library, I briefly flipped through it and noticed that the Angelina Jolie character is actually black in the book. Oh Hollywood, I thought, you are so white and offensive (Jake Gyllenhaal as the Prince of Persia, anyone?).

Then I read the book, and I thought, well, maybe I should revise my opinion on how Hollywood dealt with this one.

The whole book is just this mad mess. The main character is purposely drawn to look like Eminem, for God's sake. Between that and a character made out of poop (so unexpectedly (/sarcasm) named "Shithead") and the way rape and murder are presented as something really cool because if you're not doing that, then you're just a cubicle drone, I felt like I was reading something written by a 14-year-old.

There are elements that are shaky and undeveloped - what was up with the brief mentions of the alternate universes that they could travel to? And the supervillains are free to do what they want because they got rid of the superheroes, but they can't do whatever they want because superheroes from other universes might cross over and stop them? And according to the author, he only intended to have the supervillains in their costumes for one panel, but then he forgot and they ended up being in their costumes for the whole book. He forgot? How much attention was he really giving this thing? I feel like there's probably something to analyze in here, but it's just out of reach in the mess. ( )

3.5 really, but 4 because of the awesome artwork. Brilliant idea, but average execution. ( )

I enjoy graphic novels, simply because they are very easy to read and I love the art work and story telling mix. I just finished Wanted which was the combination of the six comics into one graphic novel. Yes, there was a movie based on it, which started with a white Angelina Jolie (I know she is always white but the character she played…not so much). The only common elements between the Graphic Novel and the book were their names and the fact that Wesley’s dad died and he finally learned about his father.

The story follows the story of Wesley Gibson (The Killer) who ends up been apart of Secret Society of Super-Villains. The story is gruesome and politically incorrect version of the standard ‘Lost Mans discovery of himself.’ Wesley looks too much like Eminem but the rest of the art work was really good with some very interesting looking Villains and no superheros. It was an interested twist on a basic story line, but full of action and disturbing elements to keep me interested. ( )

I didn't really care for the art, and at times it felt too derivative (was it really necessary for the characters to be obvious fill-ins for actual comic book villains?). Even so, this is a fun read that succeeds in its mission to thrust Fight Club into the superhero universe. The story moves at a good pace without taking itself too seriously, and it pulls off some clever ideas with panache. ( )

This book was given to me by someone who was a big fan of it for whatever reason, and now I'm constantly trying to dodge questions from him about what I thought. I tried to like it, I really did. However, I found that I just did not enjoy reading this very much. The artwork was very nice (though the main character looks just like Eminem), but Millar's writing is simply lacking. There's not enough character development or story development to really justify the violence and crudeness that runs rampant: it's just violence for its own sake. This wouldn't inherently be a problem, except that Mr. Millar executes it so poorly. It feels more like the passive release of his repressed adolescent aggression than a coherent narrative. I'm not a fan. All the points it gets come from the artwork and definitely not from the writing. ( )