Posted in: Movies | Tagged: captain america, Captain America: Civil War, civil war, Mark Millar, marvel

Mark Millar — Mark Freaking Millar — Thought Captain America: Civil War Was Too "Bleak"

Mark Millar, the man who objectively ruined superhero comics by penning the first Civil War and setting Marvel down the path of heroes fighting heroes in never-ending super-mega-crossover events until none of the heroes are likeable anymore, penned an essay on his blog listing his top ten movies of the year, as well as calling out some things he didn't like. In case we're not being clear, we're talking about Ultimates writer Mark Millar, yes, Mark Millar. The guy who gave us this:

Millar, whose movie pitches comic book ideas tend to ask questions like "what if Batman was the Joker," taking an already dark character and making him even darker, apparently felt that one Marvel movie in particular was a little too "bleak" for his tastes. The movie in question was Captain America: Civil War, which, ironically enough, is based in large part on ideas from the comic he himself wrote in 2006 (though, in fairness, if a comic he writes doesn't get a movie deal before the first issue comes out, he probably stops paying attention).

About the film, Millar wrote:

Civil War had a good opening twenty mins, but then I honestly can't remember what the movie was about. It's interesting the Russos have a background in comedy because it's really missing in these otherwise well-made pictures and very, very missed. I really hope this bleakness doesn't extend into their two Avengers pictures because what made that first Avengers work was the light as well as shade and I'll be sad if that's all lost like it was in this picture.

This isn't the first time Millar has incredulously panned a comic book movie for being too dark. In fact, Millar even once enjoyed dark superhero films, until he saw Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, which was so grim, so gritty, so dark, that even Millar — Mark Freaking Millar — was forced to reevaluate his superhero worldview.

Last November, Millar wrote:

You see, I love cartoonish ultra-violence as much as the next Glaswegian (see this year's Kingsman: the Secret Service where Colin Firth takes down 100 fundamentalists in a Southern Baptist church), but at the same time I also feel we need a little balance. In amongst all these very dark, angst-ridden and sometimes very serious superhero movies that have made Hollywood a lot of money over the last fifteen years I'm sensing a need for a little hope too, a little LESS super-cool bad-assery. This really hit me hardest, I think, when I was watching Henry Cavill's turn as Superman in Zack Snyder's Man of Steel a couple of years back.

[…]

But Summer 2013 as I sat there on Father's Day and saw Superman beating the bad guy by twisting his neck so hard he broke it and murdered him I really wondered if we'd come to the end of that particular road.

[…]

This was Superman. This was like seeing Sylvester the Cat finally getting his hands on Speedy Gonzales. Elmer Fudd blowing away Bugs Bunny. I loved Superman as a kid not because of his edginess or his potential for a fatal solution, but because he could do anything he wanted and still chose to be nice. This was always the moral of a superhero comic to me.

It's not that we don't agree with you, Mark Millar. Because we do. But dammit… this is at least partially your fault!

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