Geek Of The Week : Super Crooks
I Think Its Time To Get The Old Gang Back Together
Super Crooks from Millar World, and published by Icon, a Marvel imprint, is shaping up to be an Ocean’s Eleven type of caper with super villains. Johnny Bolt runs with a group of fairly low level super crooks. They may have enough juice to put them over on the local authorities, but when it comes to handling heroes like The Gladiator, they’re over powered and out classed.
This leads the crooks into a routine of trying to pull off heist, and then being captured and thrown in jail. Jump ahead a few years and these former super criminals are attempting to work mundane jobs and live normal, boring lives. Lives that forbid them from using their powers. Of course for some its hard to walk the straight path.
Carmine, a.k.a The Heat, an old-time costumed bank robber tries to build up a retirement fund by cheating a casino. Using a psychic that can see 30 seconds into the future to feed him numbers, Carmine makes a killing at a roulette table. However, he gets too greedy, and keeps pushing his winnings which draws serious attention from the casino’s security team. The casino catches the pair, and to show that they mean business, they kill the psychic rather bruitish, mobster manner.
Of course the casino is being run by criminals themselves. Criminals with connection and a long reach. Carmine tried to take them for $12 million, well now they’re putting the squeeze on Carmine to pay them $100 million within one month. And if he can’t come up with the money then they’re going to make an example out of him.
Desperate and beaten, Carmine seeks out Johnny and Kasey, two former criminals trying to get by in their ordinary reformed lives. Carmine was a friend and a mentor. They owe him a lot. And they feel that they have to help. That’s when Johnny comes up with a plan to pull off the mother of all heists. But there are capes everywhere. Being a criminal in America carries a high risk. So why stay in America? Johnny’s idea is to go to Spain. That way they won’t have to deal with all of the super heroes in America that always win, and always throw the crooks in jail. But first they’re going to need a crew.
Johnny and Carmine travel about to piece together their the rest of their team. They have Johnny with electric powers, Kasey the psychic, and The Heat with an old school ray gun. Then they set off to recruit The Ghost, a cat-burglar turned architect. TK McCabe, a telekinetic working a warehousing job. Forecast, a street vendor with weather control powers. And then Roddy and Sammy Diesel, brothers with incredible regenerative abilities fighting in a brutal underground fight-club. Appealing to their sense of loyalty to Carmine, or their need for money, or a more fulfilling life, the team is assembled.
Arriving in Spain there is just one piece left to put in place, the bad-ass. They blackmale The Gladiator, a hero who in the past had put them behind bars, into joing their crew. And at the end of the second issue Johnny reveals their target. Not a bank, or abusiness, or any honest citizens, but the “greatest super villain who has ever lived.”
Mark Millar is writer on Super Crooks, and along with co-plotter Nacho Vigalondo, they are telling a fantastic story. I like how instead of being another super hero comic book, this comic follows the guys on the other side. And it places them in a compelling story that I can’t wait to see more of. This is a cool caper with a lot of character. The art looks great. Lenil Yu is the artist on the comic, with inker Gerry Alanguilan, colorist Sunny Gho, and VC’s Clayton Cowles doing the lettering. The art team is creating a stylish book, and does a superb job of storytelling. These first two issues are a real page turner. This is one of the best comics of the year.
