Rant Reviews--I Guess The Moral Is That People With Super-Powers Are Jerks?

I've read comics, and in them it seems when someone has a super-power they are just a jerk, a meanie, a dick, etc.

The Cape #4
This was a one-shot that had a four-issue mini-series made to elaborate on it. Joe Hill did some basic scripting, and it is more horror than super-hero, really. Basically a man who can fly is just going about wreaking havoc and murdering all the people he feels slighted him...because he's a jerk. The original one-shot was pretty cool with its seeming sweetness resulting in a dark twist, but the mini-series has essentially just been building on that cool ending twist that didn't need to be elaborated on that much. It's like if you saw a thriller movie and after that last amazing reveal, "Oh my God, they were behind the fig newton robbery?" the movie went on for another hour dealing with the fallout. It'd be kind of interesting, but really what is the point?

I suppose there is some enjoyment in seeing our "hero" take a chainsaw to a airplane, but its a cheap visceral thrill like the kind you get from reading the corny comics Mark Millar puts out. Still, it was somewhat fun and the art was good. I'd check out the trade for at least the great opening stuff.
3 out of 5 stars.

Superior #7
Oh damnit, I should have known if I said Mark Millar's name one of his comics would show up. This is...not terrible. Huh. A giant-sized last issue that costs more but doesn't feel like a rip-off. It kind of almost reminds me of his stuff I really enjoyed like those earlier Ultimates comics. How so? It takes a high concept and runs with it. A boy becomes a super-hero from the movies, but it isn't a gift from God, its a trick by a demon to get him to sell his soul and more zaniness. It's kind of fun.

One thing bugs me horribly though. That lady reporter. The character herself is just horribly written. In the span of one issue earlier on in the series without warning she just magically goes from sort-of evilly trying to seduce Superior and get a huge news story to being this kind motherly figure who is there to inspire our young hero in his human form. She basically just morphs for the sake of the story and it is lame. Still, this comic is better than the one where Mark Millar had a bomb in a woman's uterus. That seriously happened. Also, the art by Leinil Yu is good.

Really however, that reporter just bugs me, and the ending is too much of a, "gotcha!" for me to be happy. I suppose like pretty much everything Mark Millar makes nowadays this is a pitch for a movie that will be made by people more talented then him--who will take his good ideas that didn't fully coalesce and create something better. Yeah, I'd see the movie...on DVD. What? as I said in another post, the mainstream movie theaters cost way too much these days! Until Avengers I doubt you'll see me in them. Funny I'd mention Avengers as a lot of that has ideas from the Ultimates made to be better too.

Oh, who is the person with the powers that is a jerk? Basically the kid that is Superior in earlier issues was  a huge pain about it, even if now he's better, and one of the bullies who was given powers goes around murdering people with them, showing that having super-abilities does not a nice person make.
2.5 out of 5 stars.

The Last of The Greats #5
After how dark issue #4 was its good to see the Great get what he has coming for being such a jerk to everyone. Joshua Hale Fialkov has written a good mini-series here and with the cliff-hangers he's got to accompany the somewhat confusing ending I'm hoping this sells well enough in trade for Image to want to do another mini-series as he says he would happily do in the afterword.

This was an enjoyable mini about a "hero" who was pretty much fooling everyone except the people closest to him into thinking he was a good guy when in fact he was just plain abhorrent. Pretty much like a lot of people we know in the world who act like they are delightful but probably need a good smack in the face.
3.5 out of 5 stars.

As I said in the title, I guess the moral is when you get superpowers you become a big ol' hot mess.