Mark Millar Donal O’donoghue chats to the cult graphic artist behind the new Netflix series, Jupiter’s Legacy
From re-imagining Superman to reworking The Avengers, Mark Millar’s comic-book legacy is formidable. Now with Jupiter’s Legacy, he adds another string to his bow. Donal O’donoghue talks to him
“Ilove the idea of a show that is political but not ramming its views down your throat,” says Mark Millar, comic-book writer, card-carrying UK Labour Party member, Brexit supporter, multi-millionaire, trade unionist, MBE, charity donor, creator of Kick-ass and Kingsman, and a shining example of the complexity of humanity. “It is so easy for TV shows or movies or books to say these are the good guys and the others are the bad guys. But just because someone disagrees with you on certain points, it doesn’t make them evil. Things are seen as very binary now, when in fact the world is very complex.”
Mark Millar writes comic-books. He has done so since his teens, from 2000 AD to DC to Marvel, before founding his own empire, Millarworld, in 2004, with its team of writers and artists creating some 20 titles including Wanted, Kick-ass and Kingsman. In 2017, he sold the franchise to Netflix and now Jupiter’s Legacy, a series based on Millar and artist Frank Quitely’s 2013 series, is the first out of the TV traps. “I showed it to my 74-year-old aunt and she understood it and liked it,” he says of a series about ageing superheroes passing the baton to offspring who do not see the world in quite the same way that they do.
Mark Millar (51) grew up on a council estate in Coatbridge on the fringes of Glasgow. He was the youngest of five and from early on was obsessed with comics. “When I was growing up, if somebody was wearing a cape in a movie, I went to see it the very first day,” he says. Yet he opted to study politics and economics at Glasgow University until his father’s death (four years after his mother’s) meant he was financially unable to continue his studies. He then reverted to his first love and over the years, his stories – with their biblical overtones and Shakespearean arcs – have, among other things, probed the legacy of family and parents.
“I’m obsessed with this,” he says. “You can’t help being like your parents, the people who usually teach you how to walk and talk, both the good and the bad. I have three children myself and I’m so conscious that everything
I do is going to be reflected in them. That is daunting. So I liked the idea of telling superhero stories like that. The idea of a superhero struggling with the same things that all parents struggle with, worrying about their kids’ futures and all that, that felt very interesting to me. I wasn’t interested in doing a superhero story that had been done before.”
Throughout his career, Millar was kick-ass. During his time with DC, he reworked the first coming of Superman, having him crash-land in the heart of the Soviet Union rather than a field in Kansas. With Marvel, he boosted a flailing franchise by rewiring The Avengers as The Ultimates, flawed superheroes in a post9/11 world. “I think as a writer, each character should symbolise something and you make the dialogue true to those characters,” he says now. “Jupiter’s Legacy is about the world we are in. The boomers were right about some things, the millennials were right about other things. And this show is about those two generations coming into conflict.”
In 2017, Millar sold Millarworld to Netflix for £24.8m, a deal his wife, Lucy, helped broker. He is now president of Netflix’s Millarworld division (his wife is CEO) and retains considerable influence on how his work is realised on screen (in a recent interview, he likened the Netflix deal to “selling your house for a fortune and then being handed back the keys.”). “I didn’t realise I was such a control freak but I’m a total control freak,” he says now. “I’m so aware that the first name on the credits is mine and it comes up two more times before the show begins. So I’m thinking ‘This has to be good because I’ll get the blame if it’s not.’”
Critics say that Millar always has an eye on the big picture, inking comic-books with an ultimate destination in Hollywood. Millar has countered that with the line that he always wants the biggest audience possible for his work and in any case, “you don’t want to be a genius discovered 50 years after your death.” So he’s loving this Golden Age of superhero shows and if there is a message in the medium, the bottom line will always be kick-ass entertainment. “It used to be the directors and actors who weren’t that good who made comic-book shows,” he says. “Now we have the best of the best. so just as a fan boy I love this world that we are in.”
“I’m so aware that the first name on the credits is mine…so I’m thinking ‘This has to be good because I’ll get the blame if it’s not’