"Canon Fodder: A grisly portrait of the superhero as Catholic martyr" - This Week's Instalment Of "Shameless? The Superhero Comics Of Mark Millar"

Sean Philips' cover to 1996's 2000AD #980, which features the post-Millar Canon Fodder, as respectfully appropriated from the 2000AD Covers Uncovered blog 

Having been granted a welcome week on the bench in order to accommodate Sequart's splendid Thor Week, Shameless? returns today with a further look at Mark Millar and Chris Weston's wonderfully odd Canon Fodder. I think it's perhaps the most fascinating comic that Millar has ever been involved with, and in this instalment, I'm grappling with the likes of;

• the astonishing lack of sense that Canon Fodder's joyful storytelling almost obscures
• the most obvious, deliberate and at-times perverse use of Catholic iconography in Millar's catalogue
• the suspicion that Canon Fodder is in part composed of the leftover plot-threads from 1989's The Saviour
• the impression that the strip appears to be two quite separate stories awkwardly bolted together

This week's Shameless? can be found here.

     

There's one more week dealing with Millar's 2000AD work to come, and then Shameless? will be moving on to discuss Millar's long run on DC's Swamp Thing. Which is, I must admit, something that I'd rather looking forward to.

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