Mark Millar’s War Heroes Headed to Big Screen

Warren Ellis is probably the best comic book writer around these days, right up there with Frank Miller, although the two men have two vastly different styles, and belong in completely different comic book universes. I don’t know who comes a close third, but maybe Brian Michael Bendis or Garth Ennis. And then there’s Mark Millar, who can be downright brilliant at times (his run on “The Ultimates” was inspiring), but also capable of producing some really Godawful stuff. Consider his latest — the 6-issue limited series “War Heroes”, which might just be the worst thing Millar has put his name on.

But hey, lack of quality isn’t going to stop Hollywood from trying to make a movie out of “War Heroes”. Especially considering that Millar’s “Wanted” has already made a nice penny at the box office, and “Kick Ass” is getting the royal kick ass treatment by director Matthew Vaughn. Both “Kick Ass” and “Wanted” were fun, original reads. “War Heroes”? Not so much. Does cringing while reading a comic book count as “fun”?

Reuters has more on this sure to be disaster of a movie:

“War Heroes,” the latest comic-book series by Mark Millar and Tony Harris, is headed for the big screen, with Michael De Luca (”21″) producing for Sony’s Columbia Pictures.

The story centers on a U.S. military experimental program, developed in light of dwindling enlistments and the expanding war on terrorism, that gives ordinary soldiers superpowers. When a rogue group of the supersoldiers breaks off to form a criminal enterprise, one hero rises from their ranks to prevent catastrophic results.

No writer has yet been brought aboard the project.

So the story of “War Heroes” is this: The U.S. Government comes up with the novel idea of giving soldiers superpowers in pill form, which grants them super powers for a given amount of time. And their big idea is to use the promise of superpowers as the main selling point of their recruiting drive for their many, many wars overseas. (”Sign up now! Get superpowers!”) Yes, pretty much every super power you could dream off, from flight to invisibility to super strength to freezing. Yes, there is a pill that gives you the power to freeze things. This makes the War on Terror so easy (and why wouldn’t it be, if just one solder and toss enemy tanks around?) that the U.S. is now invading every country in the Middle East.

Into this mess steps some low-down criminal types with plans to use the superpower giveaways for their own dastardly ends. You won’t even believe their big criminal plan. After you read it, the result should be you howling with laughter, because you just realized Mark Millar has conned you into buying the two issues of “War Heroes” released so far, and he’s managed to get some dupes in Hollywood to pony up some nice chunk of change to buy the movie rights, too. Suckers!

The only way I can see “War Heroes” working as a movie is if they go the “Wanted” route — that is, strip all the silly, 10-year old stuff out and replace them with crime caper conventions. This one just happens to have superpowers that you can get from popping pills. And yes, there will be a LOT to strip away to make this thing even remotely doable, including greatly limiting the abilities of those pills.

Below: Probably the least stupid panel in “War Heroes” so far.