Comic Review 153 // Marshal Law: Fear and Loathing by Pat Mills

Now I'm sure long-time readers will know I love 2000 AD the British comic. One of the most influential writers from that team has to be Pat Mills, having written Judge Dredd, Slaine, Nemesis and ABC Warriors. Well, I had the opportunity to borrow one of his non-2000 AD stories for a read so I had to pounce on it! I am pleased to introduce Marshal Law.

Title: Marshal Law: Fear and Loathing

Author: Pat Mills

Illustrator: Kevin O'Neill

Fluff:

The big one destroyed San Francisco and the rebuilt city is now called San Futuro. Into this city of genetically altered superheroes comes Marshal Law who is searching for heroes but he hasn't found any yet.

Get a Copy via my Amazon Link: Paperback

Page Count: 192 pages

Review

The story arc is a simple one to follow. It is the anti version of the Super Hero genre, think Watchmen, think The Boys, think a little bit of Batman and think Judge Dredd. The heroes aren't real heroes, they are in fact simply humans with crazy powers and abilities, and when given power, they will ultimately fall to greed, lust, pride.

This is proven in this story, where we see hundreds of people medically altered into Super Soldiers. The reason for this is to fight in a war (of course). Sadly these veterans upon returning to the states, struggle to find work and ultimately become warlords and gang leaders, with most of them gravitating to a post-earthquake San Francisco. Which has a huge no-go area in the city which looks like something from a Mad Max/post-apocalyptic film. These heroes are feared by the average human and prey upon the weak, wanting to highlight their awesome powers.

Into this mess comes Marshal Law, also an ex-super soldier who towards the end of the fighting becomes jaded with it all and with the aid of his girlfriend realizes he has the ability to stop these heroes preying on the weak. Soon Marshal Law is known as the Hero Hunter and works for a covert agency that wishes to police the superhumans. His look is very S&M and he takes down heroes like nobody could ever imagine, but in this tale, his nemesis is Public Spirit (aka Homelander), a much-beloved hero with a Darker Side.

The story is pretty well explored and thought out. Pat Mills has created a very strong theme and world for the characters to live in. This is then brought to life by the talented Kevin O'Neill. But it sadly isn't all good news, at points, it lost me and I found my interest waving and got misted eyes as I auto-piloted some pages. That said the story has a lot of backbone and isn't scared to punch hard at an overdone superhero genre, it has also aged really well. I would highly recommend reading it!

I hope you enjoyed it? Feel free to comment below or seek me out on one of the many social platforms I hang out on. Here is a quick LINK (Solo bio link) to my details. Cheers to reading this.