The four-issue miniseries Super Crooks by Mark Millar and Leinil Yu has just concluded. It is published by Marvel's Icon Comics, which is the division of the company that has been putting out the best comics lately. Also, out of Icon are Millar's Kick-Ass, Superior, Secret Service, and Nemesis, as well as Brilliant by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley (the team that brought us Ultimate Spider-Man). Icon has become an outlet for the superstars at Marvel to create completely original, creator-owned comics, which has allowed for fresh, new worlds and cinematic stories.
Super Crooks follows Johnny Bolt as he is released from his latest prison sentence. When his former mentor has racked up a massive gambling debt, he has to assemble his old supervillain team to pull his biggest heist to date. For added help he also blackmails Gladiator, the superhero who put him in jail, to join the team. It is worth adding that Gladiator happens to be drawn to look exactly like Mark Strong, so it seems pretty apparent that they plan on casting him for the movie, when it comes out.
During his latest stay in prison, Johnny formulated a new strategy at super crime . . . instead of working in America, which has become overrun with superheroes, this time they plan on going to Spain and stealing from The Bastard, the most successful supercriminal ever.
In the vein of Ocean's Eleven, Super Crooks is a fun heist story that makes you want to reread it immediately, so you can look back at all of the clues you missed along the way.
