In 2017, Netflix announced the purchase of Millarworld, which involves all the work of Scottish screenwriter Mark Millar. This includes properties such as The Magic Order, Chrononauts, American Jesus, Empress, Superior, and The Legacy of Jupiter, among other comics of relative success and unknown to the general public. It is worth remembering that the Kingsman franchise and the adaptations The Wanted and Kick-Ass: Breaking Everything are also part of the author's curriculum.
Since then, Netflix only used this acquisition to launch its first foray into comics, with its own publication of The Magic Order, which was born to be adapted for TV. In fact, Millar is known for creating “ready-made” projects to be sold to studios for use in other media. And that also encompasses the stories from The Legacy of Jupiter.
This week, the streaming platform finally released the first information involving the production of converting that title to a series in its exclusive catalog. Netflix posted a video teaser with the description of the attraction and Frank Quitely's drawings "coming to life" and turning into scenes of the attraction - showing that everything must remain very faithful to the paper counterparts.
But what is this Legacy of Jupiter? Why was it so successful? And why are authors so celebrated? The answers to those questions are given below. Remembering, of course, that below is information about the comics that may be small spoilers for those who have not read and intend to do so soon.
The controversial Mark Millar
In the mid-1980s, a teenager Mark Millar happily left a comic book signing. The reason for this was because he got an autograph from the comic book wizard, Alan Moore. From then on, the boy already had in mind what he would like to be in the coming years: a comic book writer.
Millar drank at the source of the works of Moore, Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, Garth Ennis, among others, and managed to publish some stories in the mythical English sci-fi magazine 2000 AD in the 1990s. DC Comics writing Swamp Monster and assisting Morrison in titles such as Justice League and Flash, he assumed the title Authority. From then on, he started to show his signature.
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| Mark Millar |
The author tends to have explosive sequences and manages to tie superhero concepts well with ideas that we see in the real world. In addition, he is very good at "selling" his plots to the public. However, one of its characteristics sometimes bothers the part of the readers: Millar plays a lot with anticlimax and his twists do not bring great innovations in the comics themselves.
In an example of this, there are stories of him, with The Wanted, that start with a big impact and promise great revelations; but, at a certain point in the plot, he kills a protagonist who had been building with details, like this, out of nowhere, in the middle of a random page. And while it bothers many readers, this impulsive style often works, especially when it has more consistent material in its hands.
And that's exactly what happened in 2001 when he was summoned by Joe Quesada, then editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, to help reconstruct the publisher's main icons in a parallel universe, called Ultimate. With the possibility of playing the way he wanted to with characters known for decades, he brought an interesting approach to the mutants in Ultimate X-Men and an even more curious version of the Avengers in The Ultimates.
Unlike what was happening with the Avengers of the main chronology, of Earth-616, Millar took the internal tension between the team members to a level never seen, all in a credible way. It was he who showed that Captain America, in the end, does not change his rank because he does not want to and, of course, kills, because he is a soldier always at war. In his Supremes, as the team's name was in Portuguese, Thor was often questioned: was he himself a Nordic god or just a “crazy beauty” with a dubious sect in Europe?
This was so successful that the Avengers of the traditional line became influenced by this updated and more realistic footprint. And the version that hit the big screen at Marvel Studios is a direct adaptation of the Supremes - it was in Millar's magazine, by the way, that Samuel L. Jackson was "cast" in the cast, even before the film existed, as the designer Bryan Hitch used it as a reference for Nick Fury.
After that, Millar increased his portfolio of great stories, with new classics, such as the Civil War saga and the arc O Velho Logan, which were references for both adaptations for the big screen. At DC, he also returned to publishing quality material, such as Superman - Between the Sickle and the Hammer, which became an animation, released last year.
Back in 2004, the author decided to create his own comic book studio, with this “salable” proposal for Hollywood. Thus was his Millarworld, with plots that did not “invent the wheel”: the pages brought a combination of things that we have already seen in recognizable characters and plots, but with their own impulsive “touch”. And, since then, we have seen publications such as The Wanted, Chosen, Kick-Ass, Kingsman, The Magic Order, Superior and The Legacy of Jupiter.
The Legacy of Jupiter
Before entering the plot, it is necessary to highlight how the idea for the title was constructed. Millar enlisted a first-rate artist, who did one of the best works of Superman in all time: the also Scottish Frank Quitely, who created, along with Grant Morrison, the sensational Great Astros: Superman - by the way, we have a story about the artist, during his time in Brazil during CCXP19, at the link below.
Quitely, often compared to the French Moebius, has very fine and detailed features and manages to apply practical effects to superhero clothes, bringing realism, but maintaining the elements of fantasy and science fiction. This tone was ideal for Millar to build his homage to the Golden Age of comics and the personification of the "American Dream", a period that goes from the 1930s to the 1950s in the United States.
The Legacy of Jupiter was launched in 2013 by Image Comics and takes place in a world where the first generation of superheroes traveled to a remote and mysterious island in the Pacific Ocean, at the height of the Great Depression in 1932 - a clear allusion to Giant's comics -Size X-Men # 1. A young man named Sheldon Sampson and his friends are given superpowers during the exploration and return home determined to "make America great again". For this, each one assumes alter-egos of superheroes, with the aim of inspiring the public to follow their examples of heroism. Thus was born the União group, based in New York.
The team is led by the Utopian, Sheldon, who has powers similar to those of Superman and who was a successful businessman, before becoming an auto mechanic to "connect with ordinary people". His younger brother, Walter, became the brainwave superhero, with the ability to fly and psychic abilities. His wife, Grace Kennedy, is codenamed Lady Liberty, with powers that rival her own. The Union still has the heroes Fitz and George Hutchence, The Flare and Skyfox, respectively - all very similar to members of the Justice League.
And where is the legacy? For then, after fighting crime for years, the Union loses strength and enters anonymity, coincidentally at a time when the United States is facing an economic crisis and declining as a global power. Sheldon's and Grace's children, Brandon and Chloe, also have powers, but, unlike their parents, they are not so much concerned with saving the world - think of a behavior closer to what we have seen in The Boys.
And it is this generational shock that we see on the pages of the ten editions of the plot, which brings many influences to Shakespeare's pop culture, passing Star Wars into the world of celebrities in the current world - all of which tied with criticism to the United States government. The limited series had a sequel and a prequel, The Jupiter Circle, focused on the “old guard” crime-fighting days.
How to adapt on Netflix
By the preview announced by the streaming service throughout the week, it was already possible to notice that the plot and characters will be very faithful to the original material - including with all the design based on the features of Quitely. And that makes sense, since, as stated earlier, Millar has already produced the title with an adaptation in mind.
What the Netflix series can do best is to fill in some gaps left between events and character dialogues, as the plot runs and happens relatively on the pages of the comics. Thus, some of the suggestions left by the author, for the reader to create in his mind, can be explored in more detail on the small screens. In addition, of course, the dramatization offers more life and verisimilitude to the characters, especially Brandon and Chloe.
The official synopsis has the following description:
After nearly a century of keeping humanity safe, the world's first generation of superheroes must trust their children to continue the legacy. But tensions escalate as young superheroes, hungry to prove themselves, struggle to live up to their parents' legendary public reputation - and demanding personal standards.
The Legacy of Jupiter has scripts by Millar himself and stars Josh Duhamel as Utopian, Ben Daniels as Brainwave, Leslie Bibb as Lady Liberty, Elena Kampouris as Chloe Sampson, Andrew Horton as Brandon Sampson, Mike Wade as The Flare, Anna Akana as Raikou and Matt Lanter as Skyfox. The eight-episode series opens on May 7 on Netflix.
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