Comic Book / Big Game (2023)

Following

All spoilers for previous Millarworld works are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Big Game is a 2023 miniseries written by Mark Millar and drawn by Pepe Larraz. A culmination of more than two decades of creator-owned works, the series is a Crisis Crossover of Millar's original concepts and characters collectively named "Millarworld", including classics like Wanted and Kick-Ass.

In 1986, the world's supervillain population all banded together to wipe out all the superheroes. To further purge their existence, they rewrote all of reality so the heroes were reduced to fictional characters, allowing the supervillains to secretly rule the world as the Fraternity.

Despite this, superheroes are slowly returning as the once mundane world is now seeing a rise in superhumans and the supernatural. This runs the risk of the Fraternity's hold on the world becoming exposed and challenged, so they decide to launch a new campaign to rid Earth of superheroes once again.

Big Game provides examples of:

• All-Powerful Bystander: The Magic Order is forced to be this, much to Cordelia's chagrin. The Fraternity's mass murder of superheroes unfortunately is not a magical threat to reality, meaning the Order can't do anything about it since it's technically just another human war with no supernatural elements to it. They're finally able to help save the day when Kick-Ass points out that Diabolos is calling himself a sorcerer, meaning he's technically a magical threat even if he's using alien weaponry to achieve his "magic."
• Alternate Self: Superior is among the Jupiter's Legacy heroes that the Magic Order summons, implying that the reason why he's a fictional character in the Millarworld is because he exists in that universe, which itself is confirmed to be a Show Within a Show.
• Anyone Can Die: The whole plot of the series involves the Fraternity mass murdering various Millarworld characters, including Simon Pooni, the Chrononauts, Huck, Duke McQueen, and Eggsy Unwin. Thanks to Hit-Girl and time travel technology, they don't stay dead for long.
• Arc Welding: The series takes the ending of Nemesis: Reloaded further by showing how all of Millar's works are actually in a Shared Universe, bringing Wanted and Kick-Ass in on the action despite both more or less taking place in the "real" world.
• Asshole Victim: After all the evil shit he's pulled, you won't be feeling bad for Wesley after he's killed twice any time soon.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Wesley Gibson leads the Fraternity with Nemesis as his right-hand man. They are later joined by King Morax's court magician Diabolos and his alien forces.
• Big Damn Heroes: Once they learn that there is (technically) a magic threat, the Magic Order turns the tide of the Final Battle by summoning the heroes from Jupiter's Legacy.
  • Sensing that something was wrong, Duke McQueen had also preemptively contacted the armies of Tantalus for help, and they show up to join the battle in the final issue.
• Blood Knight: Wesley comes to realize he doesn't care if the heroes' deaths had been undone, as he becomes excited by the prospect of his generation of supervillains getting their own big battle.
• The Bus Came Back: Dave Lizewski, aka Kick-Ass, returns in this series, shown to have become disillusioned with normalcy and wishes to return to superheroics via joining the Ambassadors and receiving superpowers.
• The Cameo: Since not everyone can have a substantial role in a five-issue Crisis Crossover, some of Millar's characters are reduced to single appearances:
  • Former Fraternity members that died in the original Wanted, including Mr. Rictus, the Frightener, Wesley's father, Imp, Fuckwit, and Doll Master appear in the opening scene to kill The Cowl of the previous universe.
  • Simon Pooni appears for but one scene and it's one where he's killed by the Fraternity just in case he ever found out how to turn into Superior again.
  • Sharkey the Bounty Hunter and Extra-Billy arrive after the Final Battle to collect the body of Diabolos the Sorcerer. They also mention hunting Cody Blue and Thena Khole from Space Bandits, who realize they are being hunted and begin planning to book it out of the resort they've been staying at during the events of the series.
  • Some time travel nonsense has the series take place before the events of Empress, and we see that Emporia is still living with Morax as she begrudgingly encourages Havelock to follow Morax's orders to execute Hit-Girl.
  • After Wesley is killed by Hit-Girl, he's sent to Adystria and promptly decapitated by Bonnie Black, who correctly saw that he was bad news.
• Canon Character All Along: As "canon" as the Millarworld's backstory on Expy Coexistence can be, at least. Bobbie Griffin is a red-haired survivor of the superhero purge from the previous reality and was once mentored by The Cowl of her universe. In the final issue, her Secret Identity in this new reality is revealed to be a librarian. To sum it up, she's the Millarworld Batgirl.
• Chekhov's Gun: Duke McQueen mentions a button on his belt buckle that will allow him to call for Tantalus's aid. He presses it when he feels something is wrong during the superhero meetup and Tantalus's armies arrive on Earth to help fight the Fraternity and Diabolos.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Luckily for Dave, his helping random people on his way to the superhero gathering is what makes him late and survive the massacre there.
• Clarke's Third Law: Discussed. When the Fraternity and Diabolos the Sorcerer team up, the Order is unable to help as they only deal with magical threats, which leads to a discussion between Kick-Ass and Cordelia over whether Diabolos' sorcery is real magic or just extremely advanced alien technology. Luckily, the Order decides that it's close enough.
• Crisis Crossover: Of Mark Millar's creator-owned works.
• Decomposite Character: There are technically two Superiors now. The still depowered Simon Pooni and another Superior from the Jupiter's Legacy universe.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After years of missing being a superhero, Dave Lizewski returns as Kick-Ass to help out with the crisis, but ends up not being able to do much due to his lack of superpowers. Not only does he help the Magic Order finally intervene, but is also granted superpowers and able to help with the Final Battle. He's even recruited to be the Ambassadors' American representative.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Kick-Ass applies to join The Ambassadors and succeeds at the end, and Nemesis manages to take them down by stealing their powers.
• The End... Or Is It?: Subverted. At the end, the narration points out that death isn't the end, and Wesley has awoken in Adystria, with the implication that he'll be able to regain his power there and return to the land of the living ... then he's casually decapitated there too
• Expy Coexistence: Word of God had said that Superman and Superior were fictional characters created by people who subconsciously remember the Utopian and that the Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of Supes in Wanted was a depowered Utopian. Here a lawyer friendly Superman is shown existing in the past and Superior and the Utopian appear amongst the superheroes that Cordelia summons from the Jupiter's Legacy universe.
• Fantastic Recruitment Drive: President Biden requests that all current and former superheroes meet up in one place to work out how to stop the Fraternity. It's implied that the Fraternity organized this to get all superheroes in one place for Nemesis to take out.
• Foreshadowing: A scene in Issue #1 shows Edison Crane observing an archeological dig that reveals the existence of Ancient Astronauts in the form of multiple buried monuments and inhuman remains. This is probably a reference to Morax's society, and how the characters of Empress would become involved in the crossover.
• Happy Ending Override:
  • The first four issues indulge heavily in this. After all the happy endings Millar's characters achieved in their respective series, in comes Nemesis and the Fraternity to kill them all off in quick succession. Thankfully, Hit-Girl saves everyone using time travel and gathers an army to fight the supervillains.
  • Dave Lizewski appeared to have found peace with retirement from superheroing, but his first appearance in Big Game reveals that he's quickly grown bored and unsatisfied with normalcy, wishing to returning to being a superhero by joining the Ambassadors and gain superpowers. He gets his wish, and Edison Crane remarks on how poetic it is that the first superhero became America's Ambassador.
  • There's an inversion when it comes to Wesley Gibson. In Wanted, Wesley got a Villain Protagonist version of a Happy Ending; he killed all his enemies, made peace with his parents, and have inherited leadership over a Brotherhood of Evil, thus becoming the most powerful supervillain in the world. Despite his efforts to kill all superheroes like his predecessors, Wesley's evil deeds finally catch up with him as he is unceremoniously killed twice, by Hit-Girl and then by Bonnie Black in Adystria, and the empire he inherited falls apart at the hands of the heroes.
• Hope Spot:
  • Bobbie Griffin showing Edison Crane and the Chrononauts proof of the Fraternity's Cosmic Retcon almost gets her the means to organize a counter offensive against the supervillains... if not for the fact that all four are immediately gunned down as soon as they returned to the present. Hit-Girl travels back in time to save them.
  • Eggsy manages to save Mindy from walking into the Fraternity's trap, setting up a daring mission for Hit-Girl and a Kingsman agent to fight back against the supervillains. However, they are quickly caught while sneaking through a Fraternity base and Eggsy is unceremoniously killed while Hit-Girl escapes 65 million years into the past.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Davie Lizewski is hit with this again after years of a normal life. He's quick to suit up as Kick-Ass again when superheroes everywhere are called for help.
• I Want to Be a Real Man: The final issue reminds the readers that this was ultimately Wesley's motivation when he joined the Fraternity and became a supervillain. He gets killed by Hit-Girl, who calls him out for being so pathetic to scoff at old school heroism.
• Just One Little Mistake: The Fraternity could have maybe won… but they elected to join forces with a alien "wizard" after killing the heroes. This allows the Order to finally interfere, as there is a mage involved in the conflict (though they admit they are stretching the rules a little). Justified, as Wesley doesn't even know the Order exists.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: All the evil crap that Wesley got away with both in this series and Wanted eventually bite him in the ass: he's killed by Hit-Girl and sent to Adystria, where he's immediately killed by Bonnie.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The series' very premise is contingent on the Twist Ending of Nemesis: Reloaded.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: The Chrononauts, Edison Crane, and Bobbie Griffin time travel to before the Fraternity's Cosmic Retcon and sees the familiar silhouette of a Flying Brick save the day. The familiar globe on top of the office his Secret Identity worked at makes it clear who the man Bobbie declares the world's greatest superhero is supposed to be.
• Lighter and Softer: While there are plenty of bloody deaths and mayhem, the series is still leagues more light-hearted and optimistic than Wanted, or even Kick-Ass.
• Loophole Abuse: The Magic Order have their hands tied concerning the Fraternity's actions, as the crisis is not supernatural in nature and the Order is only supposed to deal with magical threats to reality. When Kick-Ass points out that the Fraternity is allied with an alien that calls himself a sorcerer, Cordelia considers it a close enough semantic and the Magic Order summons the heroes from Jupiter's Legacy to turn the tide.
• Meanwhile In The Past: Near the end, it briefly cuts to Morax wondering how Diabolos is getting on in the future.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: After the Ambassadors were alerted to Nemesis attempting to hack their powers and assassinating them, they turn the tables on him and unload various powers on him. Finally one of the ambassadors sinks his foot deep up Nemesis's crotch. And that kick may have broken his back, as Nemesis ends up a quadriplegic after the fight (though in the hospital, he is undergoing extensive rehab exercises and may regain the use of his limbs in less than a year).
• Not That Kind of Mage: When Cordelia explains that The Magic Order can't interfere with non-magical events, Kick-Ass points out that The Fraternity is working with Diabolos The Sorcerer... but she says his manipulating of alien energy isn't really magic. Luckily Kick-Ass convinces her it's close enough.
• Point of Divergence: While the Fraternity's Cosmic Retcon made it so most of the Millarworld's history reflected real life history, Dave Lizewski suiting up as Kick-Ass caused it to heavily diverge into one where the superheroes eventually began returning. It's said that Wesley tried to instigate the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Millarworld, but Edison Crane's existence made sure it never troubled the world.
• Real Event, Fictional Cause: The COVID-19 pandemic is said by Bobbie to have been perpetrated by the Fraternity, but Edison Crane had neutralized it by concocting his own variant.
• Ret-Canon:
  • Gary London from The Secret Service is now officially renamed Eggsy Unwin, and his spy organization is also now the Kingsman.
  • The returning Kick-Ass characters that aren't Dave or Mindy have their movie designs instead. Sophia the dog from Kick-Ass 2 is also seen in a group shot despite having been killed, probably because her movie counterpart was Spared by the Adaptation.
• Retcon:invoked Mark Millar had claimed through Word of God that Jupiter's Legacy was the superhero universe that the Fraternity had overwritten, with the Utopian being the template for which heroes like Superman and Superior were based on out of humanity's unconscious attempts to remember him. This series however seems to walk back on that: The Cowl seen in the opening pages is clearly not Jupiter's local Batman Parody Skyfox, and the Flying Brick that Bobbie, Crane, and the Chrononauts see in 1985 is a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of Superman instead of the Utopian.
• Running Both Sides: The Fraternity briefly. They get President Biden to rally all the superheroes together to take them down but are really trying to get them all in one place so Nemesis can wipe them out.
• Self-Deprecation: The series in general comes can come across as Mark Millar fully apologizing for his earlier Darker and Edgier comics. The dark and cynical characters of early Millar are openly defied for their mockery of old-school heroism. Wesley Gibson ends up in the pure Black-and-White Morality realm of Adystria and killed by one of Millar's most straightforward examples of an All-Loving Hero.
  Wesley Gibson: I used to be soft like you old-school heroes. But they burned that shit out of me and now I've conquered all my fears. I'm finally the guy I always wanted to be, and if I die here now, so be it, motherfucker. At least I get to die a man...
  Hit-Girl (Boom, Headshot!): No. You're still a fucking pussy.
• Sequel Hook: Nemesis is revealed to be alive but heavily hospitalized, and is said to already be planning to kill all the heroes once he recovers and escapes, which happens in Nemesis: Rogues Gallery.
• Serial Escalation: The 'Verse began with Dave Lizewski as a bored teenager deciding to dress up as a superhero. Now, a cabal of supervillains is waging war with superheroes that include vampires, space heroes, secret agents, time travelers, billionaire playboy daredevils, and aliens.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Hit-Girl steals Chrononaut technology from Diabolos, allowing her to travel three days in the past and warn all the targeted heroes, saving their lives and building up an army to fight the Fraternity and Diabolos's forces.
• Shout-Out: Wesley's dad taunts The Cowl of the previous reality by claiming that all of his pushups didn't stand a chance against napalm.
• Spoiler Cover: Solicits lampshade how the cover to the first issue (which is also the page image) reveals the Twist Ending to Nemesis: Reloaded.
• Surprisingly Happy Ending: The first four issues go well in line with Mark Millar's Darker and Edgier tendencies, having the Fraternity quickly destroy all resistance and killing off the heroes one by one, while bragging about how stupid it was to expect any of them to pose a threat to a global conspiracy of their scale. Then, in the final issue, Hit Girl manages to revive everyone from the dead, the Order is finally convinced to intervene and summons an army of superheroes, and the Fraternity is taken down once and for all. We even get a final shot confirming that Wesley is Deader than Dead and never coming back.
• Take That!:
  • Dave complains about how the saturation of superheroes has led to comic book stores abandoning Marvel and DC and instead stock Anime merch and Manga.
  • There's a clear middle finger to Darker and Edgier comics that Millar himself was responsible for; despite the villains' attempts to kill off superheroes, they come back in full force to cement how old-school Lighter and Softer heroics are always more welcome than any of the cynicism the supervillains represent.
  • When Huck observes that the concept behind Sharkey and Extra-Billy is something he's seen on TV, Extra-Billy replies that they did it first.
• Taking You with Me: Once superheroes return in force and are clearly going to win, Wesley declares if he is going to lose, he is going to make sure everybody else does, too. Hit-Girl kills him before he can make good on that.
• Undignified Death: Wesley gets TWO. First Hit Girl shoots him from behind while telling him he's still just a pussy, and then he gets decapitated in the afterlife by Bonnie.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Cordelia points out to Kick-Ass that by kicking off the trend of superheroism in the Millarworld, he had unwittingly paved the way for the Fraternity to mass murder various superheroes and bring an alien invasion through the time barrier.
• Villainous Breakdown: Nemesis is reduced to a wreck, only able to react in shock as the Ambassadors kick five shades of shit out of him.
  Nemesis: What the hell?
• Wizards from Outer Space: Diablos the Sorcerer, an alien wizard. Though it is mentioned he isn’t actually using magic, it is close enough for the Order to break their rule of non-interference.
• Would Hurt a Child: Some of the Fraternity's victims are Millar's younger heroes. Simon Pooni isn't even Superior anymore and he's killed on the off-chance that he might be able to transform again.