Titan Books' new release Marshal Lew: Origins collects two novellas that has been written for defunct website Cool Beans at the start of the century by co-creator Pat Mills (The second is actually co-written by Mills and the character's other creator, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen's Kevin O'Neill), and it's a book that will thrill old fans of the comic, while most likely leaving everyone else entirely cold.

Given that the stories in this book are eight years old, it seems unfair to complain that the book seems dated, but that's the first thing that sprung to mind when I was racing through it the other night - Mills (who's one of the most important figures of the British comics scene, having co-created 2000AD and many of its characters, including Judge Dredd)'s prose may be almost comedically to the point, but it's also a quick read - that, and the fact that, since the stories were written, superhero culture has entirely passed the dull, ham-fisted satire of the character by. It's ironic to see Mark Millar's blurb on the back ("I love Watchmen, I love Dark Knight Returns and I worship Will Eisner, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, but Marshall Law is still my favorite comic book of all time"), because he's made a career out've the the cynical take on superheroes as not just everyday people but flawed people that Mills brought to the table with the original Marshal Law series, and you can see what influenced Millar (and, to a lesser extent, Warren Ellis) all throughout this book. The problem is, of course, that the success of things like Nextwave, The Ultimates, Wanted and the like have completely mainstreamed - and, really, killed - the subversive edge that made Law interesting in the first place... and without that, there's very little to recommend it.
It doesn't help that Mills (and O'Neill, in the latter story) has a particularly adolescent take on the world - A superheroine gives Marshal a blowjob under the table at a party! Shocking! Or, really, not so much... Especially when Mills can't actually bring himself to write that sentence himself, and instead relies on innuendo that any self-respecting 13-year-old would decide is too childish ("Joe wriggled, red-faced, in his seat. 'Plums? Swollen... plums.'"). Plot and characters get the same treatment - There's no problem that can't be solved with some good old fashioned violence (Preferrably punctuated by catchphrases that get repeated over and over again; the serialized nature of the stories is really obvious when characters keep saying the same things multiple times. Apparently going through for one last edit wasn't on the cards for Mills), and characters are either psychopaths or perverts (if they're male, or superheroines) or comedically pure and chaste (if non-superpowered and female). It's a shorthand that worked in the comics, where O'Neill's over-the-top visuals drove the unreality of the world home, and also distracted the reader from the stereotypes Mills used in world-building, but given the space and format of prose, it's embarrassingly obvious how limited a writer Mills actually is.

In the end, it's almost a mystery why the book was published - Marshal Law hasn't appeared in comics for over a decade (aside from reprints), and there can't be enough die-hard fans to make something like this a sound business decision - until you revisit a comment that Mills makes in the introduction to the book:

There was a time when our Hero Hunter stood almost alone in his fight against the men-in-tights; but today he is one of a sub-genre of characters who take on super heroes, and that is a good thing as he no longer baffles some Hollywood film producers. They finally get it.

Is this book is less a book in its own right that a glorified pitch, then I wouldn't be surprised... but I wouldn't expect it to be that successful, either. There's nothing in Marshal Law: Origins that we've not seen before, and done better.

The character - co-created by Judge Dredd creator Pat Mills and io9 favorite and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen co-creator Kevin O'Neill - first made his appearance in a 1987 mini-series from Marvel Comics' Epic imprint, simultaneously riding the wave and bucking the trend of the concept of "adult superheroes" ushered in by the success of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns with its mix of sex, dark humor, over-the-top violence and superhero-murdering anti-hero. Now, after years in limbo, he's back in a new prose book by Mills (with spot illustrations by O'Neill), Marshal Law: Origins. Comic Book Resources has the scoop, and a preview:

Marshal Law: Origins (Titan Books) is a brand new volume collecting two scorching stories from the Law canon in illustrated novel format. In Cloak of Evil one of San Futuro's leading sex queen hostesses turn up dead in what appears to be a bizarre suicide, and it seems clear that there is more to this insidious situation than meets the eye. It's time for Marshal Law to once more don his black leather and barbed wire — and dish out the pain! Also featuring the classic Day of the Dead, collected with a new introduction from Pat Mills and previously unseen artwork by award-winning artist O'Neill, this is the perfect way to get to grips with the vigilante super-anti-hero!

And this is just the start of the return of the Law - indie publisher Top Shelf Comics is also reportedly working on a compendium of all of the character's comic appearances to date for release soon. That said, we're holding out for the inevitable movie. After all, what else would work as a palate cleanser after next year's Watchmen movie?

Marshall Law: Origins Preview [Comic Book Resources]

When we started the project, the publishers were so excited by the sound of it, and they were assuring us that it would be published as a complete large-scale volume, the record included and everything else... Kevin [O'Neill, artist of the book] was assured that it would not be solicited until he had the last page drawn. This was more or less how things went until we said that this would be the last thing that would be published by DC/Wildstorm. At that point, there began a year or so of petty interference and very irritating behaviour - Kevin was getting phone calls demanding that he hurry through the remainder of the pages, because it 'had to be out' by San Diego last year. Kevin was explaining that that wasn't the way he did things. Things were going to take as long as they were going to take. By this time I wasn't speaking to anybody at Wildstorm or DC other than necessary business phone calls that were very brief and to the point. But I believe it was somebody from the marketing department who was behaving very much like a kind of jilted girlfriend, who was saying, 'Well! Will you be drawing faster when you're being published by someone like [Top Shelf's] Chris Staros?' That was like saying, 'Go to him! Go to your whore!' It was very much a kind of jilted bride.