Reviews for Law of Admiralty

The average rating for Law of Admiralty based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-11-02 00:00:00 Justin Gaines Having tackled the Superman mythos in his first arc, it only makes sense for Mills to move onto the next hulking carcass, Batman. In 'Kingdom of the Blind', Mills delves into the motivations of a conflicted and dark figure, creating what is the most horrifying and alienating of the Marshal Law stories. There is less of the trademark humor and satire of the series, though it still deconstructs superheroism with sarcasm and absurdity. Like most superheroes, Batman's character and past are half symbol, half convenience, and more such a character approaches reality, the more mad and conflicted they will seem. Like Moore's 'The Killing Joke', which came out a few years before, 'Kingdom of the Blind' is concerned with the cyclical psychology of the character, who always clings to the same justifications for his behavior, despite the fact that they don't really fit. Unlike Miller's 'Dark Knight Returns', Mills doesn't feel a need to defend Batman's obsessions as ultimately 'self-destructively virile' (the only definition Miller will accept for heroism). Instead, they become the twisting knife Mills drives into the franchise, but not without recognizing how they are linked to the character's legacy. But then, Marshal Law is only ever a hero, himself, by a trivial, ironic definition of the term, which suits Mills perfectly. The other stories in this collection, 'The Hateful Dead' and 'Super Babylon', are not as strong. They don't reach the same level of insight, relying more on hyperbolic violence and a rehashing of Law's own motivations. Mills' early forays into Law's psychology proved interesting, but as the series goes on, its satirical nature begins to take a toll on our protagonist, who cannot ultimately escape the vicious lens Mills turns on the genre. The emotional reactions become detached and convenient, though this is only an early glimpse of the trend. His main target in these stories is the over-romanticization of the Golden and Silver Age, and he finds his mark. The simplistic, idealized, nationalistic comics are easily skewered, yet Mills finds an original angle by stepping on the rose-tinted glasses fans turn upon this 'simpler time'. Unfortunately, his satire is not the focus, and doesn't delve as deeply as the other arcs. I will note that Mills tapped the 'SuperZombie Outbreak' story long before it hit the mainstream. The guy has a good eye for where comics have been, and where they are likely to end up. My Suggested Reading In Comics

Review # 2 was written on 2019-05-24 00:00:00 Joseph Kulikowski Something that wants to be a satire of Golden and Silver Age without a single inch of knowledge of both eras. The absolute nadir of this overrated series by someone who should have never, in his life, wrote a single line on a subject he never truly understood and/or purposedly misinterpreted for his own reasons. Like any "good" decostructionist in life. Simply laughable.