Supercrooks

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Supercrooks
Collected edition cover, drawn by Leinil Francis Yu.
Publication information
Publisher	Icon Comics
Format	Limited series
Genre	Heist, superhero
Publication date	March – August 2012
No. of issues	4
Creative team
Written by	Mark Millar
Penciller(s)	Leinil Francis Yu
Inker(s)	Gerry Alanguilan
Colorist(s)	Sunny Gho

Supercrooks is a four-issue comic book limited series by writer Mark Millar and artist Leinil Francis Yu. The series was published by the Icon Comics imprint of Marvel Comics from March–August 2012.

Plot[]

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Johnny Bolt is a supervillain who is relentlessly trying to make money by doing robberies in league with other masked criminals. Systematically, each of their crimes fail due to the intervention of random superheros. In his latest robbery he is stopped by The Gladiator and is sentenced to 5 years in prison.

After serving his sentence, Bolt returns to his ex-girlfriend and ex-supervillain Kasey, who now works as a waitress. Despite having psychic powers, she now wants to lead a normal life and doesn't want Bolt back in her life. During their reunion, an elderly supervillain friend of theirs named Carmine informs them he has been forced to raise $100 million to give to a Las Vegas casino because he was caught cheating paired with a guy with super foresight.

Bolt has a new plan to make a lot of money, involving a heist outside the superhero filled United States. His research shows that Spain does not have superheroes and has a suitable target; the greatest supervillain of all time, Il Bastardo, has retired to Spain, unpunished for all his crimes. Il Bastardo, who has accumulated nearly $1 billion of booty through his crimes, can freeze the blood of anyone who knows his cruelty and his criminal deeds.

Bolt manages to convince many of his fellow supervillains, some of whom are not even active anymore, to join his team of Supercrooks. The group consists of Carmine, Kasey, The Phantom (a no longer active burglar), TK McCabe (ex-supervillain with telekinesis powers), Roddy and Sammy Diesel (two semi-indestructible wrestlers fighting clandestine matches), and Forecast (ex-supervillain able to change the weather). After arriving in Tenerife, Johnny manages to surprise the team by introducing one more member – The Gladiator. Gladiator is blackmailed as a homosexual and a frequenter of men he met online to whom he often sends erotic photos of himself. If this news were fed to the newspapers, Gladiator's reputation as a great American superhero would be ruined.

With the help of all the members of the gang, Bolt manages to break into the safe under the villa of Il Bastardo, making off with $800 million dollars, or $100 million per Supercrook.

To keep Il Bastardo at bay, Kasey uses her psychic powers to create the illusion of him being in his residence when in reality he is in another place. As for Il Bastardo's superhuman bodyguard, Gladiator beats him a fight, leaving the man brain-damaged.

To avoid retaliation by Il Bastardo, the Supercrooks carry out the robbery wearing the costumes of the supervillains to whom Carmine owed money, who are then tracked down and killed by the criminal boss, furious for the wrong suffered.

Release[]

Millar promoted sales of the book by holding a contest for bookstores: To the store that purchased the most copies of Supercrooks #1, Mark Millar would personally visit for a book signing. The National Book Store in Manila, Philippines won the contest.^[1] Millar held the signing in May 2012 alongside his Supercrooks collaborators, Filipino artists Yu and Alanguilan and Indonesian colorist Gho.^[2] The first issue reached #51 of US comic book sales in March 2012, selling approximately 34,673 copies through Diamond Comic Distributors.^[3] World-wide sales of the first issue and additional copies sold after the first month reached up to 59,600 sales.^[4]

Reception[]

The comic series scored an average rating of 7.7 for the entire series based on 29 critic reviews aggregated by Comic Book Roundup.^[5] The book was generally praised for the artwork by Yu,^[6][7] but some reviewers found the characters unlikeable and forgettable.^[7][8] It was compared, both positively and negatively, to Ocean's Eleven with superheroes.^[7][9]

Adaptations[]

Supercrooks adaptations were attempted on two occasions, prior to an adaptation being released in 2017. In 2011, before the book was published, it was optioned to be a film directed by Nacho Vigalondo.^[10] Those plans had not moved forward when, in 2016, Waypoint Entertainment obtained the rights to develop a television series adaptation.^[11]

After Netflix acquired Millarworld in 2017, the network developed an anime series adaptation titled Super Crooks,^[12] which debuted in November 25, 2021 and serves as a prequel to the comic, before overlapping with it in the final episodes.^[13] In May 2021, Netflix had released a Jupiter's Legacy adaptation, another Millarworld title; in June 2021, in the same announcement that Netflix had cancelled Jupiter's Legacy after one season, they announced that a live-action version of Supercrooks is planned, as a spin-off of Jupiter's Legacy.^[14]

References[]