Image Comics reviews 5/10/23 – Nemesis Reloaded #5

Generally comic books featuring an infallible super villain doesn’t do much for me. Especially in a scenario where the villain is basically beating down, maiming and killing his opposition with absolutely no challenge.

That’s largely made Nemesis Reloaded such a challenging read — Nemesis does everything he wants and it all comes so ridiculously easy to him.

Sure, writer Mark Millar crafts some razor sharp dialogue and conceives some inventive ways for his main character to go on murderous streaks, but it’s never actually felt rewarding — until this final issue.

I held off on reviewing this as the major spoiler epilogue needed discussing but only after all invested readers could check it out.

Nemesis finishes his revenge quest on the mayor of Los Angeles, who arrested his parents for killing nine hitchhikers.

In an issue full of twists the payoff of this main plot is solid and provides a different context to Nemesis’ actions. Millar pulls this big reveal off so well it encourages readers to re-read Reloaded armed with all the relevant information. This ties into everything from the first few pages of issue 1. That’s a very effective closure of the loop.

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Jorge Jimenez has often been the selling point of the series with his fantastic art drawing Nemesis like a deranged psycho who knows exactly what he’s doing with a big smile on his face. With this issue Millar gives Jimenez free rein to go as big and outrageous Michael Bay style budget for the action. That’s best highlighted in the subplot where Nemesis completes the mysterious mission for his master with dynamic layouts and explosive action sequences.

Giovanna Niro’s fantastic color work never gets too indulgent with the blood stains on Nemesis’ all white outfit using a respectable amount to showcase the carnage but never drenching him to the point his outfit looks red.

And then the big payoff, which has farther implications beyond Nemesis with the reveal of his master — Wesley Gibson aka The Killer II from Wanted.

Millar has been teasing his big Millar Verse crossover for a few months but seeing it play out in Nemesis felt like the smartest and best call.

The clues have been there all along with the focus of a supervillain with zero moral code killing for fun. Who else would make a more viable candidate to join The Fraternity?

This was an outstanding sneaky prologue to Big Game, but in the meanwhile it’s probably a great time to read through Nemesis Reloaded to see if there were any other subtle hints Millar was dropping along the way.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: Image Comics