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Well, I liked this more than Jupiter's Legacy, which 1. is not saying much, and 2. seems to be a pretty unpopular opinion. I preferred Wilfredo Torres's art to Frank Quitely's in Legacy, maybe that had something to do with it. ( )

There was a time when a Millar story was going to be good. I'm talking about the first two Ultimates, and, to a point, Old Man Logan.

Then, he discovered that he could roll a single element or two, or a slightly different idea, into a new comic, and people seemed to love it. Excessive gore for Kick-Ass, what if Batman was evil, for Nemesis, and so on. And then, of course, some of these comics got made into movies and did well. Kick-Ass, and Wanted.

And...somewhere along there, Millar started believing his own press a bit too much. Carefully crafted stories turned into rushed out product with generic protagonists and thin themes.

Which brings us to Jupiter's Circle. This isn't a graphic novel, it's a collection of stories, each one taking a specific theme...

- What if a member of a super team was a closet homosexual?
- What if a superhero had a marital affair?
- What if two superheroes fought over the same woman?

There's no real cohesive follow-through in these stories (we only find out two of the team are brothers when it finally needs to be revealed, somewhere around the fifth of sixth chapters or so). There's no thread that binds these stories together. And the heroes are so bland that it's tough to tell them apart. And the female superhero? Completely wasted.

Millar's spending way too much time building MillarWorld, and not enough time building the stories that made him the name in comics he evidently no longer deserves.

I've already bought the second volume to this, so let's see if anything changes in the next set. ( )

Mark Millar is usually canny enough to work with big name artists so pretty pictures distract the reader from the faults in his scripts. With no Frank Quitely in sight, this prequel to Jupiter's Legacy seems filled with nothing but pointless and stupid superhero soap opera. ( )

1959 follow-up to Jupiter’s Legacy
It’s 1959, our heroes are still fighting evil and aliens when one becomes embroiled in a sex scandal. More scandals follow but also a lot of evidence that, when it comes down to it, these heroes are also human with positive and negative traits. Plenty of action, some sex and violence.
Nicely written and quite well-illustrated, it’s enjoyable and engaging. Well worth a look. Volume 1 so probably more to come.
( )