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sliston
Sep 07, 2010sliston rated this title 2.5 out of 5 stars
So I heard that people either loved this one or hated it. When I first read it I came down firmly on the "hated it" side. But after reading more of Millar's output and finding out a bit more about the guy, I thought maybe I should double back and give Wanted a second chance in my mind. Cause see, the dude's corporate work is about as smiley-positive as it can get. He's an avid churchgoer and lay minister in the Catholic Church? So I started thinking maybe I missed something between all the raping, murdering and wonton destruction. Spoilers ahead, btw. The previous commenter referred to anti-heroes; I think Millar went out of his way to make the main characters downright evil. The Punisher is an anti-hero, but The Killer's just evil. Bored? Rape someone, shoot someone in the head, beat up some Mexicans, etc. The professor seemed to be an okay guy... but then he heads for the child prostitutes. You're supposed root for anti-heroes, but I don't think Millar wants us rooting for these characters. If you do (and undoubtedly many do), the joke's on you. That's what Millar keeps very subtle -- understandably, because it'd come off as preachy otherwise, right? Dig it: Wesley walks away from his dull, pointless existence. But what he walks into is an even more banal, more pointless, and by the end equally dull existence. The lifestyle he led before was morally neutral, and the new one is blatantly immoral. Wesley convinces himself it is a superior lifestyle simply because of the trappings afforded to him. He starts off bemoaning “the herd” but by the end he epitomizes the herd… albeit a different herd. He's just switched rat races. But wow, this subtle moral nugget is buried in buckets of fairly pointlessly spilled blood. I like an exploding head as much as the next guy, but I'm happier when the heads explode for a reason. With Wanted, if you look hard enough, you can probably come up with a reason. At the same time, if you the reader has to look that hard to get the message, the work fails.