After a month delay, Nemesis, or as I like to call it, Anti-Batman, has returned this week. Millar takes this story further by exploring the origins of the character, and in turn, revealing motives. The origins are surprisingly Batman-esque, but with a somehow darker, sicker, even perverted twist.
Twenty years ago, at the childhood home of Matthew Anderson (Nemesis), a startling scene was discovered by the police. The Anderson's, a rich, powerful family, with cultured and distinguished taste, have been secretly hunting down teenagers, to presumably murder them only after torture. The case was broken by a detective Blake Morrow, and after going to the Anderson home to make the arrests, he discovered the father of the family dead, a suicide.
As a result of the grisly findings, Matthew Anderson was adopted by his father's brother, who also took control of the Anderson electronics empire and fortune. The new life Matthew had bored him endlessly, so he ran away, ran away to learn about the world, and gain knowledge of the street. He trained, and became a gang lord at age twelve, and at fifteen, became Asia's largest drug exporter. By age twenty-three, he was heading death cults, and found himself at a point where he could honor his mother's dying wish.(She was put to death by a court, the electric chair.) To destroy the cop who cracked the Anderson case.
So with that, Nemesis was born, and present day, he now wishes to annihilate Morrow, but only after destroying his personal life first. So Nemesis takes to toying with Morrow, leaving clues to crimes, and then committing them. These are no small crimes, he goes all out, by destroying football stadiums, stealing priceless gems, and killing prominent members of the community. All of this is just a prelude of course, to the main dish, a public execution of Morrow, and the President, on March 12th at midnight.
After a final clue, Nemesis deals what appears to be a fatal blow, by attacking the Pentagon. He pumps a nerve gas through the entire building, killing 20,000 people, except two: Morrow and another official. Of course, Nemesis didn't just want to kill everyone, he infiltrated the building and stole all the USA's international secrets, and then posted them on the internet. Morrow of course is too stubborn and driven to retreat or surrender, so he plots his revenge.
The Washington police set up a bait and switch. They set up a story about a little girl needing a heart transplant, and soon a donor is found and being transferred to the city. Knowing Nemesis is evil enough to intercept the transplant, they set up road blocks, SWAT Teams, and helicopters.
Sure enough, Nemesis makes his move, grabs the hearts, and begins to trek back to his base. But he meets an unexpected obstacle, the roadblock. Being the master of improvisation, he splits his car into a off-road hi-tech motorcycle, very similar to Batman's in The Dark Knight. After bypassing the block, the runs off a pier, and into the ocean, but not before taking down the helicopter with a handy rocket launcher. Now underwater, he swims into a sewer gate, a back route into his base. After a bit of swimming and climbing, he emerges from the sewer, and is met with the surprise of a lifetime: Morrow and his team. He heart was fitted with a tracking device, which led Morrow right to Nemesis' location. As Morrow and the SWAT team take Nemesis into custody, he begin to scream violently.
"You think I didn't plan all this?"
So far, I've had a blast with this series, since it poses an interesting scenario: What happens when the man who plans for everything, is angry, evil, violent? What happens is Batman became a criminal, one who's bent on destroying society all for defending his crooked family's namesake?
The results or those situations are horrible, but fun to read about.
Next issue, which will hopefully be out next month, will see what happens when you put Nemesis is jail. Did he really plan to be caught? Does he actually have an answer, a solution to everything? Who knows.
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