Mark Millar talked with Comic Book Resources about Ultimates and Ultimates 2, wondering why people think “shocking” can equal “bad”:
“It never ceases to amaze me when people talk about shock in a negative sense. Are the nerves of these softies really so weak that even a gentle shock can upset them to that degree? The original had maybe two or three ‘shocks’ over thirteen issues, one of which was Hank Pym beating his wife and being subsequently ass-thumped for it by Captain America.”
I don’t think it’s so much a case of weak nerves as it is possession of a functioning sensationalism detector. Plenty of readers love to be shocked, but many of those same readers would prefer those shocks arrive in the form of genuine narrative surprise as opposed to crass, under-motivated violence. (The fact that the characters in Ultimates are a bit malnourished actually helps Millar get away with this kind of thing. Since they’re largely undeveloped, can anything really seem out of character?)
As defenses go, I wonder about the wisdom of this argument:
“I nicked this exact set-up from the episode of “er” where Kovacs kicks the ass of the violent neighbour who beat up Abby, but I didn’t read a single review of that episode where anyone said the writers were going for cheap shocks.”
Where to start? Do I wonder about the percentage of crossover audience between a past-its-prime medical drama and a super-hero comic? Do I puzzle over how admitting he lifted it whole from another source constitutes an artistic justification? I mean, Chuck Austen heisted Romeo and Juliet for Uncanny X-Men. That doesn’t make UX-M Shakespeare, does it? Paul O’Brien certainly didn’t seem to think so.
So, in conclusion, “Creator willfully misinterprets criticisms of his work. Film at 11.”