Advance Review – The Master Criminal’s Master Plan Just Got More Intriguing In ‘Nemesis: Reloaded’ #4

As Nemesis continues to find inventive but cruel ways to take down those in the LAPD responsible for his parents’ incarceration and execution, Mark Millar throws in a hand grenade of a new plot point that would suggest the story being payed out in this series is far bigger than we imagined. But, this bigger mystery will have to wait to be played out in a future issue – or in this summer’s Millarworld crossover, maybe? – as we return to the here and now and a further assassination by the man in white. 

In this issue we get a good deal of time with the Mayor, Nemesis’ ultimate target. But, as we learn, our badman Batman has a plan and that includes a precise date for the Mayor to meet his doom. Which, as any reader will suspect, will happen. There will be no happy ending for anyone remotely attached to Nemesis, including the two elderly henchmen he has by his side in this issue. Another two people who Nemesis has a hold over. 

What’s worth noting in this series, unlike the first, is that Nemesis seems to have more of a moral compass. Not much of one, but it would seem his assassinations are motivated. Each victim is guilt of something. Even if it’s just being involved with his parents’ imprisonment and death at the hands of the state. His logic isn’t necessarily just – as we discovered last issue when he blackmailed an innocent airline pilot – but, in his mind, it is right. Although, one should not read too much into this, as he seems to see everyone as either a resource of collateral. It’s just an observation on this new rendition of a sadistic bastard in spandex. But, one Millar is making use of in Nemesis justification of his actions. If we are to empathise with Nemesis in any way, then we need to see his actions aren’t simply for the sake of causing chaos and death. 

Jorge Jiménez’s art offers up great characterisation of the various cast involved in this issue and helps sell the emotions of each person who comes into the orbit of Nemesis, while Giovanna Niro’s colours help heat up the action. His choice of angles when depicting even the most mundane of scene, such as a hospital room, also help energise a scene that could easily juts be talking heads. 

By the end of the issue we have another audacious Nemesis moment and the growing sense that too many people are calling the Mayor a hero for it to be true. That, and a national conspiracy, as we begin to build to the climax of this series and, probably, a denouement that will lead directly into Millar’s big summer event.  

Nemesis: Reloaded #4 is out Wednesday 12th April from Image Comics