MPH #3 Review (Mark Millar, Duncan Fegredo)

In the third issue of MPH, our (heroes?) main characters are still robbing banks using the drug that turns them into Flash clones. There isn’t much else to this issue as Mark Millar seems content to focus solely on the “kids who had nothing who now have everything” angle. Except it’s pretty dull to read. 

There’s some foreshadowing at the start of the issue as the idiot character Baseball (he likes baseball y’see) takes cocaine along with MPH, which’ll come into play towards the end. But generally Millar’s not particularly subtle in this issue - shortly after the guys start throwing $10million worth of notes off the top of a building for everyone in Detroit to have, Roscoe and Rosa are sat at a piano, atop which rests books by Marx and Engels. There’s even a shot of the White House - one of the most recognisable, iconic buildings in the world - with a caption that handily reads “The White House”. How stupid do they think the audience are?

It doesn’t feel like Millar knows where to go now. He came up with the basic idea and tied it into the palatable idea of hitting back at the bankers who caused the recession (modern day Robin Hoods/Bonnie and Clydes), and then floundered. Uh… time travel? Seems to be his shaky answer. 

It’d have been nice if we saw more of Mr Springfield, the mysterious character who seems to be the one behind the MPH drug, but all we see is a panel before we’re back to the dull main characters doing generically rich people things - fawning over luxury cars, drinking expensive champagne, etc. 

Duncan Fegredo’s art is good - it’s Duncan Fegredo - but for some reason this series hasn’t looked like his usual brilliant work. It looks like he’s doing a variation of Steve McNiven’s style for Millar. And his representation of the guys moving at high speed is a blatant rip-off of how the Flash moves - all yellow lightning. 

MPH #3 is in line with the previous two comics in that it reads more like an outline than a story ready for publication. It’s a very flat comic with very one-dimensional characters (does anyone like them?) that has an interesting concept but little else to back it up. Weak stuff from Millar and Fegredo.

MPH #3