I gave “Chrononauts” a hard time when the first issue came out calling it “Time Bros” and drawing attention to the flat characters and groan-worthy dialogue. Over the remaining 3 issues I grew to really enjoy “Chrononauts”. I think it has a lot of problems and never really reaches greatness but it has such inspiring premise that is both fun and lighthearted as well as full of amazing potential. That potential hopefully will be realized in the film version of this series (which will be likely if frequent “Millarworld” director Matthew Vaughn has a hand in it) because unfortunately, the comic has only hinted how great “Chrononauts” can be
WRITTEN BY: Mark Millar
ART BY: Sean Murphy
PUBLISHER: Image
PRICE: $5.99
RELEASE: June 10, 2015
It is quite apparent that Mark Millar is who he is when you read this series. As it becomes increasingly impossible to get major studios to greenlight new IPs, Millar has mastered path of comic book adaptation by writing 4-6 issue miniseries and selling the film rights. They don’t even need to be particularly good now that Millar is a proven commodity and in fact, they very much read like treatments to the movie they will inevitably turn into.
Character development is an issue in “Chrononauts”. The two protagonists are basically interchangeable throughout the series as I was constantly having to double check to see which one was the blonde one. Oh, right, one of them had an alcoholic father. I know this because he says it a couple times in every issue. The only interesting thing about them is that they do what all of us would do if we had their power and that’s to get rich quick and fuck shit up. That is the essentially the tagline of this book and really, the reason you’re reading it.
Similarly, dialogue is an issue in “Chrononauts”. As the wonder twins are double-crossed and separated by their head of security one of them pleads for forgiveness and the other replies “You’re my best friend. But this isn’t over yet, Dude!” Once again I caught up on the fact that these PHD holding captains of industry that invented time travel talk to each other like highschool jocks.
“Chrononauts” takes time travel as lightly as the characters do, which I don’t have a problem with. Seeing warriors and soldiers from every time period roll around in tanks and helicopters is a delight, and if Millar wants to wave a magic wand to undo it all I don’t have a problem with that. At the end, there are no consequences to messing with time other than Danny’s girlfriend is now married. Corbin says “It must have been a ripple effect from the changes we made.” It is supposed to be cute and ends with a full page of Danny’s sour puss but that throwaway gag does exactly what this series was trying not to do. Maybe the joke is that you can’t have a time travel story without bringing consequences, however benign, but for me it undermines the the whole book when it ends that way.
We can expect a team of writers and producers to take hold of “Chrononauts”, flesh out the characters, tighten up the dialogue, and sort out the plot turning this mini-series into a film that captivate a huge audience and make 100x or 1000x what this series will ever make in print. There is absolutely a value reading and being engaged in source comics when films about them get made, but I worry Millar is taking his craft for granted when he knows all they need to do is put an idea out into the world so it can be translated into something much better in a different medium. On the other hand he may likely respond with a picture of his bank statement. I liked the idea of “Chrononauts” a lot and I think it’s going to be a kick ass film. I just wish it was a better comic book first.