NB of the Week

-HE'S THE ONE YOU SENT TO KILL THE SPOILING BOOGEYMAN-

MPH #5

Written by Mark Millar

Drawn by Duncan Fegredo

MPH has been the story of what happens when regular joes on the street find a powerful drug that give them the super power of speed. Which of course leads to a crime spree. Why worry about consequences when you can be across the country on the blink of an eye? As we get to this last issue, we have lost one member to time travel, the Feds catching up to our (mostly)criminals (one really bad, the others are kinds wanting to stop with the cliched moral dilemma) and the mysterious Mr Springfield leading the Feds because he himself has experience with the MPH drug.

The bad seed in the group, Chevy, is confronted by Springfield and the Feds, being told that he hasn't killed anybody yet and now is the time to stop. Chevy's response is to kill all the gunmen around him. Springfield isn't to phased and tells him that Agent Cutler, the only one left alive, will be the one to shoot and kill him. As soon as Cutler pulls the trigger, the other two friends, Rosa and Roscoe, charge in to try and stop Chevy. The three of them begin a ten page fight at super speeds. Having the edge of willing to kill, Chevy is "slowly" winning the fight until Roscoe decides it's time to end it with an action unknown consequences: he takes all the MPH pills they have left. He's lifted into massive speeds that would give even Barry Allen a run (pun intended) for his money. Roscoe ends the fight by crossing the line he never wanted to, killing. He grabs Chevy and runs him straight into the bullet that Cutler fired earlier, killing him. Unfortunately he can't contain his speed and like their lost friend (Rosa'a brother Baseball), Roscoe finds himself lost in the past. 1985 to be precise. As we get back to Rosa, she comes back to find her love Roscoe missing. Kinda. We're finally clued into Mr. Springfield's big mystery. He is Roscoe. Having lived his life in what was the past, he now lead everybody to this moment. Him ending Chevy's terror and finally being back with the woman he loves. And he's not the only time traveler with good news for Rosa. Her brother, going even further back in time, finally became the man his sister had always tried to help raise. Sadly, he is dead in present time now but after becoming a self-made millionaire, he wanted to pay his sister back for all those lessons. Now her and Roscoe have nothing left to do but drive off into the sunset.

Mark Millar isn't always the most creative writer but he has such a blackened approach to stories that they read new and unfamiliar and with MPH he gives us what is essentially a Flash story for modern and younger audiences. And for once, Millar writes a story with a happy ending. If Kick-Ass and The Kingsman are the indicators, I'm all for this one becoming a movie as well. Somebody needs to talk to Matthew Vaughn about this one.