Scottish Catholic Observer

Catholic comic book writer Mark Millar is asking for readers to do one good deed this week and post them on social media, as he launches a collected edition of his latest work about an altruistic superhero.

The Scot, who grew up in Coatbridge and is based in Glasgow, has had a string of successful comic books which have been turned into multi-million dollar movies, including Kick-Ass, Kinsman, Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War and Wanted, the latter starring fellow Scot and former St Thomas Aquinas pupil James McAvoy in the lead role.

The writer has now moved in a different direction with the comic Huck. Released in collected edition on July 20, the comic follows its protagonist as he uses his special gifts to do a good deed each day. Millar has now launched the hashtag #OneGoodDeed, encouraging his fans to follow in his creation’s footsteps and help others out.

The Glasgow-based writer told the SCO that Catholicism informs all his superhero works ‘because American comic books and a Catholic education both neatly dovetailed for me as a child.’

“The idea behind a Superman comic and what we were taught at school is that other people come first and you try to do your best to make the world a better place,” he said. “As corny as it sounds, I think this is why superhero comics appealed to me more than characters like Dennis the Menace or whatever. The altruism is what drew me to the characters and Huck is the purest distillation of that. His ethos is doing One Good Deed every day. That’s the basis of the comic and our plan for the movie too, of course. Very simple, but very effective.”

Millar’s works has been criticised in the past for its level of violence, but the writer, who pointed out that his more violent work is age-rated for over 18’s, said it is not an issue for him and that his work often encourages Christian’s to seek him out and speak to him. “What’s interesting actually is that a lot of the most violent filmmakers and writers tend to have been raised Catholic,” he said. “Mel Gibson, Tarantino, Martin Scorcese and myself all have a reputation for quite over the top body-counts, which is interesting in itself, and someone speculated it might be because The Bible itself is very violent in places and while most little kids are reading Br’er Rabbit or whatever, we were exposed to some quite dark imagery.

“I remember as a toddler being quite scared of a holy statue above my own local church where the flayed skin of the martyr St Bartholomew was on display. It’s quite an interesting hypothesis. But no, it’s never been an issue for me and I actually find because I’m one of the few openly practicing Christians working in Hollywood I have a disproportionate number of Christian readers who speak to me online or come to my talks or book signings.”

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