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Underground > Comic Books >

Million Dollar Mystic

miss wonderstarr

18:51 / 17.01.05

I'm back from rootin' for Miss Hilary Swank in Eastwood's latest heart-hittin' picture, Million Dollar Baby. For those of you who haven't seen the flick, M$B packs a killer punch where it counts -- the soul!

But one thing's been eatin' me about the movie? In key scenes of Clint's pic, we see Morgan Freeman's character, "Scrap", reading a comic book. Now, this isn't the first time the comics have crossed over to the silver screen. Only recently, keen movie buffs will have spotted none other than Spider-Man, Supes and even Batman packing out picture houses. Hell, even Tarantino got in on the act with a blink-and-you'll-miss it homage to Stan Lee's greatest creation, "The Thing", and we could see Mr Orange's penchant for Marvel Comics as a head-scratchingly self-referential nod to Richard Gere's love of the "Silver Surfer" in Breathless -- itself a remake of Tarantino hero Jean-Luc Godard's A Bout de Souffle, which in turn paid tribute to the Hollywood classics of one H. Bogart!

Clint's masterpiece is a different matter, though, for we only see "Scrap" reading the comic book. The title in question is Mystic, and it got a "film buff" like me wonderin'! Surely an auteur of Clint's calibre does nothing accidentally. But what is this comic book meant to tell us about "Scrap"'s character... his tastes... and what actors call... his "motivation"?

I looked up Mystic with no luck! Everything else in the movie fits like a well-oiled lock and key. There's just one cog missing.

What is Mystic and what kind of person reads it?

19:26 / 17.01.05

MYSTIC was published by CrossGen and ran for 43 issues. CrossGen being CrossGen, the comics' use in Million Dollar Baby was CEO Mark Alessi's idea—he was very keen on alternative promotional methods, and probably swung a product placement deal at some point.

For all the good it did him: CrossGen is in bankruptcy protection now.

19:28 / 17.01.05

You can read Mystic online here for a fee... or, y'know, just poke around the synopses and look at the preview images tro get a feel for it.

Frankly, it looks shithouse, and if Scrap reads it it's cos he's a pervy old man.

miss wonderstarr

21:05 / 17.01.05

Well, their cross-platform promotion worked on a chump like me

XXII:X:II = XXX

04:12 / 18.01.05

I should note that CrossGen is not in bankruptcy protection; it's been bought out by Disney. They intend to cherrypick it for marketable ideas and scrap (har har) the rest.

I'm actually now curious whether Morgan Freeman reads comics, which ones he might read, and if he didn't before whether his exposure in the process of making this film might motivate him to further seek out the form. He strikes me as an intelligent, hip old cat, and his tacit endorsement would be one more angel on the side of our darling comics.

/+,

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:34 / 18.01.05

If his first exposure to comics was a CrossGen thingy, it seems unlikely...

Haus of Mystery

10:35 / 18.01.05

Does the character possess a certain quiet wisdom? (cos, y'know, that would be unuaual for a Morgan Freeman character..) The comic might be there to build the character. It's as likely as it being totally random.

13:00 / 18.01.05

Maybe the CrossGen was angling for Morgan to give them the Easy Reader seal of approval...

13:23 / 18.01.05

In reply to VJBjr's speculation on the sorts of comics Morgan Freeman might read after reading Mystic I can only add that if the Sigil (the only Crossgen comic I have ever read) had been the first comic I had ever read, I would have not have sought out any other comics.

miss wonderstarr

17:00 / 18.01.05

I would say Freeman plays against type in this film, with a character embodying "African-American dignity".

09:45 / 19.01.05

yeah, that's one actor who never stops stretching himself.

have you seen that robin hood film that he did? amazing. i don't remember the name of the handsome actor who played robin in it, but i do remember the performance he gave was staggering.

miss wonderstarr

12:02 / 19.01.05

Is that Prince of Thieves with the subtly underplayed performance from Alan Rickman? The main lead's name slips my mind but the movie was unforgettable, for I had always thought Christian Slater was an American actor until I heard him here as "Will Scarlet", speaking in his natural British accent.

17:23 / 19.01.05

>for I had always thought Christian Slater was an American actor until I heard him here as "Will Scarlet", speaking in his natural British accent<

He grew up in the same Cotswold village as Keanu Reeves, I believe,

XXII:X:II = XXX

20:55 / 19.01.05

Conversely, it is a misconception that Sean Connery is from Scotland; as evinced in The Hunt For Red October, he is obviously originally of St. Petersburg.

No, not Florida.

/+,

22:12 / 19.01.05

Oh? I had thought him Irish/American after his magnificent performance in The Untouchables.

09:50 / 20.01.05

for a russian, connery's grasp of courtly medieval english in the final scene of Prince of Thieves is truly brilliant, more wonderful than a trip to the tower. he gets the gallic inflection just so.

Haus of Mystery

10:56 / 20.01.05

Don't mean to piss on your chips fellas, but Connery's a Spaniard through and through. There can be only one...

11:41 / 08.02.05

Dragging us kicking and screaming back to Ontopica...

I'm actually now curious whether Morgan Freeman reads comics, which ones he might read, and if he didn't before whether his exposure in the process of making this film might motivate him to further seek out the form.

The story now goes (and no, I don't have a confirmed source) that Scrap is reading Mystic in the film because Morgan Freeman happened to be reading the book himself, on-set, between takes. Unwilling to put the book down, he continued reading as the cameras rolled.

Canny multi-tasking, or the despicable antics of a spoiled-rotten, out-of-control actor? U-DECIDE!

XXII:X:II = XXX

16:57 / 08.02.05

Yaaay! Morgan Freeman's one of us: a spoiled rotten comics reader! As that oh so convincing Robin of Locksley might declare, HUZZAH!

Wizard ought to be all over this shit like a cheap date. I guess since he doesn't wrestle or have tits they couldn't care less.

/+,

15:14 / 17.03.05

I finally saw this movie (wasn't that crazy about it, lots of cliche and bad writing - can't believe it won Best Picture, ah well, it was just a 'we love Clint' Hollywood lovefest) and saw the comic book. It didn't seem to have much to do with the story, other than maybe to show that Scrap wasn't smart (the old 'he's done nothing with his life, he's not smart, he reads comic books' cliche).

14:31 / 23.03.05

Mystic was actually pretty good. Most of CrossGen's books were perfectly serviceable adventure fiction (sometimes much better than that) with gorgeous art. Some CrossGen books were crap though (Sigil most of the time, Crux after the first year.)

Mystic looked like a T&A book at first glance, but it wasn't really and those aspects were toned way down after the first half-dozen issues. It was a really interesting and surprising read for most of the run and they let Brando Peterson run wild with some of the design elements later in his run. Issue #11 in particular is an art deco experiment and it's lovely. The latter half of the run isn't as strong (writer Tony Bedard, who was excellent on Negation, took a long time to get his feet on the character and the rotating art teams were hit and miss until Aaron Lopresti came on board), but after the mid-20's it got pretty solid again.

--Cliffy

01:02 / 25.03.05

Following up on Firewolf's comments -- I took his reading of comics and the fact that he talks about gambling to be a wrinkle on his role as the film's conscience. In other words -- sure, he's the guy who's got a lot of hard-earned wisdom, but he's also got a thing for pulp entertainment and spending too much money on the races. That was how I took it, at least...