Are you a comic book lover who is enthralled by superheroes? The English-language superhero comic book series Marshal Law was created by Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill. Marshal Law was first published as a six-issue series by Epic Comics in 1987. The series is a satire of the superhero genre as well as a critique of the public’s fascination with Golden and Silver Age superheroes, as well as a look into the dark side of what it means to wield ultimate power.
Judge Dredd, an ultraviolent police officer in a dystopian future metropolis from the 2000 AD ‘street judge’ Joseph Dredd, inspired the character. Mills’ parody of superhero clichés, US government policy, and society is noted for the series’ extreme violence and nuance. The Marshal Law governs the area. Marshal Law is a ruthless anti-hero cop whose purpose is to assassinate superheroes and other super-powered criminals, the majority of whom have gotten their powers from the US government.
After the series, there was a one-shot called “Marshal Law Takes Manhattan.” In 1991, Mills and O’Neill revived the character to the still-developing Apocalypse Comics. Following that, the character appeared in the inaugural issue of Toxic!, a weekly comic that began in 1991. Marshal Law was eventually sold to Dark Horse Comics, where Mills and O’Neill finished the story in Toxic! in late 1992.
In the same year, the character returned to Epic Comics for a two-issue run, pitting Marshal Law against Clive Barker’s Pinhead character. Over the next few years, Marshal Law appeared in a series of intercompany crossovers with other characters, including the Savage Dragon and the Mask.
Take a peek at this merciless and brutal serial murderer who starred in this small yet intriguing comic book series.
Violent Backstory Of Marshal Law
Joe Gilmore, a former super-soldier obsessed with self-hatred about being a superhero, is Marshal Law’s true identity. As Joe Gilmore, he is unemployed and has a girlfriend called Lynn who is blissfully unaware of his alternate identity. Thanks to genetic engineering, superheroes are ubiquitous in this universe, with much of the United States military forces having undergone the procedure.
While their bodies may become superhuman, their minds remain unchanged, and in many cases, the individuals’ inability to feel pain motivates them to compensate by inflicting suffering on others. Psychosis of various degrees is a typical side effect, and some people develop uncontrollable superpowers.
All of this begs the question, ‘How did Joe Gilmore become Marshal Law, the caped killer? ’ The story starts with The troops who battled in The Zone, a South American war that the USA was involved in. They were transformed into super-soldiers by the government. They were injected with bio-electronics that rendered them painless and incapable of human empathy.
They felt compelled to inflict suffering on others because they were unable to feel it themselves. Many of them went insane and/or developed uncontrollable superpowers. Gilmore was a member of the Screaming Eagles, an elite unit. When Gilmore returned home to San Futuro after “The Big One,” the city lay in ruins, and he understood that his experiences as a super-soldier had left him despising superheroes as phonies and fakes.
This, set in the darker and more violent background of war, which often leaves a majority of soldiers with serious trauma and PTSD, shows clearly why and how Marshal Law became disillusioned with the entire concept of genetically enhanced beings being used for war purposes.
This further highlights the theme of the Vietnam War that runs through the entirety of this comic book and much of Marshal Law’s backstory. Much of his childhood is obscure and there aren’t enough details but we know enough to understand the violence and hardships he had to endure. When his ability to feel pain and empathy were taken away, that was probably the last nail in the coffin for this superhero anti-hero, who no longer had any avenue to truly be human per se and developed a disdain for everything and everyone, especially other superheroes.
As a superhero known as The Vet, he attempted to suppress the rogue superhumans, but the city leaders granted him a job as a vigilante. Marshal Law is a vigilante who specializes in tracking down any superheroes who have gone awry. He dresses in kinky sado-masochism costumes, wields large nasty firearms, and has a nihilistic attitude in his work. He despises superheroes and enjoys his work.
He works out of a secret police precinct beneath the city, and he has two sidekicks: Danny, who is in a wheelchair, and the colossal Kiloton. Law’s computer operator is Danny, while Kiloton is the muscle.
It is important to note that he no longer felt pain or empathy, in addition to his superhuman physical abilities. Joe was one of many troops who had uncontrollable, cruel, and murderous tendencies. When he went home, he realized that all ‘superheroes’ like him were possibly evil and irredeemable, and thus his search for heroes started. He also wanted to inflict pain and liked doing it because he was no longer in pain.
Marshal Law is essentially a superhero when you break down the persona. He has both superpowers and unique gadgets, he acts largely on his own initiative, he wears a distinctive costume and has a codename, he fights other super-powered beings he perceives as evil or dangerous, he has a Secret Identity, he has what are essentially sidekicks in many stories, and despite his claims to the contrary, he wants to do good. However, he froths at the mouth when people point this out to him because of his immense hatred for other heroes.
The central theme of the comic is that superheroes are evil, that they aren’t nearly as great as genuine heroes, and that they encourage the notion that violence is the best alternative. When questioned about how his activities motivate people to act like the characters he battles against, he doesn’t deny it.
While the comic criticizes superheroes for using violence, some of the “true heroes” it honors include soldiers who fought in wars, i.e. people who participated in horrendous acts of violence. Earlier issues of the series, primarily the original and Takes Manhattan, have a bleaker view on troops, the military, and the police, seeing superheroes as an extension of their hypermasculine quasi-fascist techniques.
Marshal Law Allies & Evil-Doer
There are many superheroes that appear alongside Marshal Law, each with their own quirks and in this segment, we will be exploring them and their relationship with Marshal Law.
Public Spirit, otherwise known as Colonel Buk Caine is one of them. He was the world’s most powerful and popular hero, created by American genetic engineering and steroid abuse. He attempted to kill Virago, his fiancée because she was pregnant, which would prevent him from participating in a space mission.
She did live, and she urged her son to seek vengeance. He tries to exit the country in secret after the truth comes to light, right before his second marriage, but is apprehended at an airport, killing innocent people in the process. . Marshal Law considers him to be dishonest and untrustworthy.
After a protracted battle with Marshal Law, Public Spirit is eventually slain by McGland, during which Public Spirit finally acknowledges that he despises his life as a superhero. He believed he had been saddled with responsibilities he could never fulfill, and he desired to fly to space to escape the prying eyes of the American public.
Next is the Sleepman is a serial killer that dresses in a metallic costume, wears a black cape, and wears a brown paper bag over his head with a second mask below. He rapes and assassinates women dressed as Celeste. He has a strong hatred for himself and all superheroes, and he longs to be apprehended by Marshal Law. To drive his idol, he rapes and murders Lynn Evans, with the ultimate objective of forcing him into an epic clash that will go down in history as one of the greatest superhuman battles ever.
Danny, Marshal Law’s supposedly crippled friend, is eventually revealed to be him. Danny is the Public Spirit’s kid with Virago, his presumed deceased former fiancée, who inherited both of his parents’ powers and is thus the most powerful superhuman on the planet. The Sleeman is thought to have been murdered by Marshall Law after being shot and falling into the sea at the end of the first six-issue arc, but he was actually removed by Dr. Mendel to be studied and re-educated, as he has serious brain damage from being underwater for twelve hours.
Another important character is Marshal Law’s girlfriend, Lynn Evans, who is a college journalist and feminist activist who publicly criticizes superheroes. She is unaware that he is a superhero and publicly criticizes Marshal Law as a fascist thug. While protesting for Celeste, she is slain by The Sleeman, and her death has a significant impact on Marshal Law.
She is eventually revived as a zombie, along with several other dead heroes, but the process turns her into a twisted parody of her former self, turning her into an anarchistic super villainess before being put down by Marshal Law, who had decided that his love for her wasn’t enough to justify not putting an end to the danger she now posed!
Mrs. Mallon is seemingly a shopkeeper who despises superheroes yet appears to enjoy Marshal Law’s company due to his employment as a hero hunter. Danny, her son, is her only known relative. Virago, the first true superheroine and previous fiancée of Public Spirit, is later revealed to be none other than Mrs. Mallon.
She is said to have died more than twenty years before the books’ main events. Buck (Public Spirit) and she were nurtured as siblings in a laboratory as children before becoming lovers. She instilled in Danny a dislike for superheroes and urged him to murder ladies dressed as Celeste, Public Spirit’s current lover, in order to embarrass his father, after her attempted murder. In the end, Public Spirit kills her.
Marshal Law’s main collaborator, Kiloton, keeps an eye on their stronghold beneath San Futuro. After discovering his organ trafficking ring, Private Eye kills and mutilates him. Marshal Law salutes him and declares him the only hero he’s ever met after avenging his death, though he later considers Growing Boy to be a potential hero as well.
Razor head is a mercenary that can grow blades from his own flesh. Razor head was recruited by the Black Scarab’s former sidekick to assassinate Marshal Law, but later joined with Law against the zombified Black Scarab and became Marshal Law’s new companion.
Celeste in the series is the Public Spirit’s second fiancée and a member of a cult of sexually empowered heroines who are frequently deployed as spies and assassins. On the day of her wedding, she is assassinated by Sleeman.
The Gangreen Gang is a group of thugs who are costumed psychopaths that compete for dominance of the dystopian San Futuro with other super teams. They’re dressed in identical green outfits and use explosive weapons. The Gangreen Gang, like Marshal Law, are largely veterans of the Zone’s conflict, but they’ve been reduced to petty criminality after failing to adjust to civilian life.
Growing Boy is a young impressionable hero who appears in Secret Tribunal and has a size-increasing ability that occasionally fails. Marshal Law befriends him, and he comes to admire him after witnessing his hidden moral compass and sense of fairness.
In Kingdom of the Blind, the Private Eye is revealed to be Scott Brennan, a billionaire and best friend of Public Spirit. Brennan inherited his fortune after assassinating his abusive parents in an alley with the help of his butler, and now he fights the unwashed masses, whom he despises.
He poses as a moral doctor, employing his father’s warped scientific techniques to “cure” the city of petty crime by torturing and murdering the poor and oppressed in terrible ways. He becomes a target of Marshal law when he kills Kiloton and, in the end, Marshal Law prevails as he finishes off The Private Eye once and for all.
The Persecutor is a vigilante and an old friend of Marshal Law’s from his military days. The CIA used him to prop up a number of pro-American dictatorships in South America. Mitrione was driven insane by his grief after his family was assassinated by vengeful revolutionaries, and after hearing a speech by the Public Spirit, he came to believe that all of his problems were caused by foreigners and members of the counter-culture, refusing to believe he was at fault for anything and developed a “persecution complex.”
He then became the Persecutor, a violent neo-nazi vigilante, who murders minorities and left-leaning Americans whom he blames for all of the country’s troubles, whether or not, they are criminals. After his brutal assault on a group of Hispanics, he becomes embroiled in a war with Marshal Law and he later meets a grisly end when Marshal Law drops him off in a district full of cannibals who skin him and then devour him
Marshal Law’s former opponents from before the series began to include Black Scarab. He was originally a superhero who was assassinated by Marshal Law for running a protection racket with his sidekick. His old partner resurrected him as a zombie so that they might kill Marshal Law. However, when the undead hero discovers that there is no hereafter, he abandons his heroic claims and instead plans to spread the “gift” of undeath throughout the world, releasing humanity from the bonds of mortality and morality.
As the “Pope of No Hope,” he raises an army of zombie “heroes” who have been driven insane by death’s nothingness and begins besieging California in order to gather more recruits. Marshal Law kills him once again along with destroying his undead army with his gunship.
The Jesus Society of America was the first superhero team ever formed during World War II, and it is revered as the epitome of patriotism. In reality, the JSA was absolutely inept, and their bright uniforms and lack of combat experience made them obvious targets on the battlefield, extending the war by six months.
Following the war’s end, multiple scandals forced the remaining members of the group to be screened by the Committee for Unheroic Activities, leading to several suicides after their less than honorable personal lives were uncovered, and many more were sentenced to prison for crimes varying from substance use to bestiality. Those remaining attempted to take on the mafia in order to reclaim the public’s affection, only to be completely wiped out.
Embarrassed, the military had the bodies embalmed and displayed in a museum packed with fabricated heroic narratives for propaganda purposes, giving the crew time to forget their mistakes. They were eventually resurrected as zombies by Black Scarab, who tortured and murdered German and Asian-American museum visitors, believing they were in an alternate universe where the Axis had won the war. They then face Marshal Law, who annihilates them with his superior technology and a tank on exhibit at the museum, all while chastising them for their duplicity and self-absorption.
Marshal Law Was Hunting Heros Before The Boys
Marshal Law was viciously destroying superheroes in comics long before The Boys started knocking them down a peg on Amazon. Roaming gangs of military-grade superheroes prowl the streets of San Futuro, hunting for ordinary civilians on whom to unleash a barrage of violence for no apparent cause.
Marshal Law protects the city from the other masked crusaders once the sun has set, working from a secret, subterranean police station concealed somewhere in the metropolis. On his patrols, he kills as many capes as he can and leaves a trail of blood and bodies that is enough to keep some other super-powered maniacs at bay.
As we have already mentioned, Joe Gilmore, a former super-soldier, has the super-strength to tear his prey apart with his bare hands, and his healing factor and inability to feel pain are enough to keep the carnage coming no matter what. The first book in the series focused on Marshal tracking down the Sleepman, a serial killer.
Sleepman has a distinct method of operation, preying on women dressed as Celeste, one half of a well-known superhero pair. Marshal and his squad discovered dark, deadly truths that other heroes would like keep hidden during their hunt for the Sleepman, and they all came to the surface in a violent and startling climax.
When he faces The Mask, a cartoonish and indestructible foe, who is resistant to Marshal’s brand of hyper-violent vigilantism, the cape hunter is forced to delve deep into his foe’s psyche in order to defeat them. Marshal is forced to confront his own inner demons as a result of this, and he grows substantially as a person and an antihero as a result of this.
Marshal Law laid as much of the groundwork for other good-guys-gone-bad comic books as any other better-known name. It may not be as brutal as The Boys, and it certainly doesn’t have the same level of mainstream popularity, but it laid as much of the foundation for other good-guys-gone-bad comic books as any other title. Marshal Law isn’t a comic that takes itself too seriously, but it does handle its characters and issues with caustic humor that demonstrates exactly how awful a world full of superheroes can be.
Dwayne Johnson Turned Down To Play Marshal Law
The Rock is now slated to play comic book supervillain Black Adam however, it turns out that he had his eyes on this anti-hero prior to that but was turned down. Pat Mills stated in an exclusive interview that actor Dwayne Johnson had applied for the role of Marshal Law but had been turned down. The picture made it all the way to the Warner Brothers Boardroom at the time, around three months before Watchmen was released.
They turned down The Rock, but the film never came to fruition after that. Pat Mills went on to say that The Rock was going to shoot a picture that they didn’t think was appropriate for Marshal Law’s broader image and character at the time. They rejected him, and he moved on to create the Tooth Fairy, but he really wanted to work on Marshal Law. However, his wish to play a negative comic book character is finally being formalized, and dare we say, that seems to be a much better fit for, ‘The Rock’.