Trouble

Trouble #1-5

by Mark Millar

It's one of the most controversial stories Marvel has ever produced! When friends May and Mary take on a summer job after high school, they meet brothers Ben and Richard--and summer lovin' ensues! Prepare for sand, sun...and lots of sex! High drama, infidelity and a pregancy! Innovative work by Mark Millar and Terry Dodson!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Graphic Novels Comics, Spider Man, Fiction

120 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Mark Millar is the New York Times best-selling writer of Wanted, the Kick-Ass series, The Secret Service, Jupiter’s Legacy, Jupiter’s Circle, Nemesis, Superior, Super Crooks, American Jesus, MPH, Starlight, and Chrononauts. Wanted, Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass 2, and The Secret Service (as Kingsman: The Secret Service) have been adapted into feature films, and Nemesis, Superior, Starlight, War Heroes, Jupiter’s Legacy and Chrononauts are in development at major studios.

His DC Comics work includes the seminal Superman: Red Son, and at Marvel Comics he created The Ultimates – selected by Time magazine as the comic book of the decade, Wolverine: Old Man Logan, and Civil War – the industry’s biggest-selling superhero series in almost two decades.

Mark has been an Executive Producer on all his movie adaptations and is currently creative consultant to Fox Studios on their Marvel slate of movies.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Five issues about how a summer job at the Hamptons changed the lives of four young people forever. Sometimes quoted in the lists for worst graphic novels, it's not that bad. The most amazing thing is that Mark Millar (Civil War, Wanted, Kick-Ass #1 etc.) wrote it! 6 out of 12.

[A.J. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mother of Christ, what the actual fuck did I just read? How does this even exist, and why did no one warn me about this? Why did no one say “Hey maybe don’t read Trouble.”? Or burn the rest of the copies out there before I could read it? Oh God, why did I read this? I spent $2.45 on the hardcover, and that was $2.45 that could’ve gone to a charity, the homeless dude that harassed me at the ATM yesterday, hell I even could have put it towards my gas. I could’ve put that money into a donation box or tip jars, I could have done anything except buying and read this book. There were trees cut down so this piece of shit could be printed. Someone approved this pitch and edited all the scripts, and it still got made. HOW DOES THIS EXIST? I completely get the Mark Millar hate now. It’s genuinely one of the grossest books I have read with some of the grossest covers I have ever seen.

I had no clue what the context was for this, I just knew it was a Mark Millar book I hadn’t read yet, and piecing together what this actually was as it unfolded was truly a waking nightmare. I don’t even care about spoilers.

Basically, Richard and Ben, two brothers go to summer camp to work and hook up with chicks. The two they want to get with are Mary and May, who are sisters. Ben and May are a thing, while Richard and Mary are a thing until one day when May and Richard end up cheating on their siblings with each other. Oh yeah did I mention this is published by Marvel? So Richard and Ben are the Parkers, meaning Richard Parker fucked Aunt May. Awesome:(

EVEN WORSE, both couples eventually make up and get back together, but May gets pregnant, and then gives up the kid to her sister at the end, meaning according to this, Peter Parker is actually the son of Richard and May. Please god, I need to bleach my brain after this.

No one ever tell Peter, he’ll just blame himself.

[Oleksandr Tarasov · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oof! What the actual shit did I just read? It's kinda impressive how bad this comic is written. This isn't just a bad writing or sexist one, it's like a something from another more stupid dimension trying to mimic human speach and looks, but sucks at all levels sooo damn much. Please, please, please cancel Mark Millar for fuck sake.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aunt May...you whore!

[Matthew Ward · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars for the art. I read this for my comic book club. I did read this. I did not enjoy this, but I did read this. Why is this a thing?

[Emma Gear · Rating 1 out of 5]

A lot of other reviews of this story like to focus on the big twist, if it can even be called that. The fact that this was published by Marvel and definitely features characters that look just like Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane named Mary and May could have been a slight tipoff just a little bit early on.

When I read this I found myself not hating it that much. Not because it was good, god no. But because it gave me an appreciation for why someone like Mark Millar has been such a big-name writer in comics and had a few books adapted into other mediums. And for me in this book it became clear.

I don't like Millar's writing. I think the only thing I've ever liked that he wrote was Red Son, and everything else is varying degrees of very strong dislike. But like when I read The Unfunnies I really feel like there's nuggets of something that could be polished by a less... Millar writer into something very good. Movies that get made of his stuff just chip off all the garbage surrounding the genuinely interesting premises and make them into something much more enjoyable for anyone. And with Trouble I really felt like there were a few nuggets in the mess that could be polished to a mirror sheen to make a far more compelling story.

Mary, May, Ben, and Richard are four teens going to a summer job in the Hamptons. It's an easy gig and while they're there May and Ben just start fucking. Constantly. Like, all the time. It's weird. Mary and Richard also hook but... Mary wants to wait. Perhaps until marriage. Well, Richard's a horny little guy and really wants to fuck so he winds up hooking up with May. And then he gets her pregnant. And then it turns out that Ben is actually sterile, so when May announces that she's pregnant she also winds up revealing that she fucked another dude. And whoops, it turns out that May's family is very conservative and would definitely disown her if she came home pregnant, or if she gets an abortion. So May runs away, and then eventually Mary agrees to take May's kid and raise him so that May can return home to her family when things don't turn out well for her after running away. That's all a bunch of spoilers, but nobody should read this so don't worry about it.

Let's not pull punches. May and Richard are assholes. May just goes around fucking constantly. Like, all the time. And the series loves to slut shame her for this. And while I don't agree with that aspect personally it does seem weird how she knows full well that Mary and Richard are a couple but she still goes and fucks her best friend's boyfriend because I guess fucking Ben constantly just isn't doing it for her.

Richard's an asshole because he fucks May 47 times. Now I know that may not sound awkward, but keep in mind that this was a summer job so they were maybe at this place for about 2 months. Three at the most. They both had full time jobs during that time, and they didn't share a room. And then May was fucking Ben exclusively for the first few weeks. So in the span of just over a month May and Richard fucked 47 times with no regard for how it would make Ben or Mary feel about things.

Ben's an asshole because his shittiness kind of just pushed May and Richard together. He's also very aggressive, wanting to go physically beat a guy for being rude to his girlfriend. While I'm sure that move was intended to macho, and cool. All it wound up doing was getting him his ass kicked and proving that he's kind of an idiot cause he loses fights all the time. Which is exactly why he's sterile!

And Mary's an asshole because of the end of this book. While she wants to remain a virgin until she's ready and Richard should respect that (he doesn't) when May runs away she finds herself in a very bad situation. Like, Millar edginess bad. She's staying with a man who abuses her who she convinces is the father of her baby. And May's reaction to that is kind of "Good. You deserve this." And I don't care how angry you are at someone else if you tell them that you're glad they're in a domestic abuse situation then you're just a grade A asshole. End of story.

There are inklings of a good story. Some stuff that would be interesting if handled more elegantly. Instead you have a girl who has to have had sex probably 70+ times over the course of a couple months suddenly shocked and terrified that she wound up pregnant because of it. And of course she didn't use protection! Nor did she use any birth control. She just had raw penis to vagina sex nearly a hundred times and then has her entire life turned upside down when the unthinkable happens and she gets pregnant.

Every character is stupid. Every character is an asshole. There's unnecessary edginess oozing from every corner (A Millar staple!). The humor rarely lands. The drama is poorly handled precisely because the characters are so unbelievably stupid. The completely unnecessary tie-ins to Spider-Man are unnecessary. The art is...

The art's good actually. No complaints there.

Anyway at the very very end of the book Bucky Barnes (The Winter Soldier) makes a cameo appearance so I like to think he killed everyone in the room 1 page after the book ended. I don't care if the Winter Soldier storyline was written after this came out. This is my headcanon, and it's the only thing to salvage this terrible book.

Zero points on the writing. Solid 4 out of 5 for the art. Unfortunately 4 times zero is still zero. Double unfortunately you can't give a zero on goodreads so Trouble earns itself a nice 1/5.

[Gary Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

67th book read in 2018.

Number 401 out of 727 on my all time book list.

This book get a bad rap, its actually pretty good.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://youtu.be/ip5d4IYKBE8

[Jezire C Akin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this. Review to come.

***UPDATE***

http://readjezireread.blogspot.com/20...


I was browsing through my local bookstore and came across this comic. I actually didn't even read the description at the time. I just picked it up and decided that the cover looked interesting and it was only $5 so I said why the heck not. Little did I know that this is considered one of Marvel's most highly disputed stories.

The description on www.goodreads.com does not even tell the half of the story. It is absolutely one of the craziest things I have read in terms of comics. So, the is basically about Aunt May and how she meets Uncle Ben (Spiderman's aunt and uncle who raise him after his parents disappear.) It depicts May and her friend going away to work at a resort in the Hampton's for the summer.

At the same time we see Ben and his brother Richie doing the same thing. Ben wants to have a summer of sex and plans to save up for a car with the money he makes working at the resort. His brother Richie already has a pretty sweet car and is just in it for the action he plans to get at the beach.

Overall, just 4 lustful teens looking to spend the summer on the beach. It turns into a lot more than what they bargained for by the end of summer. May is pretty much a hussy. She hooks up with Ben and he is sweet and loving and treats her right but she is a wild child and after a bit ends up hooking up with someone else.

I won't say much more but it only gets more entertaining from there and basically changes your perspective of Aunt May and speculates some things about Spiderman.

Check out the link in my blog for the full SPOILER REVIEW. LINK AT TOP OF REVIEW.

[Q. · Rating 1 out of 5]

If Trouble was your garden variety romance comic, I probably would've given it 3 or 4 stars. The characters act realistically, the dialogue is decent enough, the art work is good, and the story of four hormone addled teenagers having a wild summer with some serious consequences is engaging. There's just one problem. The four teenagers I mentioned are Ben Parker, May Parker, Richard Parker, and Mary Parker. Spider-Man's Uncle, Aunt, and both his parents. Forget the fact that the timeline for these events makes no sense in relation to these characters respective histories OR that May and Ben should be noticeably older than Mary and Richard OR that Mary looks like Mary Jane and May looks like Gwen Stacy which has all sorts of bizarre oedipal implications, the big problem after all the boinking and cheating is done is that May is pregnant with Richard's child. [Quick Side Note: As with Nemesis, The Unfunnies, and Kick-Ass Mark Millar portrays his anti-abortion position with all the subtlety of a shotgun wielding nun]. Refusing an abortion or telling her parents what happened May runs away and some time later breaks down talking to Mary. Sympathetic to her friend's plight, Mary offers to take the newborn as her own and marry Richard. THE END. This story is the bad answer to a question that nobody asked. A comic featuring a young Park Clan could have potentially been interesting if it wasn't a teenage sex romp gone bad. It would seem Marvel and Millar agree because both have pretended to forget this series ever happened, which is probably for the best.

[Katherine]

Controversial—no, it’s garbage.
Zero stars. How dare they do May like that. Apocryphal. Stricken from the record. Hideous.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a lot of hand-wringing and anger when this series first came out a few years ago....some of it justified, mostly not. People were angry because:

1. The covers featured photos, not the usual drawings, of girls that look like teen girls acting sexy. Although I understand the criticism the photos are less racy than any fashion magazine and, really, than the art in a lot of superhero comics. Plus I think they were going for the whole Gossip Girl crowd.

2. The story features teenagers in the early 1960's having (gasp!) sex! Sure, you can call this a bit exploitative but let's face. Teens have sex. Or at least a lot of them do. Plus if you bother to read to the ending you'll see their sexual activities end up having real consequences that they are left to deal with for the rest of their lives.

3. I think the real reason comics fans reacted so strongly to this is because Millar made this a complicated love mixup romance between May, her friend Mary, Ben and his brother Richard. If those names are familiar to you it's because they are the same names as Peter Parker's (you know, Spider-man) parents and Aunt May and Uncle Ben. Essentially, May gets pregnant by Richard and for reasons not worth getting into here Mary decides to lie for May and take the child for her own. So not only does it portray Peter Parker's nice old aunt as being a tramp in her teenage years, it also sets her up as his real mother, which all pretty much smacks in comic lore right in face. And there's no way to get the ire of the comic book world faster than to write a story that even suggests something different than the known canon of superhero lore. Honestly, I thought it was kind of funny.

Don't get me wrong. This is not a great graphic novel/comic book series. It's entertaining and it reminds me of half-baked romances and movies like the Flamingo Kid, but it's nowhere near bad. If you want to hate a series, fanboys, at least hate it for the right reasons.

[Genesis · Rating 1 out of 5]

WTF was this shit?

[Dony Grayman · Rating 3 out of 5]

El secreto de Tía May barrido abajo de la alfombra. Me parece que no se reeditó.

[Punkie · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 star (actually none, nope, zero, devoid of any stars!)
You want to know my main problem with this graphic novel? It's not the sexual hijinks, the tasteless covers, the rabid slut-shaming, the misogynistic overtones, the tasteless jokes about someone considering abortion, the laughable solution to its main predicament, no. It's Marvel trying to convince everyone that this story is "controversial" because of its twist ending, and THAT'S why we don't like it. Guess what, the alleged " twist", though it is seen from a mile away, is the only interesting thing about this book. All of the above problems mentioned are here presented on a platter that begs the question, "Did a fourteen year old fanboy write this?!" Sincerely, it's just terrible. Even if you can look past all the hatefulness it spews, it still stands as a barely thought through story with plot holes big enough to fly a star destroyer through. If you're looking for a carefree summer story with some fun, but raunchy humor, this isn't it. This is awkward, and just.... bad. This isn't watching Wet Hot American Summer, this is watching American Pie- the straight to video spin-offs. Just uncomfortable, with a heaping helping of wondering if you can get the time stolen from you back. Ugh.

[Ian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh yeah! Since I just read one of the most acclaimed Japanese comics with Nijigahara Holograph, I'm now looking at one of the worst American comics ever written. This is the story of how Aunt May and Uncle Ben were wild teenagers that slept around a lot and Aunt May is Peter Parker's true mother.

This story was created by then Marvel editor in chief, Joe Quesada, to aim towards teenage girls. He hired Scottish writer Mark Millar to pen the dialogue, but Millar didn't want the project. So Millar intentionally wrote the worst dialogue he could possibly think of and Quesada was either too dense to realize he was being trolled, or he knew how bad it was and released it anyways. The internet likes to say a LOT about Axel Alonso and how he crammed politics down readers' throats, but comic readers shouldn't forget the Quesada era. I have a lot of friends that love comics and nearly all of them agree around 7 of the 10 worst things to ever happen in Marvel comics, happened under Quesada's watch.

If you love trashy media, by all means go and find this comic. It is bad beyond description.

[Reagan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Look! This read came about because my friend at work was talking about comics and brought up this one. All he could really tell me was that he knew it was bad even though he hadn't read it and he knew most of the plot. Did I guess the plot twist that May was Peter's real mother? Absolutely I did! But I still wanted to see for myself if it was as bad as he was making it out to be. We couldn't find it on Marvel Unlimited so I found it on Amazon and he offered to buy it for me. Here we are!

Yes, okay, it wasn't good. It was meh at best. I did giggle because it was so ridiculous and for being set in the 60s felt verrryy early 2000s movie vibes which isn't my favorite. It was fast paced and I didn't feel connected not that I think that was the main goal. Though Mary and May's relationship was interesting toward the end.

Overall though? I don't recommend reading, as most don't. The art is good, I liked it but that was a little bit of what I did like. But if you like to hate read and laugh at how bad something is like I do from time to time? Give it a shot!

Congrats to Eli on being right that it wasn't the best!

[Highland G · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well that was anticlimactic. I mean it literally, all climatic points were basically skipped over.
Story and dialogue were fine for a horny teen holiday type story but they skipped over any important moments. Art was mostly good.

Worst part for me is the very young girls in skimpy summer outfits used for the covers that look nothing like that he curvy women in the actual story. Its kinda creepy to see them between issues as its just so wrong.

They tried to make this story tie into being the origin or Peter Parker and it worked about as well as when they tried the same thing with irredeemable into superman. I’m not offended, I think it’s quite a fun funny teen romp but I don’t see why they tied it to anything at all. It would be fine stand alone.

[Ross Vincent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Today is the birthday of Peter Parker (well, the Peter Parker from the MCU films).

To celebrate this, I sat down and read this new take on the Parker Legacy.

Ben and Richard Parker take summer jobs at a New England resort- where the boys meet and fall for May and Mary, best friends.
Ben falls for May, and Richard for Mary.
And being teens, they do what teens do.

Except that May then starts seeing Richard, behind Ben's back.
And then the Rabbit dies. And May, the one foretold not to be ever be a mother, finds herself pregnant. And that's where things REALLY get confusing.

Long story short, Peter Parker is born.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collects Trouble issues #1-5

I've been planning to read through some of Mark Millar's material lately, and this one showed up on the list of available books at my library. I remember seeing that this existed, right around the time that I got back into reading comic books as an adult, but I never checked it out then. The thing that piqued my interest is that it is a "What If" story about Peter Parker's parents, as well as Aunt May and Uncle Ben, but the story takes place when those characters are young adults. I'm pretty sure it is a "What If," as I can't imagine that this is canon for Aunt May.

Final rating = 3.5 stars

[Daniel Sevitt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Exactly as unpleasant and unnecessary as I anticipated. I have no problem imagining that people we perceive as elderly must once have had dreams, aspirations and regular sex lives. I do have a problem when beloved characters are reinvented as tawdry, soap opera slappers resulting in a massive reworking of a well-known origin story.

Even if you don't know who the baby born in the closing pages of this icky book is, the story of two friends and the two brothers they sleep with is just unsophisticated and sleazy. Dodson's artwork hovers on the edge of impropriety and the whole enterprise made my stomach churn.

[Jodie · Rating 1 out of 5]

All comics featuring existing characters being written by people who didn't originally create them are technically fanfiction but most of them put in the good work to not make it feel that way. I swear to God I feel like I just closed out the worst AO3/FFN page to have ever graced the internet. The covers are abominations. The dialogue is straight from General Hospital. My eyes are swollen and my heart is heavy. I hope Mark looks at his hands every night with disdain knowing he has unleased a wretched demon on this Earth but, alas, he probably defends this with his whole chest.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was different reading a contemporary from someone you are so use to reading harder stuff from. That being said it was good. I liked the art style and the character's actions all made sense to their backstories. I had expected a magical Realism element to the story based on his past writing and the synopsis, but that was not the case.

[Jennie Mckeon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was warned that this was terrible, so i have no one to blame but myself. This book has all of the corny and quite frankly stupid troupes of any teen-sex comedy without any heart. It's a poorly developed plot, stupid dialogue and one of the guys looks like he was drawn to resemble Kurt Russell.

[Hugo · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've had these comics kicking around for years. I didn't want to read them. I knew they would be terrible. But it didn't seem that reading them before getting rid of them would be too bad an idea.

I mean, what's the worst that could happen?

(Read as single issues.)

[Timothy Pitkin · Rating 1 out of 5]

A bad idea and really have to question why Mark Millar a man known for action stories was tasked with doing this story since he is known for super hero comics. And why did they think it was a good idea of making Peter Parker's family the main characters of a teen romance and sex comic.

[Arizona · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I read this because I hate myself.

The additional star is for the nice, Dodson-y art.

[Valerie Bedu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hearth warming. I'm still a teen...

[Silvia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mancillando la figura de la tia may: el libro

[Ribrarian Not · Rating 3 out of 5]

Libro de historietas con ISBN propio. Edición española ya descatalogada.