In 1996, Tom Cruise was gearing up for the release of Mission: Impossible. The film, directed by Brian de Palma, was the first project from his production company with Paula Wagner. Cruise/Wagner Productions and Paramount Pictures were going big on promotion for the film, branching into various media that the franchise hasn’t seemed interested in pursuing since. Obviously, all this was before Mission: Impossible became the stunt spectacle and greatest action series of all time, when it still had the heartbeat of the original TV show. Paramount teamed up with Marvel to release this tie-in prelude comic and it’s definitely something that could have only come out in the ’90s.
Cover by Rob Liefeld‘Through a Mirror Darkly’
Written by Marv Wolfman
Penciled by Pino Rinaldi, Rod Whigham, and Andrew Waldman
Inked by Robert Almond, Jim Amash, Tom Wegryzn, and Phil May & Scott Reed
Colored by Micky Rose and Emily Yoder
Lettered by Edd Fear‘Should Any of Your Agents’
Written by Marv Wolfman
Illustrated by Rob Liefeld
Colored by Micky Rose
Lettered by Edd FearThe top secret prequel to the next Tom Cruise blockbuster! Featuring a short tale illustrated by Rob Liefeld, plus a special untold tale that precedes the May 1996, $70 million hit film!
One of the first things you notice about “Mission: Impossible” is that Ethan Hunt does not look like Tom Cruise. Hunt’s design here looks like a stock photo hunk, with his dark hair and square jaw. There are many instances where it’s difficult to tell which character on the page is Ethan and which ones are just background players. Tom Cruise apparently doesn’t sign away his likeness (remember the Minority Report video game?), so we lose the classic leading man and get someone who looks like they belong on TNT. Of course, that didn’t stop Cruise from interfering with the comic. According to popular legend, when he was approving this one-shot, Cruise felt Ethan was portrayed as “too effeminate” in a sequence. Marvel recalled and pulped as much of that printing as they could. They then cut out Ethan from the questionable panel, replacing him with a leg bleeding over from another panel.
The ’90s were a very different time, all right?
Anyway, you would think a missing character would undermine the story, make the scene more confusing, but that’s assuming the story made any sense in the first place.
‘Through a Mirror Darkly,’ the first story in the issue, features Phelps’s IMF team infiltrating a Russian politician’s house to intercept plans for a missile to help Russia return to return to Communism or something. Let’s be real: the plots in anything Mission related, going back to the original ’60s show, have never been that important. They’re skeletons for the heists, the stunts, the teamwork, and the showmanship.
Early on, we realize “Mission: Impossible” has no showmanship.
Over here you have Marv Wolfman trying to channel the energy of the TV show instead of the upcoming film, only it feels like he was watching the ’80s revival rather than the Bruce Geller original. ‘Through a Mirror Darkly’ is talkative without the characters actually saying anything. It’s convoluted and disjointed; it’s easy to lose track of what’s going on. The big action set piece is intercut with a mission debriefing that kills any momentum or energy the script managed to generate.
The art doesn’t help matters, either. With three people penciling this and five people inking it, ‘Through a Mirror Darkly’ is never close to consistent. Panels are layered on top of each other, colors are so over-rendered they frequently bleed together. The chaotic aesthetic that so permeated the mainstream comics of the era is on full, proud display. You’re eventually left with no option but marvel at the bombardment of explosions, cut men, overly sexualized women, and archaic technology. At one point, it looks like Ethan Hunt dresses in blackface to gain access to their target’s house. Or maybe he doesn’t. The images are so murky it could have gone either way.
One point though: Edd Fear’s letters are about the only item with any sort of control about the page.
Continued belowThe extremity ramps up for the second story, ‘Should Any of Your Agents.’ Once again, the script was written by Marv Wolfman, but the art was by Rob Liefeld. And this is Rob Liefeld working at peak Rob Liefeld. So the story is about how Luther Stickell and Franz Krieger ended up on the disavowed list before the start of the movie. Much like the headlining story, it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
But that’s almost okay because Liefeld clearly doesn’t want to draw a Mission: Impossible story. ‘Should Any of Your Agents’ exists mainly as a vehicle for him to draw explosions, fistfights, and characters rendered in fourth dimension perspectives. Just skip the script and revel in the sheer insanity Liefeld brings to the page. I think there are ninjas at one point? The scale’s are all out of whack. The people resemble people even if there’s only one instance where they have feet. It may be unhinged comic artwork but, as opposed to the opening story, at least it’s consistent.
“Mission: Impossible” is not a good comic. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not a lot of fun. At the time, the franchise had no idea what it wanted to be. (Arguably, it wouldn’t figure that out until the superb Ghost Protocol in 2011.) The film turned out to be a Hitchcockian thriller. The comic went for the EXXXXXXXTREME mood that permeated mainstream ’90s comics. This book is an artifact, a remnant of a franchise figuring out its identity. I think we can all be thankful that this isn’t the direction the series decided to go — though you could argue it flirted with the idea in the second one, but the less said about that the better.
Now. Light the fuse.
