War Heroes The Latest Mark Millar Comic Book Heading Toward Movie Theaters

Comic book writer Mark Millar is currently the belle of Hollywood’s ball. A number of his titles are being optioned for potential big-screen treatments, from Nemesis to Superior and The Secret Service. The last two are on the radar of Matthew Vaughn, director of yet another Millar property, Kick-Ass.

Add War Heroes, an experimental war-on-terror book Millar created with Tony Harris, to the growing pile. Universal is in negotiations to grab the rights, and is eying Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer to write the screenplay, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The duo is already on tap to write Doctor Strange for Marvel, which we reported on earlier this month.

In Millar’s Heroes, our government launches a new program granting ordinary soldiers with superpowers as a means of combating dwindling recruitment numbers. But things go wrong when a group of the enhanced soldiers breaks off on their own and creates a villainous sect, prompting one of their former allies to attempt to take them down.

It sounds like an exciting premise, one that could mix some of the action of the Bourne franchise with the rah-rah patriotism of Captain America: The First Avenger. Back in the 1980s, plots like this existed solely to employ the likes of Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Van Damme. Who, I wonder, would fill the role of an enhanced super soldier fighting his fellow military men behind enemy lines? And better yet, who will direct War Heroes for Universal? Any thoughts on whom you’d like to see in charge?