After years of skewering the worst movies ever made, Mystery Science Theater 3000 chose for its last episode a movie called Danger: Diabolik. It was an adaptation of a 1960s Italian comic book, the story of a super-criminal anti-hero whose lavishly ludicrous crimes — blowing up all the Italian government’s tax records, dousing a police press conference with “exhilarating gas” — moved along at mind-boggling speed. Ridiculous as it may have been, Diabolik has a sort of wholesome cartoonishness too it, like Adam West’s Batman with a heavy dose of ultra-violence. It had all of the Batman TV show’s endearingly hokey look and feel, with silly costumes and big bold set design.

Intentionally or not, Mark Millar’s Nemesis seems to borrow a lot from Diabolik: The breakneck pace, the personal rivalry between a cartoonish supervillain and a strait-laced cop, implausibly complicated criminal heists, car-chase scenes involving helicopters with machine guns. Even Nemesis’s sterile-looking secret lair is uncannily like the set design for Diabolik’s underground hideout. Like Diabolik, this comic is decent to look at, but kind of cheap-looking: The faces are kind of weird, but Steve McNiven still does a good job with the muted colour palette and action setpieces.

The difference is that while Diabolik was silly and fun, Nemesis is flippantly disturbing. Everyone’s an asshole, and they tell each other so bluntly and often. I counted: Of the 23 pages that had dialogue in this issue, 11 had cursing — most of it unnecessary. It’s not the biggest problem, because if you enjoy Millar’s writing you’re going to expect and accept that. Millar seems content to fall into self-deprecating parody here — remember, this book is supposed to make Kick-Ass look like shit — but this book could really use some of Diabolik’s exhilarating gas. Or, for that matter, the full MST3K treatment.