A buddy of mine loaned me the comic mini-series of this about eighteen months ago. It was quite good, and I liked it - the trailer for the movie, however, made me cringe.
The rundown for those who don't know (and haven't Wikipedia'd it), is that upon being informed that his father (whom he never knew) has died, Wesley is inducted into the Fraternity; the shadowy cabal of supervillains who control the world.
In this world, the supervillains won, successfully defeating superheroes and using a reality-retconning device to make it so all of the world's superheroes never came to be (e.g. the guy who would've been Batman never took up the cape, etc). However, since there are other universes out there, the Fraternity still controls the world in secret, lest superheroes from other universes notice and ruin things for them.
That aside, they rule the world and can do whatever they want. And as the son of a deceased member, Wesley is invited to join their little group. Fox, the woman who brings him in (Angelina in the movie) trains him to be the sort of person who'll appreciate being a member of the Fraternity that is, to not only have peak physical skills (his "super power" is the same as his father's: he's REALLY good at killing people), but to also be completely and utterly amoral; a significant focus is that he have no qualms about killing, raping, or doing anything else as he pleases.
The conflict for Wesley is that no one knows who killed his father (the world's premier assassin), which leads to how even the Fraternity has factions; not all of the supervillains are content with not being able to rule and act openly. I won't give any spoilers, save to say that it ends in a showdown, and the truth about his father's death finally comes out.
The movie, if the trailer is any indication, gets rid of the grittiness that made the comic so appealing (the profanity, violence, depravity, and amusingly-distasteful supervillains such as $#!&head (they weren't censored in the comics)), are gone. Instead, the Fraternity seems to have been retooled as some sort of "we keep the Balance" organization, and Wesley's training seems like it's more of a journey to become a tough guy, whereas the comics presented a wish-fulfillment scenario whose bare honesty was slightly horrific - it showcased what a lot of us would likely become is given incredible physical aptitude and removed all fear of punishment and respect for others.
Ultimately, this seems like it's going to be another comic book-turned-movie, which isn't something I Wanted to see.
