A couple of weeks ago I was down at the annual San Diego Comic Con, something I've been going to for the plast 15 years and I've seen it grow and grow and grow, and maybe not for the better. It's gotten away from comics and that subcultre, and absorbed video games (stealing some of the thunder from E3) and most recently becoming a launching pad for Hollywood's TV and movies that aren't the prestige films vying for Oscar potential in the fall of any given year.
This year I was pleasantly surprised, nay shocked, to stroll by artist extraordinaire Steve Rude's booth to find that he was peddling yet-to-be published issues of NEXUS, the highly entertaining and intellectualy stimulating comic book that he and scribe Mike Baron had started back in the early 80s. These were the first new Nexus stories in 10 years! I had to buy what was being sold. And that was pretty all the comics I bought at ComicCon this year (incredibly). Why? Because Nexus holds a special place in heart as fabulous science fiction that never goes out of style.
I first became a fan of Nexus about 10 years ago when the last four issues of NEXUS were published by Dark Horse Comics. I read this mini-series where the fans got to chose who NEXUS killed. Which I thought was as strange gimmick at the time, but as I read the first issue I was hooked. NEXUS is the story of Horatio Hellpop, not your average or even above average super-hero... in fact, he's not even a superhero as one would typically define the term. Nexus is an intergalatic executioner of mass murderers... yeah, that's pretty trippy, but it makes for gripping sci-fi grist to mill into a fantastic comic series. Between the release of the first issue of "Nightmare in Blue" and the final issue (which would turn out to be the last one for a decade), I went crazy and hunted down the 93 previous issues that had been published off and on over the last decade (intially through Capital Comics, then First Comics, and then at Dark Horse) -- that wasn't an easy feat, but I completed the task (which probably would be quiet difficult today, because I didn't use eBay; I actually hunted down the issues from various comic stores in and around the LA area (and probably some at the 1997 San Diego Comic Con).
As I read the back issues, Nexus -- as Baron and Rude wove the tales -- was one of the most complex characters I've read in comics, as he was compelled to be an executioner, forced to be the conscience of humanity against his own will, but he carried the weight of that dark duty with an amazing amount of eventual clarity and understanding. Yeah, he struggled with the concept of being a murderer for whom murder isn't a crime... as that would psychically scare almost everybody.
Anyway, after buying issues 99 & 100 of NEXUS, the new issues that is, I sat down to re-read the entire Dark Horse run of the series to refresh myself with where the character is -- after a decade hiatus -- and it felt like revisiting old friends, who I hadn't seen in years. Funny that I felt that way from a comic character that isn't even a mainstream comic, but Baron's characters are that compelling, unique and enjoyable.
I'm just about to crack the cover the first new NEXUS published under Steve Rude's own publication imprint, and I'm giddy with excitement to see where these characters are after such I long time. I'm anticipating it to be great, but wonder if it's not going to live up to the internal hype that I've been creating for the last three weeks.
Dark Horse Comics has reprinted and republished the entire series as hardback books, that are extremely nice in their design and reproductive quality. I highly suggest anyone interested in cool sci-fi -- books or comics -- to go and pick-up the back issues that have been made readily available and immerse yourself in some of the best sci-fi, well, best fiction in the last twenty years (whether that's graphic novel or not).
No comments:
Post a Comment