Nextwave #1-#2

By Al Kratina
Mar 8, 2006 - 13:58

Like High School Improv With Superpowers.

Warren Ellis is a genius. Driven by a love of speculative fiction, a crazed imagination, and probably a few amphetamines, Ellis has carved out a place among the pantheon of great comic writers, joining Alan Moore and Grant Morrison in bringing a darker, more mature sensibility to both superhero books and creator-owned flights of fancy. Though he’s by far the more lucid of the Big Three UK imports, Ellis can still come up with bizarre plot twists and unexpected sci-fi themes at the drop of a hat (or pill), all interwoven with biting social commentary and satire. His work on Ultimate Fantastic Four brought a strange, dark cloud over the traditionally youthful and exuberant team, and his current Iron Man run is tackling some serious issues, or it least it would be if they ever actually shipped any issues. All told, pretty much anything Ellis writes shows the spark of genius bordering on madness that makes all great writers so fascinating. He's smart, sharp, and incisive.

He’s also remarkably unfunny. Which is why his new Marvel Comics series Nextwave is not nearly as good as it should be. Ellis, it must be said, is not alone in this problem. Most geniuses aren’t very funny. Albert Einstein couldn’t crack a joke that didn’t have a math punch-line to save his life, and while I’ve heard Noam Chomsky be droll, he’s never been funny. In Nextwave, Ellis seems to have decided that Brian Michael Bendis shouldn’t be having all the fun resurrecting D-list characters no one cares about, bringing together a team of forgotten Marvel heroes to fight Dirk Anger, a thinly veiled Nick Fury clone who runs a international espionage organization called H.A.T.E.. In the first two-issue arc, the Nextwave team, once a part of H.A.T.E., discover that the organization is actually funded by terrorists and break away, probably after having watched the first season of Alias. Consisting of Monica Rambeau, better known as the second Captain Marvel from the Avengers (and Photon, and Pulsar, depending on how geeky you want to be), Tabitha Smith (Boom Boom from X-Force), Aaron Stack (Machine Man, believe it or not, from the 2001: A Space Odyssey comic adaptation, and the Jack Kirby spin-off), monster hunter Elsa Bloodstone (daughter of the mildly more familiar Ulysses Bloodstone), and Captain ****, the team dedicates itself to combating H.A.T.E. and its parent company, the Beyond Corporation. The Beyond Corporation is researching Unusual Weapons Of Mass Destruction, the first of which is Fin Fang Foom, an enormous dragon wearing Hulk’s underpants who hasn’t gotten a lot of work in comics since the 1960s.

All in all, the series is still well-written, though the satire is overplayed. The characters are interesting, the premise is fun, and Ellis seems to be having a good time. It’s just that some of the comedy is too snappy, too hip, like he’s trying to be Joss Whedon, but hasn’t put in the requisite years writing jokes for bad sitcoms in preparation. The art, by Stuart Immonen, is simple but effective. While, again, it seems a little too overtly comedic, Immonen has a great style that eschews photo-realism for a line-heavy effect that’s firmly based in a quintessentially comic book world. Despite my complaints, Ellis’ innate sense of pacing and plotting, and his insistence on including “zero point energy” in every comic he writes makes the book a worthwhile read, and one that will no doubt improve once it finds its legs, stops trying to be funny, and just settles for being smart.

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Last Updated: Jan 7, 2012 - 7:41
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Nextwave #1-#2

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