Holiday Comics Review Part 5 Nexus

Continued from Part 4

 

This is stretching the term “Holiday” a bit, since I bought these comics in January.  I returned to Zia Comics looking for the Chris Claremont celebration issue, which had gotten good reviews.  And it was gone.  That’s what I get for going on Friday, instead of Wednesday, when it came out.  The long boxes of bargain bin comics had also disappeared, so there wouldn’t be any further searching in them.  I didn’t even see anything else to get until I stumbled on this in the graphic novel section.

 

Nexus Omnibus #3

I’m a big Nexus fan.  I’d had a choice between this and Volume #2.  Both were sealed, so I couldn’t look at the contents.  I picked this one because Kreed and Sinclair were on the cover.  I’d actually read much of the material inside, but generally it’s all excellent.  I’d figured that the Rampage issue featuring the four-armed Quatros was inside.  I consider that my favorite issue and maybe a high-water mark of the whole series.

 

Nexus is a sci-fi superhero.  He’s essentially Space Ghost recast as an executioner of mass murderers.  Mike Barron makes this concept a whole lot messier than that simple description.  Horatio is tormented by his actions and the dreams that compel him to kill.  He involves himself in planetary uprisings and against totalitarian regimes out of compassion, only to look on in horror at the carnage he inadvertently causes in reaction. 

Barron found the ultimate foil for his storytelling in artist, Steve Rude.  His dynamic and loving character drawings are perfectly paired with his almost Dr. Seuss-like sci-fi renderings.  The characters have an animation to them that makes scenes come alive.  Rude makes it look easy, which is really annoying to me and my own sketching.

OMG!  I just looked at the page count on these posts.  This has gone 14 pages!  I hadn’t realized how badly I’d missed writing in the last couple of months.  The stories inside sort of go all over the place, but also follow along a continuing storyline.  Rude maybe does a bit more than half of the issues in the volume.  There’s a bunch of fill in artists of varying quality.  I’ve seen much better Paul Smith artwork doing the X-Men.  Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez’s art is definitely the highlight.  Most of the issues of Nexus also had a backup feature.  The misadventures of Clonezone would give way to adventures of Judah the Hammer.  These are okay, but are pretty much filler. 

 

There are several volumes in this series.  At $25 apiece (not fully comic book-sized but bigger than digest-sized), this would be an expensive collection, but at least through issue #50, it’d be worth with.  After that point, they’re not so great from what I’ve read.  This volume is a definite recommend though.

 

Bad Idea Promo

I was also given this while checking out.  It was a promotional pamphlet for a new comic company.  They have several titles scheduled to come out this year.  None of them really appeal to me, but I wish them luck.  I’m amazed anybody is still trying to publish comics, much less a new company.

 

Before going to the comic book store, I did swing by Coas Books first.  I’d meant to see their bargain bins of comics and trade paperbacks and hopefully find plenty to read.  A couple of their bins were surprisingly cleaned out.  I only found two issues that interested me.  A couple of the Crossgen trades that I keep looking at every time I go there, I again decided not to buy.  There wasn’t anything else there.  I felt kind of embarrassed going to the register with like a $1 in purchase after using store credit.

                   

Daredevil #51

I’d heard about David Mack’s run on Daredevil.  A reviewer described the artwork as a teenaged girl’s diary with mixed media montages and a bunch of scribbles.  It’s Mack; what did you expect?  I’m actually a big fan of David Mack from his run on Kabuki.  This issue is very reminiscent of some of the issues of his later Alchemy series. 

The above page is exactly representative of the rest of the issue.  It looks nothing like a typical superhero comic.  If this isn’t to your taste or expectations, I won’t hold it against you.  I found it a fascinating character study.  The story asks absurd, yet philosophical, Zen-like questions along the way.  You really get into Echo’s head.  I think she’s the villain, but it’s hard to say without seeing other issues.  I have a hard time even calling her a “villain” after getting this intimate with her.  I’d love to see some more of this run.

Grimjack #30

I’d heard of the First publishing character, Grimjack, while I was reading Nexus.  I somehow read one issue a long time ago.  I didn’t know what to make of it at the time.  I have a read a few issues of Dynamo Joe, whom GJ crosses over with in this issue.  I learned from a narrative box at the beginning that GJ works at junction between all dimensions, so he could theoretically meet up with anybody in comics.  This issue is pretty much a filler-like promo/crossover to promote DJ, so I still don’t know really feel very enlightened about Grimjack, but I’d be willing to try some more.

 

I’ll sum up my haul.  The gift comics went over well, so that was a plus.  The Conan comic I went looking for was good.  The Nexus Omnibus was excellent.  The Zia Comics bargain bin comics were in the bin for a reason and it wasn’t quality.  I think I struck out on all of those.  Everything else sort of drifted in the middle.  Either they were just okay or incomplete in some fashion.  Okay, I’m caught up in reviewing, so obviously I need more comics.