Were it not for the fact that it already has its own theme song, Nextwave would be an excellent inheritor of Team America’s rousing chorus of “America, Fuck Yeah!” Nextwave is the superhero equivalent of Parker & Stone’s puppet-action-musical, a mishmash of comic book cliches that takes various superhero concepts to their far-out conclusions.
It’s Ellis’ superhero interpretation of the “game logic” or “fight comics” found in Bryan O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim or Corey Lewis’ Sharknife: There’s little time spent mucking about with motivations or establishing in-depth character action. It’s all about punching first, exploding second, and askinq questions at some vaguely-defined point in the future. Some of the characters get a panel or two of exposition; the entire comic is summed up nicely as “a super hero comic about five people who have just minutes to prevent a town from being eaten by a giant lizard monster in purple underpants.”
The giant lizard is veteran Marvel monster Fin Fang Foom, uncovered by the corrupt and powerful Beyond Corportation. The Beyond Corporation secretly funds H.A.T.E., a S.H.I.E.L.D. knockoff run by Nick Fury knockoff Dirk Anger. Dirk Anger hired the heroes of Nextwave to fight terrorists, but Nextwave found out they were working for terrorists and quit. Now Nextwave are dedicated to fighting their former employers, which in this case involves stopping the giant lizard.
That sounds complicated, but Ellis covers it all in a page and a half. And the details are fairly insignificant, given the clarity with which good guys (wearing cool trenchcoats) and bad guys (eye patch, giant lizard) are depicted. There’s fairly little originality or complexity in play here; Nextwave is all about execution.
Ellis is clearly amused by the fringe characters he’s strung together. Elsa Bloodstone seems to be a monster-fighting version of Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous, while Machine Man has gone from “robot who wants to be a man” to “robot who just wants a beer.” The Captain, a nameless and generic hero of Ellis’ creation, confesses he really only wanted to be a superhero “so I could hit people in the face really hard and run away and no one would know it was me.” Meanwhile, Monica “Least Interesting Person to use the name Captain Marvel” Rambeau gets to be both straight man and dry wit, first admonishing Elsa for killing Beyond’s vegetable-robot-soldiers, then later confessing she wouldn’t be terribly bothered if Elsa were to be stepped on by the giant lizard. (She also picks up a bit too much of Ellis’ Britishisms, using the phrase “trodden on”.)
Nextwave doesn’t take itself seriously in the least: Fin Fang Foom wears purple underwear, Dirk Anger’s top-secret communications device is a giant telephone, and fleeing robot soldiers compose their own theme songs. It’s the Saturday morning cartoon extension of Ells’ Authority, delivered with visual panache by Stuart Immomen. Immomen’s angular, cartoony style captures the action with Kirby-esque aplomb. He also pulls of the character interaction quite nicely, and displays an obvious affection for his stylish revamp of Elsa.
Nextwave shows off the sense of humour Ellis often hints at, but never fully explores, in his darker and more sophisticated books. It provides plenty of ammunition for those who believe he hates superheroes, but also plenty of fun for those who don’t insist on taking these men and women in spandex so seriously.
Also, it has a giant lizard wearing purple shorts.
Fuck yeah.