| Nexus | |
|---|---|
Nexus - Nightmare in Blue #4 (October 1997) |
|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Capital Comics First Comics Dark Horse Comics Rude Dude Productions |
| Format | Mini-series Ongoing series |
| Genre | , science fiction, superhero |
| Publication date | January 1981 - October 1982 1983 - March 1991 |
| Number of issues | 100+ |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Mike Baron |
| Penciller(s) | Steve Rude |
| Collected editions | |
| Volume 1 | ISBN 1-59307-398-4 |
Nexus is an American comic book series created by writer Mike Baron and penciler Steve Rude in 1981. The series is a combination of the superhero and science fiction genres, set 500 years in the future.
Contents |
The series debuted as a three-issue black-and-white limited series, followed by an eighty-issue ongoing full-color series. The black-and-white issues and the first six color issues were published by Capital Comics; after Capital's demise, First Comics took over publication.
On the creation of the series, Baron notes that they had originally pitched a series called 'Encyclopaedias' to the Capital Comics but the company rejected this saying they were looking for a superhero title. Over a drink at a restaurant, Baron outlined his ideas for Nexus to Rude,[1]
Nexus was entirely Baron's idea. He even came up with the lightning bolt for the costume. All that we needed then was a name... a few weeks passed. Baron calls, and, without preamble, just says "Nexus." we finally had our name."[1]
In addition to the ongoing series, First reprinted the original mini-series as a graphic novel and later reprinted the first two years of the ongoing title in the Nexus Legends series. The ongoing series was also supplemented by The Next Nexus, a four-issue miniseries that followed Nexus #52. Following the conclusion of the ongoing series with #80 (May 91), seven miniseries and two one-shots were published by Dark Horse Comics. The last of these mini-series was printed in black-and-white as a cost-cutting measure; low sales led to the series being discontinued. Although each mini-series had its own issue numbering, Baron and Rude added a sequential number to each, as explained in the back of the first issue of Nexus: Executioner's Song:
The current issue number was figured by continuing First Publishing's numbering, which ended at volume 2, #80. Adding Nexus: The Origin, Nexus: Alien Justice #1-3, and Nexus: The Wages of Sin #1-4 brings it up to 88 — making "Dark Side of the Moon" #89.
This numbering excluded Nexus: Liberator (which neither Rude nor Baron worked on) and crossover specials with Magnus: Robot Fighter and Madman.
Baron and Rude discussed plans to revive the series and/or release a movie, possibly in animated form. (A brief animated test clip was shown at comics conventions.) July 2007 through July 2009 they published the miniseries Space Opera, which culminated in a double-size issue #101/102.
The creators' canonical publication list includes 105 issues:
The lead character, Horatio Valdemar Hellpop, received his powers as Nexus from an alien entity called the Merk. As payment, the Merk required Nexus to seek out and kill a certain quantity of human mass murderers per "cycle". When the Merk selected a target, Nexus would receive strong headaches and maddeningly anguished dreams (which in extremely intense episodes can cause physical injuries to Hellpop's body that to a degree emulate the violence in the vision) of his target's victims until he did his duty. Horatio was reluctant to act as the Merk's tool, but continued seeking out mass murderers to maintain his power and his sanity so that he could defend his homeworld, a lunar refuge of Ylum (a shortening of the word "asylum," thus pronounced "eye-lum").
Horatio's father, Theodore, was a communist general and ruler of the planet Vradic. A religious uprising led by his brother-in-law threatened to overthrow the Sov government, which he had been ordered to uphold "at all costs." General Hellpop chose to detonate a bomb and destroy the planet, killing ten million people, then piloted an escape capsule with himself and his wife into a black hole. Surprisingly, it was a wormhole which ejected them near Ylum, where Horatio soon was born.
As Horatio grew up, the Merk influenced him through apparently imaginary friends named Alph and Beta. However, when Horatio's mother died becoming lost in the tunnels of the planet, Horatio blamed them for her death and killed them in the first use of his power. Shortly afterward, Horatio began to dream about his father's crimes, causing himself inescapable torment. In this agony, Alph and Beta mysteriously appeared to reveal the duties of Nexus necessary to end the ordeal: the execution of his own father. With considerable personal agony, and unaware that his father was on the verge of suicide on his own, Horatio carried out the execution.
Left alone for two years, Horatio began to dream of the murderous oppressors of the Thunes, led by the Manager, and set out to deal with them in costume as Nexus for the first time. After the execution was carried out, Nexus agreed to take the Thune prisoners to Ylum to protect them from reprisals. Ylum thus became an asylum world, with the Thune prisoner, Dave, becoming both senior manager and Horatio's closest confidant.
Nexus would often find himself in the painful position of assassinating someone who had repented their former days of infamy, and desired only to be left alone with their guilt while several of his targets were completely ignorant that their short-sighted actions had inadvertently caused the deaths of others. Fortunately, at least one such target was allowed to commit suicide when confronted by Nexus and death by that means is sufficient to end the relevant dream. For the most part, however, his targets were unrepentant murderers, a number of whom had enslaved or otherwise taken advantage of their victims before causing their deaths, thus allowing Nexus to execute them with a clear conscience.
Both Baron and Rude pay homage to Space Ghost in their work on Nexus, including use of the battle cry "This calls for hyperspeed!" Jan, Jayce, and Blip have several uncredited cameos in the background. Rude was later hired to create a Space Ghost comic for Comico with writer Mark Evanier.
Steve Rude has cited a number of influences on his clean, distinctive style, including the Space Ghost character designs and other work by Alex Toth, and commercial illustrators of the 1940s and 1950s, particularly Andrew Loomis.
Baron's Nexus stories responded to the world he was writing in; competing merchants overwhelm media channels (and telepathy) with advertising. A great computerized library, perhaps presaging the Internet, controls the universe's memory of history. However, some of his early 1980s references have become outdated, such as the menacing Sov empire.
The superpower of the Nexus universe, fusionkasting, psionically draws energy from the cores of stars (or other large sources on rare occasions). Many innate fusionkasters (the Merk and the Heads) can bestow their potential upon other individuals. This transference is said to fade over distance, but fusionkasters have been shown hundreds of light years from their sources with little decline in power. However, the link apparently cannot cross into other dimensions.
Most fusionkasters possess the abilities of flight, energy beam projection that can be directionally controlled as desired, and force fields (which can provide invulnerability to sufficiently powerful wielders). Super strength, telekinesis, and/or various degrees of telepathy are also common. Only Nexus and Plexus have demonstrated a substantially wider range of applications, including energy absorption, matter creation, transmutation, and teleportation.
Dark Horse Comics Hardcover archive editions
Rude Dude Productions
The series won a total of six Eisner Awards, including Best Single Issue/Single Story for 1993's Nexus: Origin, Best Writer/Artist for Nexus: Origin, Best Artist/Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team for the Nexus series in 1988, Best Artist/Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team for Nexus: Origin, Best Artist/Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team for Nexus: Executioner's song in 1997, and Best Letterer/Lettering by Todd Klein in 2008.
The Badger, another Mike Baron character who was also published by First Comics, made several guest appearances in the pages of Nexus. The series also crossed over with Badger and several other First series (American Flagg!, Grimjack, Jon Sable: Freelance, Whisper and Dreadstar) during the First Comics miniseries Crossroads. Following the switch from First to Dark Horse, Nexus crossed over with Madman (Nexus Meets Madman) and Magnus Robot Fighter (Magnus Robot Fighter/Nexus).
A 2-minute promo for an animated series was made in 2004.[2]