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Post by dominocorp on Jan 5, 2024 9:48:20 GMT
does anyone have an opinion of the best period of Nexus? I've read so much of it, but always in pieces, a few issues of the First comics here and there, the first issue of a Dark Horse mini series, etc, but never one long stretch. It's publishing history is hard to make sense of.
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Post by disneyweirdness on Jan 5, 2024 10:10:31 GMT
does anyone have an opinion of the best period of Nexus? I've read so much of it, but always in pieces, a few issues of the First comics here and there, the first issue of a Dark Horse mini series, etc, but never one long stretch. It's publishing history is hard to make sense of. I collected almost all of these from the used bookstore where I used to work before actually reading them. I got as far as when Steve Rude leaves the First Comics series, haven't read any of the Dark Horse yet. I liked The Moth book that Rude did for Dark Horse though
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Post by dominocorp on Jan 5, 2024 10:48:08 GMT
I feel like...Rude's art gets better on the DH books, but Baron's writing gets much stranger.
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Post by junkflower on Jan 5, 2024 15:46:28 GMT
I realize this isn't a satisfactory answer to your question and is rather a seized opportunity to be snide but IMO, there just straight up isn't a good period of Nexus.
I'm a total mark for this series- I love the Hanna Barbera action cartoons, and Rude's numerous influences. But Nexus...
The premise is OK enough- what if Space Ghost was basically the Punisher for some reason? But the story threads are never developed in interesting or satisfactory ways- it's obvious that Baron never had any real thesis or even really a plot progression in mind, and the series meanders all over the place and often repeats itself. Some of the best parts have Badger in them for no real reason (who in our post-post-Deadpool times comes off as unbelievably annoying, pointless and unfunny)... Nexus as a character has a stupid name (Horatio Hellpop) and is poorly developed, and often hamstrung in-story for no reason. He's a character who's seemingly omnipotent, but never really does anything or faces any serious challenge until the climax of the half-baked stories. The source of his powers, the Yeerk, is just annoying and a dumb idea, and actually, inevitably, serves to defuse anything interesting about Nexus' character (sorry Horatio, I cant let you use your powers right now.. Again!). At least Nexus' costume is cool...
Rude can obviously draw his ass off when hes feeling it, but as any interview with him will show you, he just doesn't seem like a particularly smart or interesting guy, and can't really take a story to the next level on his own. Baron, who I understand was a cocaine addict for a large part of the series, well... writes like that. A lot of promise but no show.
I admit I haven't read too much of the Dark Horse minis, but the best I found was the Magnus/Nexus crossover where Rude brings in his Russ Manning influence to great effect.
I will say, though, Rude's Spider Man miniseries is really fun, and was a key comic for me as a kid becoming a lifer who might later post like this on a message board.
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Post by eheitner on Jan 5, 2024 16:37:47 GMT
Ok but Horatio Hellpop is an awesome name. I've never read a Nexus comic and have no plans to do so.
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nrh
New Member
Posts: 16
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Post by nrh on Jan 5, 2024 17:25:49 GMT
does anyone have an opinion of the best period of Nexus? I've read so much of it, but always in pieces, a few issues of the First comics here and there, the first issue of a Dark Horse mini series, etc, but never one long stretch. It's publishing history is hard to make sense of. I finished reading the first series last month, and it's a frustrating experience. It's a strong set up for a series - brooding romantic hero type gets nightmares pushing him to execute mass murderers (usually despots, war criminals, slavers, etc); refugees from the fallout of those killings, who think Nexus is a liberator, end up forming a kind ad hoc democratic society. So you have both self-contained morality play stories where Nexus is going out and committing his executions, and ongoing sci-fi soap opera stuff with the fallout of those actions, the society forming and so on. And the series starts well, in the black and white mini-series collected in "The Original Nexus" - lots of reckless ideas, Rude's art a little bit stiffer than it will be but he's playing around with tones and some graphic ideas that probably come from Chaykin, which is always welcome. But Baron really can't build on any of his ideas; I don't think there's a single story line or character arc that doesn't fizzle out in the least interesting possible way. I'd say the first two dozen issues, up to Rude's first break, maintain the energy decently well, though even there you get a terrible Badger cameo and some terrible botscht-belt comedy interludes. There are swings of inspiration after that but it's diminishing returns until Rude leaves and then it's just pretty dire. Rude's an interesting artist. He's good with the weird alien designs, seems to enjoy architecture and fashion, always seems to come alive when he gets to do romance comic derived melodrama, which isn't often enough. There's a drift to a kind of decorative quality, arranging colors and page layout in a harmonious way that only seems tangentially related to the material. A lot of energy that doesn't add up to all that much. There's a Giffen fill-in, with some nicely angular '80s Giffen mark making, and a good Rick Veitch issue.
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Post by owaddled on Jan 5, 2024 18:25:15 GMT
There's some really well thought out responses here. I am someone else that collected as much Nexus but it never grabbed me enough to read all the issues I got.
Curious, is Grimjack actually good? I've always like Ostrander, and there's a whooole lotta Grimjack out there, but I've never made the plunge.
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Post by dominocorp on Jan 5, 2024 18:34:55 GMT
I think he's just a different kind of person, he's someone who is into adventure in a way that I don't think most of us can relate to. What I've read of Nexus IS always frustrating if I want it to be, like, a good alternative comic or a Moore/Miller serious deconstructionist/reconstructionist thing...because it's so goofy. But as a roller coaster ride where you're following these silly ideas and in so doing you're plopped into some very intense drawings, it's kind of perfect. I really dislike Alex Ross sensibility, that recent Fantastic Four thing left a very bad taste in my mouth because of how seriously Ross takes this stuff. Rude takes it seriously too, but in the form of adventure, not because corporate IP is inherently serious...Rude is not really a natural entertainer (there's too much oddness for that), but is obsessed with being one and that makes for an interesting energy. I think Baron's ideas fizzle for similar reasons, it's not weighted down with literary intentions.
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Post by junkflower on Jan 5, 2024 18:43:32 GMT
There's some really well thought out responses here. I am someone else that collected as much Nexus but it never grabbed me enough to read all the issues I got. Curious, is Grimjack actually good? I've always like Ostrander, and there's a whooole lotta Grimjack out there, but I've never made the plunge. In my opinion, Grimjack is really cool and holds up better than Nexus. However it is quite silly in a different way. For whatever reason I don't feel as harshly towards it as I do towards Nexus, though it has a few similar long-game issues. I think Ostrander did a good job of tailoring the books direction to the various artists attached at different times. The latter issues are quite hard to get a hold of.
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Post by pentimento on Jan 6, 2024 1:19:27 GMT
Some interesting comments in these various threads as well: www.tapatalk.com/groups/marvelmasterworksfansite/search.php?keywords=nexus&terms=all&author=&fid%5B%5D=8&sc=1&sf=titleonly&sr=topics&sk=t&sd=d&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=SearchI think Nexus is the best superhero comic of the 1980s, not counting "deconstructions" like Dark Knight, Watchmen, etc. Baron and Rude's earnestness doesn't allow for that sort of irony - but the series was not without irony and self-awareness, so it has weighty themes (real morality, faith, politics) but also can be great fun, as others in this thread have said. And Rude must be one of the only cartoonists whose influences are as disparate as Kirby, Manning and Seuss, and who manages to combine those influences into a believable world where settings and characters look like they're lifted from those influences, yet everything harmonizes somehow. It's not like these shitty "tough guy" marvel artists who try to draw "cute" (Skottie Young, ugh) or someone like Burne Hogarth whose attempts at comedy look like the corniest impiest shit ever. Rude sells it, and maybe it's Baron's sense of humor that allows everything to work together.
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Post by dominocorp on Jan 6, 2024 1:25:09 GMT
Yeah. It's like, I find the 'reconstructionists' (Ross, Busiek, Waid) really irritating because it tries to bestow this importance on corporate IP's that just isn't there. Like, whenever Ross draws Superman, it's like a portrait of a moral philosopher. Whereas when Jon Bogdanove draws him, it's a drawing of an adventurer. The deconstrictonists needed a corrective, of course, but it's oddly Rude who was doing it pre and post*, he's just too straight forward to spin it so that the reaction is apparent. Moore's ABC line also does a good job, but that's sort of like throwing a party to apologize for a murder you commited, while obscuring Rude's more modest and earnest get together.
Nexus would have been a good ABC book actually, its goofiness would have been viewed as super profound. Sorta like how someone once said 'If Concrete by Paul Chadwick was called Concreto by Paolo Chadwicci everyone would think it was the best comic of all time.'
*uh and I guess Zot! as well? Which I have never read.
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Post by disneyweirdness on Jan 6, 2024 12:15:19 GMT
*uh and I guess Zot! as well? Which I have never read. I got the original color issues of Zot at the bookstore too and they are really fun. I am not really familiar with the black and white iteration, to me it looks like an attempt at an American romance manga?
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Post by disneyweirdness on Jan 6, 2024 12:18:33 GMT
I like the Oz books! Tim Burtony.
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Post by guidovision on Jan 6, 2024 15:42:45 GMT
Moore's ABC line also does a good job, but that's sort of like throwing a party to apologize for a murder you commited. This also applies to his work on Supreme, which is basically a precursor to ABC and, in my opinion, the best Superman (unofficial or not) story of the 90s. I just wish the artwork had been more consistent. Veitch was always great, and the series found some visual consistency once Sprouse became a regular but, before that it, had to endure a parade of not-ready-for-primetime kids from Liefeld's studio. And that (along with the tangle of legal issues that have kept it OOP for decades) has probably prevented it form being considered the classic it could have been. I prefer it ten times to the kind of stuff Waid and Busiek were doing at the time.
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Post by guidovision on Jan 6, 2024 15:45:30 GMT
*uh and I guess Zot! as well? Which I have never read. I got the original color issues of Zot at the bookstore too and they are really fun. I am not really familiar with the black and white iteration, to me it looks like an attempt at an American romance manga? I read the B&W compilation that was released about, fifteen years ago? I recall it being enjoyable yet somewhat precious. It felt more like an indy take on superhero comics than an actual independent superhero comic, like Nexus would be. There is definitely a strong manga influence too.
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