Nextwave: Agents of HATE

Warren Ellis has a history of writing what are essentially creator-owned titles in established shared universes. He did it with Stormwatch, The Authority and Planetary in the Wildstorm universe. He did it with Excalibur and other associated X-titles in Marvel. And he did it with Nextwave.

Nextwave was written at a time when Ellis was working exclusively for Marvel. He's said that during this period he felt he was being paid to service Marvel's vast back catalogue of characters and concepts. Which is a fair argument to make. I wish Marvel would try their hand at creating a new batch of heroes and villains but this approach is a good alternative. Ellis selected a handful of barely used characters, stuck them together as a team and pitted them against a batch of equally barely used enemies (and new enemies with very clear links to established ones). It's a decent substitute for entirely new creations.

The characters in question were Elsa Bloodstone, a monster hunter who'd appeared in her own limited series before spiralling into obscurity; explosion-happy mutant Tabitha Smith; Monica 'Photon' Rambeu, who can transform herself into any form of energy on the magnetic spectrum (it’s about as interesting to see used in a comic about as it sounds); and android Aaron Stack (formerly Machine Man). They're joined by new creations The Captain, who has the standard flight and super strength combo, and recurring villain Dirk Anger. Through his usual snarky dialogue, a strong reliance on humour and a series of threats that are either inspired by the Lee and Kirby era or Saturday morning cartoons Ellis writes what is one of his best pieces of work.

The tone of the book is not dissimilar to The Authority: the aim is to have a fun comic that plays on the standard tropes of superhero titles on the shelves. But while Authority had serious moments and global level threats Nextwave retains its humour at all times, never trying to be anything more than amusing comic, and problems that are intended to be outlandish more than world-threatening. Ellis deliberately wrote Nextwave to be as shallow as possible, saying that emotional arcs and character development are foreign to comics. I think there is a place for these things but Ellis is right that they've become overused. More comics could get away with having a gang of supes smacking a giant robot about.

The premise is designed around this. We're told that the Nextwave group have gone rogue from former employers HATE (Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort) after finding out that they're backed financially by the Beyond Corporation, a former terrorist cell. Using a stolen business plan the team travel around the US hunting out Beyond's UWMDs (Unusual Weapons of Mass Destruction). These UWMDs take such forms as a genetically engineered, Transformers-inspired robot, an army of samurais, various floating cities, and sixties fave Fin Fang Foom.

Stuart Immonen probably deserves a mention at this point. I'm sure most artists at Marvel would be able to draw the things Ellis thinks up for Nextwave, but I don't think anyone could have done quite as good a job. He gets the right blend of action and fun.

It's a simplistic approach but one that allows Nextwave to simply be enjoyable. There are no Big Ideas or underlying messages, it's designed just to be a fun read. It helps that Ellis amuses himself with a letters page and a Q&A segment at the start of each issue, the latter of which is there to get new readers up to speed but features minor alterations each issue for regular readers.

Nextwave was originally going to be written for twelve issues by Ellis and then get passed on to a new writer. For whatever reason that didn't happen and the series wrapped up as its initial creative duo left. I doubt anyone could have made the book work as Ellis did so it's probably a blessing in disguise that this happened. A return would be welcome, but only written by Ellis and ideally drawn by Immonen. For anyone who's enjoyed the initial stretch of The Authority and Planetary (and why wouldn't you, both are great) this series will go down a treat.

Planetary

 

 What if the Fantastic Four turned bad? We’ll come back to this…

Planetary is a comic series published by Wildstorm comics from 1998 to late 1999. Despite that lengthy period it consists of only twenty-seven regular issues, three crossover issues and an introductory short. It was written by Warren Ellis, drawn by John Cassaday and coloured by Laura Martin. It’s set in the Wildstorm Universe (which has since been assimilated into the DC Universe) but in actuality has very little to do with the company’s established characters or titles. It’s a thematic successor to Ellis’s run on Stormwatch and The Authority.

The series focuses on the Planetary field team. Comprised of Elijah Snow, a man who can subtract heat form the atmosphere, Jakita Wagner, a woman blessed with super strength, and The Drummer, who has complete control over all technology, they’re tasked with uncovering the secret history of their world. That sounds a little broad, and it is. It’s basically the creative team’s excuse for the team getting involved in the plots they do. They have unlimited resources and answer only to the mysterious Fourth Man, the identity of whom becomes one of first of many mysteries in the series.

This is a completely accurate summary but it also fails to do Planetary justice. There’s so much more to the title.

The central conceit of Planetary is Ellis’s use of history to create a world of wonder. There’s an ongoing plot threat and a few loose arcs but all but two of the issues are self-contained stories (the two that aren’t are a two part story). This allows Ellis much more creative freedom than the traditional approach does. There’s no regular base or lengthy, convoluted explanations about how bad guys that were definitely killed last time we saw them are able to return.

Ellis makes use of a number of literary sources for Planetary. Issue two, for example, draws heavily on the tradition of Japanese monster movies. Issue eight is a cross between Cold War paranoia and fifties B movies. Australian creation myths are the basis of much of issue fifteen, although John Carter of Mars is also a source of inspiration for that issue. That should hint at how broad the series can be even within one issue. Action movies, Sherlock Holmes, The (Steed and Peel) Avengers, Norse mythology, and the X Files all provide ideas for Ellis at various points too. It’s an eclectic mixture of literature, pop culture, TV shows, and, of course, comic book history.

It sounds incredibly busy but it’s all perfectly judged, the sources never overshadow the central plot or the characters Ellis has created. Ellis uses the fiction we’re all familiar with as a storytelling shorthand. It’s a little like Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, only broader in its reach and less focused on using the sources it uses as the centre point of its tale.

And I’ve yet to mention the comic book sources Ellis draws from. Throughout the series characters appear that are clearly based on characters from Marvel and DC, names changed partly because of legal reasons and partly because Ellis presents them, to a greater or lesser extent, as alternate versions of those established characters. He’s more interested in subverting the known aspects of the characters than the characters themselves, which is a healthy approach to take. We see Nick Fury, Captain Marvel, John Constatine, and Spider Jerusalem reimagined, and the work of several comic book greats referenced, most obviously and frequently Jack Kirby.

And then there are The Four. They’re the Fantastic Four done as though they were bad guys. The starting point for the idea was an issue Ellis has with the Marvel version of the group: they have great powers, resources and inventions but use them only to fight bad guys. There’s no attempt from the group to better mankind. That becomes a central idea of Ellis’s Four.

We see them slaughter the population of an entire planet just so they have somewhere to store their immense weapons collection. We discover that they created they internet (although it’s never actually revealed why). Most notably we see them eliminate Wildstorm versions of Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern before they can have any positive influence on Earth. And none of this is done for the sake of it. By the time Planetary finishes we know exactly what motivated The Four and how and why they’ve done what they’ve done.

Understanding all of this in relation to the source material is obviously fun and adds another level on which to enjoy the book. If you don’t recognise something enough to know what the source material was you stil follow what’s going on within the context of the tale. You aren’t isolated because of ignorance but knowledge and understanding of pop culture and comic books specifically is rewarded.

I would like to add that the creativity is not limited to the stories told within Planetary. The covers are an integral part of the book’s experience, mirroring as they do the chief themes and inspirations of their contents (see the selection posted at the top of this review. Issue 23, for example, is the pulp heroes story, its cover done up to emulate a cheap disposable paperback from the thirties. The John Constantine issue perfectly replicates the original style of Vertigo titles. Meanwhile issue fifteen evokes ancient Australasian tribe art. The covers alone contribute more to the stories Ellis and Cassaday tell than most authors pack into twenty-plus page issues. 

Cassaday’s artwork is just as important to the book’s success as Ellis’s writing. A lesser artist (and there are many) would have been incapable of transferring Ellis’s more outlandish ideas to the page. There are few artists who could have produced work that was one moment awe inspiring and the next detailing the unspoken emotions of an office drone. Cassaday perfectly captures The Drummer’s neuroses and skittishness, Jakita’s confident swagger (just look at the perfect panel at the bottom of issue eight’s twelfth page), and Elijah’s deliberate pondering. In lesser hands this could have become just another superhero book. Cassaday helps it to become something incredibly special.

The links to the Wildstorm Universe start out infrequent and vague and are pretty much gone by the halfway point of the series. That’s no bad thing. Ellis does more to create a cohesive history for this fictional universe in Planetary than everyone else had done combined. Instead of trying to make everything tie together he focuses on threads he’d started up in other books. Such as the century babies.

Anyone who’s read The Authority will be familiar with the idea of a group of people with special powers sharing the birthday of January 1^st 1900. That’s elaborated on in Planetary, although ultimately we’re left with more answers than questions on the topic. The concept could very easily support a comic series in its own right. It’s a testament to Ellis as a writer that he hasn’t ruined the mysterious air he worked hard to cultivate by taking on such a project. The idea works best when used as an unresolved thread in the background.

With Planetary Ellis wanted to reintroduce wonder and discovery into comics, something he (rightly) felt had disappeared from comics throughout the course of the late eighties and the nineties. He essentially writes Planetary as a creator owned title and uses the Wildstorm Universe as little more than a backdrop. It’s not something that could have been done with the continuity heavy worlds of Marvel or DC. It works here because Wildstorm is (or was now, I suppose) so much younger as a company. Ellis gave it an identity of its own with this title, and wrote a series that will be enjoyed for a very long time. You could not hope for a more inventive comic.

Warren Ellis's Stormwatch

Stormwatch is the first entry in what can be considered a loose trilogy of Wildstorm titles for Warren Ellis. The second part would be The Authority and the concluding part would be Planetary. I didn’t realise this when I read them because I read them out of sequence. Not that you have to have read them in publication order of course, but certain references and recurring characters will make more sense if you do. My reading habits are a product of living in the age of collected editions.

Everyone who writes about Stormwatch mentions that its themes bled into The Authority and on into Planetary. It’s because the latter two titles are so incredibly highly regarded that it’s worth noting that the author figured out his voice for both here first. It’s interesting for its place in history and Ellis’s career as much as anything else.

It also helps to disguise the fact that, at times, Stormwatch can be a little rough around the edges. Part of the reason for that could be because this book was something Ellis inherited rather than created himself, the opposite of which would be the case with the later titles. This results in the author writing out numerous members of the existing cast and introducing his own new creations.

Authority stalwarts Jack Hawksmoor, Jenny Sparks, Swift, Apollo and Midnighter are all introduced here. So are the ideas of the Doctor and the Engineer. It’s clear at a glance that Ellis wants to be writing something wholly original rather than tinkering with the legacy of other people’s work.

The plots bear a striking similarity to The Authority. They’re on a smaller scale and tend to involve existing members of the team more, likely because Ellis didn’t have the sway at this point to use the approach he would later on, but they’re similar enough to the stuff turned out on The Authority to be an obvious precursor. It’s very much in the vein of shadowy cabals, secret societies and corrupt governments. Basically exactly the sort of thing Ellis has been doing for much of his career.

And yet it’s not solely just The Authority before The Authority. Ellis employs techniques that the “wide screen” approach wouldn’t lend itself to. Most obvious is issue forty-four. It’s a flashback story recounting the life of Jenny Sparks and employs artistic techniques that invoke various eras and titles, from pulp detective stories to Watchmen. It’s a less refined approach than what we would eventually see with Planetary but that it’s injected into just one issue, instead of across an entire series, makes it a little more focused.

This book is also of interest because it demonstrates the level of direction Ellis would garner within the Wildstorm Universe. As noted this was a book he inherited from other people. It was designed to sit alongside a wider range of titles and feature a level of crossover. By the time Planetary rolled around Ellis was essentially writing a creator-owned series in a shared universe. Stormwatch is the beginning of what would become Ellis’s impressive influence on an entire company’s output.

Content-wise the run is probably best known for a twist regarding one of the central characters. I shan’t spoil the nature of that here but I will say that it works well and adds a great deal to the plot. It’s also a rarity in comics in that it doesn’t happen for the sake of shocking or being a part of a company-wide crossover. It’s clearly something planned from the start. Yes, this is a vague paragraph. It’s tough to address a large part of the book whilst at the same time trying not to spoil it for anyone who’s not read the book (this is intended to be a recommendation after all).

If there’s one thing that I don’t especially care for about Ellis’s Stormwatch it’s the art of Tom Raney. It’s very of its time. You can tell from glancing at almost any page that it’s a nineties team book that was put out opposite the phenomenally popular X-Men. It would be overstating things to say it’s style over substance, but not by much. Something about Raney’s efforts just doesn’t quite gel. Whether its limbs being posed at peculiar angles, collapsing buildings looking like they’re doing things that defy physics (and not by design), or his sloppy approach to fight scenes (of which there are many) there’s always something just a bit off.

The below average artwork isn’t enough to stop Stormwatch being a very enjoyable read. Ellis produces some great work in its own right which becomes even more fascinating now that we have the benefit of hindsight to see where his career headed, both with specific follow-ups and with the general themes and tropes he’d adopt in general.

The Authority

The make-believe worlds of Marvel and DC all too often take the concept of superheroes for granted. There is little sense of wonder or scale. It's the same group of goodies battling the same group of baddies over and over again, with only mild variations on a theme tossed in to keep long-time fans coming back for more. It's a state that has arisen because the two companies have become so big that they have to worry about things like marketing, meaning they can never kill off a character that’s even remotely popular because there's money to be made.

A criticism can be levied against the inhabitants of these fictional worlds too. If they are all-powerful then why have they never escalated their war against the legions of bad beyond the petty skirmish level? Working together these characters could create a utopia yet they choose not to.

The answer that they don't want to interfere doesn't cut it. Firstly they interfere on a daily basis, they just stop short of doing anything beyond maintaining a precarious status quo. Secondly the world they live in is real to them. It's their home. These people are scientists and heroes and gods, exactly the sort of people who should want change for the better.

The reason this never happens is simply that Marvel and DC are too scared of affecting major changes. They like presenting a world comparable to our own, for marketing reasons and ease of writing. To their credit Marvel have over the last year experimented with creating a more advanced planet in their Ultimate line of titles but you get the feeling that's more because sales had dipped and something needed to be tried to turn the ailing line's fortunes rather than because they thought it would be an interesting way of presenting an alternate Marvel universe.

Someone over at Marvel HQ should have read the original run of The Authority before they started this Ultimate endeavour. Launched in 1999 by writer Warren Ellis and artist Bryan Hitch it is the story of a group of super-powered beings forming a team with no allegiance to any Earth government and a self-imposed mission to save the world by altering it for the better.

The first three arcs see a realistic depiction of the response such a group would receive, with the media, governments, and the general populace all receiving a voice. The plot concepts are, for the most part, impressively large scale. After a relatively low key opening story in which tyrannical dictator Kaizen Gamorra (a character previously seen during Ellis's run on The Authority's spiritual predecessor Stormwatch) launches assaults on major Earth cities we see the gang tackle meatier opponents in the form of a full scale invasion from an alien-controlled parallel Earth and a gigantic alien that is essentially God.

These tales strike a careful balance between character moments and big fight scenes, the latter of which got the title pegged as the world's first "wide-screen comic." Keeping a sense of danger present is particularly impressive when you consider how powerful Ellis made his characters. Apollo and Midnighter are not only pastiches of Superman and Batman but also the world's strongest super-being and a genetically and technologically altered super assassin respectively. They can defeat any opponent in an instant yet Ellis manages to make them relatable and vulnerable.

Jack Hawksmoor is the ‘God of Cities’, needing to stay in metropolitan areas to survive. It's a moniker that has plenty of scope when it comes to powers and Ellis has plenty of fun tinkering with the concept. Swift is a human-bird hybrid who often felt out of place amongst such a powerful unit but is subtly used as a social conscience. The Engineer and the Doctor are a walking super computer with a mouldable body and Earth's great mage respectively, and team leader Jenny Sparks is a woman who looks twenty but was born in 1900 and can control electricity (and is a Century Baby, something that would become very important in one of Ellis's other Wildstorm titles). Each character is well formed and interesting enough to be able to carry a book in their own right. That Ellis has not only tossed them all into one book but manages to write them all equally well is a tremendous accomplishment.

The original creative team only produced twelve issues before moving on to other projects. They were replaced by Frank Quitely and a pre-Millarworld Mark Millar. They too produced storylines unlike those seen elsewhere in superhero comics, opening with a race between The Authority and a an outfit sponsored by a rogue megalomaniac scientist to find a baby born to be 'The Spirit of the 21^st Century' with a story in which the Authority are dispatched by the world's various governments, replaced by more agreeable members. Millar keeps the plotting as tight as Ellis did and services his cast just as well, while Quitely proves a one of the few men capable of not being overshadowed by Hitch. Unfortunately Quitely didn’t stick around for Millar’s entire run (although it should be noted he doesn't stick around until the end of the run like Millar does).

Disappointing sales and concern at DC’s head offices over the title’s direction caused The Authority to be cancelled at the conclusion of Millar's third arc. Subsequent resurrections of the book have not reached the heady heights of those first 29 issues. The Ellis, Hitch, Millar, and Quitely run is well worth tracking down because of its inventiveness and dedication to shaking up superhero comics. It is a fine example of creative comic book ideas done right.

Critical information:
Writers: Warren Ellis and Mark Millar
Artists: Bryan Hitch and Frank Quitely
ISBNS: 9781840231946, 9781840232796, 9781840233711, 9781840234909