The Long and Short Of It – Nextwave – Agents of H.A.T.E. #12

Reviews

Nextwave – Agents of H.A.T.E. #12

Writer: Warren Ellis
Pencils: Stuart Immonen
Inks: Wade Von Grawbadger
Colours: Dave McCaig
Letters: VC’s Joe Caramagna

The Long of It

Alas poor Nextwave. I knew them, Horatio. Even if I don’t know you Horatio, I knew them. Fellows of infinite jest. And now they’re gone, at least for the foreseeable. Sniff…. Where are my Kleenex? Oh, yeah. I haven’t replaced them since Frank Cho’s Shanna the She-Devil series. I must do that.

So yes; this is it. The end of one of the most original series to be published by the “Big 2” in about… oh,… ever. And so we must bid farewell to our merry band of warriors, who for the last year have set about saving the World by beating people up. No more Monica Rambeau (she used to lead the Avengers, you know?); no more Machine Man (who still isn’t fond of us fleshy ones); adios Captain (formerly known as Captain C*** and Captain L-Ron, for which he was beaten up by Captain America and Tom Cruise respectively); cheerio to Elsa Bloodstone (who is better than you because she speaks with an English accent); and sayonara Tabitha, who started the whole thing off by stealing the plans of the Beyond Corporation.


Unusual, irreverent (and possibly irrelevant) and ridiculous, it has been like a really GOOD roller-coaster ride. One that leaves you disoriented and a bit shaky, and with a nasty taste of vomit in your mouth, but with the assured feeling you have just experienced something you may never experience again.


To steal a line from Monty Python if I may, this series has been like a stream of bats’ piss. And by that I mean it has been like a shaft of gold when all around is dark. Unusual, irreverent (and possibly irrelevant) and ridiculous, it has been like a really GOOD roller-coaster ride. One that leaves you disoriented and a bit shaky, and with a nasty taste of vomit in your mouth, but with the assured feeling you have just experienced something you may never experience again. Something special. We have journeyed through Fin Fang Foom’s purple underpants, faced Broccoli Men and Elvis M.O.D.O.K.s that fire burger missiles. We never got to face the might of The Homosexuality; because they were double-booked with a Gay Pride march in San Francisco; but we did get to witness the wrath of Dirk Anger, right up until his untimely death. And then for a while AFTER his untimely death. And Forbush Man. So now, as the team close in on the headquarters of the Beyond Corporation, they are about to face it’s ultimate architect.

At the end of the last issue, the mysterious robot Number None had just stabbed Machine Man through the chest with a giant spiky stick-thing. Oh, the drama. It’s too much. But fortunately, as Machine Man himself asks, “Have you really ever met a robot you could kill by stabbing it through the chest? My beer-deprive robot brain says: No, pusbag, you haven’t.” So he rapidly decapitates Number None, who turns out to be a baby M.O.D.O.K. Yes, apparently M.O.D.O.K.s can breed. Who knew? The MODOK (I’m bored of doing acronyms properly – have you any idea how much effort that is?) flees, and finally the team come face to face with the evil genius behind everything they have faced so far. Well, more face-to-navel actually, because the evil genius is quite large. It’s Devil Dinosaur. In a smoking jacket, and holding a pistol and a glass of champagne. And he’s eaten Moon Boy.


Here we have witnessed two diseased minds come together to create a form of mental illness previously only scribbled about in the margins of psychology students’ note-books.


And so, this wonderful epic tour through the dark recesses of the minds of Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen has come to an end with some suitable symmetry. They started by facing off against a giant, evil lizard, and they finish by doing the same thing. And it’s a thing of beauty. Ellis’s scripting and dialogue are as always top notch, and Immonen’s art blends brilliantly with it. Here we have witnessed two diseased minds come together to create a form of mental illness previously only scribbled about in the margins of psychology students’ note-books. And hilarity has ensued. Even the letters page is the best one I have ever read. I beg, no DEMAND, of Marvel that they commission another series of Nextwave as soon as possible. My sanity requires it.