UPDATE: a lot of you who are using Internet Explorer would have noticed severe page hiccups during the past few days and we would like to apologise, as the browser was clashing with some of the code that Firefox was otherwise ok with and we never noticed until now! Enjoy the rest of the show!!
Interior: The Nexus Auditorium
Welcome to the Comics Nexus Awards 2007!
(to get the lowdown on this year’s awards, check back to Day 0 of our coverage)
Bringing you the nitty gritty on 2007, your Nexus Awards hosts:
Manolis Vamvounis (editor, graphics, words) and Iain Burnside (words)
(With special thanks to Mike Carey, Dan Slott and Brian Reed for their valuable Fourth Wall-breaking help)
Moving fast to our first award:
Male Lead
What makes a man into a man? It’s a question that has been asked by many people with so much free time on their hands that they start to – yuck – feel-oh-so-fize. According to Bob Dylan, it had something to do with walking down an unknown number of roads. To the narrator of the Hellboy movie, it was all about the choices that he made. And, as far as the Big Lebowski was concerned, it was simply a pair of testicles. Well, our top three picks certainly tick all of those boxes. They’ve travelled many a dangerous road on their various heroic quests. They’ve made some hard choices under great duress. They’ve even managed to survive all this with their testicles intact. They are indeed fine, tightly-buttocked examples of manhood, leading such diverse followers as a legend, mutants and a monkey along the way.
Runners-Up:
Bronze Nexus — Yorrick Brown (Y: THE LAST MAN)
Silver Nexus — Cyclops (ASTONISHING X-MEN)
Winner – Golden Nexus:
BLUE BEETLE
We’ll be hearing from our winners in reverse order. Straight from the horse’s mouth come the words of our second-favourite body-good man, Cyclops:
“Well this is a proud moment for me, in a career which has held many unforgettable moments. Saving the Earth. Saving the entire universe. Merging with Apocalypse. Psychic adultery with Emma. But I digress. I’d like to thank the Comic Nexus fans and staffers for their faith in me, and at the same time to remind them that the new age of bad-ass mutant zero tolerance is now upon us. Don’t make me come back here in a sour mood, okay?”
Jamie Reyes was planning to attend our ceremony but unfortunately got carded at the Atrium’s entrance. Our resident DC guru, Mathan Erhardt is here to save the day and accept the award on Blue Beetle’s behalf. Mathan, what can you tell us about our Best Hero of 2007?
Jamie Reyes isn’t only the best hero out, he’s the best hero that you aren’t reading. Sure he’s a kid who’s in over his head in the hero game, but he’s still the best thing out.
It’s really hard to pinpoint Jamie’s finest hour in 2008 because he had so many great ones. It’d probably be Blue Beetle #17 where he goes up against Typhoon to save the residents of Vista Verde from the villain created hurricane. As the issue progresses Jamie manages not only to best villain, save three hundred ninety-nine live and out bluff Bruce Wayne. But that’s not enough for the kid, because all he can think about is the twenty-three lives that he didn’t save. The issue ends with Jamie’s father comforting his tearful son.
That’s a true hero.
Of course Jamie’s a multifaceted character too. In the previous issue Jamie reveals that in his mind a dentist holds the ultimate power, much to Eclipso’s chagrin. How can you not love a hero so grounded that he dreams of a life of oral surgery?
Jamie’s so great a hero that he makes other characters better by association. In Blue Beetle #14, when Guy Gardner makes an appearance, Jamie’s interaction with him allows Guy to actually show some depth. And whenever he’s near the Teen Titans that book gets instantly more readable. And it should be noted that Blue Beetle had the only official Sinestro Corps War crossover that wasn’t in a GL related book.
Jamie Reyes is the a hero who hasn’t lost himself in his role as a hero and that’s what makes him unique. That’s what makes him the best hero out.
Female Lead
In the realm of the comic book, sometimes it’s hard to be a woman, giving all your love to just one artist. More often than not this will result in being given a back-breaking cleavage of Power Girl proportions, whilst those bits and all that comes with them feel the chill of a revealing costume that even Shanna the She-Devil would have doubts about. The really unfortunate ones might even encounter tentacles or have to do some laundry. Thank heavens then for those that fleshed out fine fictional females with brains, brawn and brilliance to bolster their beauty. Sure, Allan Heinberg, Jodi Picoult, Gail Simone, Will Pfeifer and a slew of DC editors were incapable of answering the question “Who is Wonder Woman?” but, to retort that question with a question, who cares? After all, we were more impressed by these three…
Runners-Up:
Bronze Nexus — Selina Kyle (CATWOMAN)
Silver Nexus — Emma Frost (ASTONISHING X-MEN)
Winner –Golden Nexus:
SHE-HULK
Straight from the horse’s mouth of our second-favourite doll-face, Emma Frost:
“Second prize? Why, I’m simply overwhelmed. That means you think there’s only one woman out there more deserving than me. Jean *is* still dead, isn’t she? No matter. Sincerest thanks, and I wish you luck with your tragic innumeracy. In fact, I’m doing a little psychic surgery right now which should help you no end.”
She-Hulk is our big winner for this year, and Dan Slott is here to accept the award on her behalf, and he knows a word with which to celebrate:
“Gammalicious!”
Supporting Character
It’s the little things that help make a good comic into a great one. Chief amongst them is the presence of a sound supporting cast that can deliver solid, workman-like contributions to the plight of the lead. Sure, they might never get the plaudits they deserve but all the right people are appreciative of their efforts nonetheless – like Steve Buscemi in umpteen dozen movies, or Chris Jericho in a wrestling match also involving Triple H. Well, the three that made it onto our shortlist are certainly no mere passengers, meek sidekicks or hollow ciphers. They are, in their own very distinctive ways, conducive to the overall greatness of their respective titles. Take a bow in the spotlight, ladies and gents.
Runners-Up:
Bronze Nexus — Layla Miller (X-FACTOR)
Silver Nexus — Aaron Stack (Ms MARVEL, NEXTWAVE)
Winner – Golden Nexus:
Agent 355 (Y: THE LAST MAN)
Here to inform us about the erstwhile Machine Man is a man for whom machines are a bewildering bombardment of bamboozlement, especially in the bedroom, it’s Paul Beasley:
Hi everyone. I was supposed to write a piece about the 2007 Comics Nexus Awards Best Supporting Character, Aaron Stack – the artist formerly known as Machine Man. Instead, upon hearing about the award, Mr/Ms. Stack has requested, nay demanded, that I issue a statement that he/she has prepared in readiness for the event. Here is that statement:
“Greetings Fleshy Ones. I can offer no thanks whatsoever to the staff at Comics Nexus for awarding me this title for 2007, since they really have had no choice in the matter. I congratulate them only on recognising the patently obvious brilliance of my very existence. In fact, if your soft, flaccid, fleshy opinions were of any value to me I would be slighted that my title is only Best
Only recently, the collected idiocy of the Marvel editorial team (or as I refer to them ‘The Incompetenti’) felt that the best thing to do with my brilliance was to ‘re-invent’ me, quite literally, as a teenager. A Machine Teen, if you will. Fortunately one of the slightly less irrelevant ones among your squishy kind, Warren Ellis, recognised that the best use of my talents was to allow me to express my disdain for you on a regular basis, and not constrain me in human-friendly politeness. Clearly this was the correct decision, and since that time my talents have seen me triumph effectively single-handedly against evil ‘geniuses’ such as Devil Dinosaur and M.O.D.O.K. Brian Reed is clearly no muppet either.
And now, with my new body complete with my bumps, my bumps, my lovely lady lumps, let us not hide behind pretence any longer. You all want me, don’t you? My former partner Monica Rambeau may have led the Avengers (as she was so keen to remind us on every possible occasion), but she couldn’t make that body look as good as I do. Besides, she was much too squidgy.
So I claim this award as my birthright (or inventionright) and apathetically and somewhat sarcastically applaud the Nexus staff for recognising my genius. Consider yourselves lucky that I continue to honour you with my presence. And yes, ‘honour’ should be spelled like that – Elsa Bloodstone has assured me of that. She is English, so she would really know. Goodnight.”
I’m sorry to interrupt your diatribe, Paul, but we’ve just managed a live secure SHIELD connection to mr Stack himself, arranged with the help of Aaron’s P.R. officer Brian Reed.
Second place? I spend half the year with t*ts and I get second place? What the hell kind of award show is this? And how big is the award? I want to be sure it is large enough to cause great pain once I shove it inside the man who presents it to me, or I’m not going to bother going to the awards in the first place.
Paul, do you know why Mr Stack was misinformed about his order in the—Paul? Paul?
While we search for our missing writer, Layla Miller takes the stage for her acceptance speech. For those who remember, Layla was last year’s big winner of the Nexus Award in this category! Over to you, Layla:
Thank you Layla. Hey, how did you manage to get in the ceremony, when Blue Beetle got detained for being under the legal drinking age limit?
And finally, our big winner for 2007, Agent 355 of Y THE LAST MAN fame. We were planning a big hurrah to celebrate Three-Fifty’s tumultuous and exciting year in the pages of Brian Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s award-winning Vertigo series which is wrapping up next week. Due to a lot of fans’ and staffers’ requests in the past few weeks, we have decided to put an ‘embargo’ on all info and spoilers from thepast year of stories for the benefit of all the Y trade-readers out there. We’ll just raise a glass to our favourite Supporting Character from 2007: AGENT 355!
Villain
We do so love us some villainy, don’t we? For all that the guy with the bowlcut, Harrison Ford and the senile Kermit put out there, it was Darth Vader that provided the enduring iconography for Star Wars. Then it turned out that he was just a whiny little emo-bitch runt of a nothing who warranted a punch in his wet face. It disappointed the fans that their Big Bad lost so much of his mystique. After all, if there is no sheer evil to be conquered, why bother even having a hero? Trust me, most of them are clueless. Take a look at Superman Returns, especially if you suffer from insomnia. Boring, right? Well, maybe if Kevin Spacey had something more sinister than a property scam on the go, Superman would have been able to do more than lifting stuff and being a peeping tom. Thankfully, comic books have always tried to take care of their villains. Hell, this year, some of them even managed to win… for now.
Silver Nexus — Sinestro (GREEN LANTERN)
Bronze Nexus — Lex Luthor (ALL-STAR SUPERMAN)
Winner – Golden Nexus:
Red Skull (CAPTAIN AMERICA)
Here to commemorate the year of villainy, is Paul Sebert, our resident ‘evil skinless nazi’ fangirl:
To quote the French Poet Baudelaire (or Kevin Spacey in the Usual Suspects) “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” The greatest trick the Red Skull pulled was making the Marvel Universe think he was gone. In the first issue of Ed Brubaker’s Captain America run the venerable Nazi villain was seemingly assassinated by the Winter Soldier. But never one to die easily the Skull would return as a specter in the mind of Aleksander Lukin, the true mastermind of the plot. Fast forward to 2007, and the Skull’s now back in his seat as one of the Marvel Universe’s premier villains. Not only has he planted Doctor Faustus to act as a cancer within S.H.I.E.L.D under Tony Stark’s nose he finally masterminded the death of his most hated nemesis Captain America.
The Red Skull is fairly unique among Marvel Villains in that he has absolutely no sympathetic traits. He doesn’t have Dr. Doom’s sense of nobility or The Green Goblin’s tragic psychosis. He’s pure unadulterated evil, and comic fans can’t help but read to see just what he’ll try to do next.
Team
Remember, there is no ‘I’ in team – unless that team has Batman on it, in which case ‘Eye’ is probably spying on everyone else and, hopefully, compiling hilarious blooper reels for him to chuckle over in the Batcave whilst munching on Robin’s candy stash. That magnificent bastard. Of course, he got to take another team under his proverbial bat-wing this year, as the Outsiders realised they just couldn’t live without his cool car or something. That was just the tip of the iceberg so far as teams were concerned – the Fantastic Four welcomed newlyweds Black Panther and Storm onto the roster… there were two Legions of Super-Heroes, with one in their own title and another hanging out with Superman for some vague reason… the Avengers brand produced umpteen books, with perhaps the worthiest being the Great Lakes Initiative… Mike Carey and Chris Claremont pulled off a number of big-bucks transfers to get X-Men and Excalibur line-ups suited to their tastes… Shadowpact tickled their two-dozen fans pink… Sinestro started a clubhouse and struck up platonic friendships with Superprime, the colour yellow, Auntie Monitor and a Superman more robotic than Brandon Routh… Thunderbolts peddled Venom action figures to the salivating masses… That was the turbulent year, that was. However, three teams in particular stood out and made us take notice, so much so that the poll became a three-way tie:
Winners:
Runaways
Astonishing X-Men
Nextwave
The Nexus’ newest recruit, the brit-tastic daddy Mark Stoddard is making his Awards debut to introduce one of our three winners, the Astonishing X-Men!
Astonishing X-Men. 1 year. 4 issues. They started the year on a mission in the newly discovered planet of the Breakworld. They are still there. And no-one has any idea how Marvel are going to drag this all back to continuity. How on earth did they get voted the second best team in 2007?
Simple: wonderful writing, perfect character pitch, and beautiful artwork. Every issue is a master-class in comic book wonderment. And through it all – the team dynamic just embodies the spirit of what makes the X-Men so great. The roster features the classic characters from various eras: the originals Cyclops and Beast, ‘New’ X-Men Wolverine and Colossus, later recruit Shadowcat, reformed villain Emma Frost, and apprentice X-Man, Armour.
The strength of this title is that Whedon’s characters interact so naturally throughout, with every beat hitting the mark; with equal amounts of distrust, humour, camaraderie, and love. But when they need to get the job done, boy can they get it done – witness them working in perfect harmony to escape capture and turn the tide of battle in Astonishing #23, in what was truly one of my favourite single issues of 2007 – and surely one of the coolest team manoeuvres in comics.
Closing our ceremony, Paul Beasley has sent us a NEXTWAVE retrospective from his place of hiding, where he’s being tended to by the Nexus’ team of anally expert fanboys:
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.
I sit here bereft. Bereft of one of my favourite teams of all time. They have taken my money and walked away. But they have left me laughing. Thank you Marvel for having given us this title. Thank you Warren. Thank you Stuart. Thank you Wade, Dave and Joe. I love you all so much it makes me want to touch myself where I wee. Please come back soon. I beg, no DEMAND, of Marvel that they commission another series of Nextwave as soon as possible. My sanity requires it.
Join us tomorrow for Day 2 of our Awards with the winners for
Best Writer
Best Artist
Best Editor
Best Breakout Talent
Best Company/Imprint
