Were Money No Object on June 22nd With John Byrne’s Next Men Volume 1

The Book I Want to Buy:

John Byrne’s Next Men Vol. 1

by John Byrne; IDW, $21.99

I grew up on John Byrne comics, and he remains the person that I first think of when I think of the comics of the 80’s.  I was too young to have caught his run on Uncanny X-Men as it came out, but was right there for his legendary stint on Fantastic Four and, a huge childhood favourite for the boy from Toronto, Alpha Flight.  When Byrne left Marvel to work at DC, I picked up a fair amount of his Superman books – way more than I would have expected, considering how much I disliked the character.

Then Byrne left DC to work on Next Men at Dark Horse.  This was right when all the independent lines were expanding like mad, and I was rushing to keep up with them all.  Still, I had a great fondness for this title (even if, at this stage in my life, I don’t remember it all that well).  I do remember being disappointed that the series didn’t appear to be ending any time soon, and so was both excited and wary when Byrne resurrected the title at IDW last year.

Both my comics tastes, and Byrne’s ability to match them, have changed in the last fifteen years or so.  Increasingly, I find that his work is not as fresh as it once was, and, as the internet has continued to pervade the collective comic book consciousness, it’s become harder and harder to look past the fact that the man appears to be a bit of an asshole.

Still, I’m very curious to see how this series is.  My hope is that Byrne would be able to recapture so much of what made this book fresh and interesting, and that doing something so close to his heart would reinvigorate his artistic and storytelling skills.  Has anyone read this series?  How is it?

So, what would you buy Were Money No Object?