Mindless Ones

Nemesis The Warlock Book 3 (progs 335 – 349)

Has there ever been a genuinely weirder hero to grace the pages of a weekly comic than Nemesis? Part horse, part Devil; a sword wielding, fire breathing, cross-dressing chaos worshipping alien revolutionary… No I don’t think so. 2000ad’s gallery of grotesque anti-heroes boasts some impressive members (Kano from Bad Co., DR & Quinch, Middenface McNulty), but none really touch Nemesis for unbridled…oddness.

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OR: 10 Reasons why Ambush Bug is the Most powerful Superhero in the DCU.

OR: How I learned to stop worrying and love the CRISIS.

OR: I knew I should have turned left at Albuquerque!

With the joyful return of Irwin Schwab later this year, and with the impending End Of The World ™, now seems a good time to reappraise the greatest character ever to appear in comics ever in the world. Ever.

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‘A Caper A Day Keeps the Batman at Bay’ – Batman 312, 1979

This is pretty much the first Batman story I remember reading. Back in the late 80’s, you could buy reprinted Batman stories in British editions, available in most newsagents. In the backwater village I grew up in, this was pretty much it for exposure to American comics (I remember getting hold of a battered Secret Wars comic from a jumble sale that seemed like the Holy Grail to a kid raised on Beano and Beezer). Obviously 2000ad was around but that would come a little later. But these reprints were mining Batman’s seventies heyday, so there were stories by Len Wein and Denny O’Neil, and glorious art by Neal Adams, Jim Aparo et al. We were firmly in hairy chested lovegod Bat-territory, so stories inevitably involved Talia, ski-slopes, underground lairs, and Batman in full player mode. Although there was a smattering of grit in the comically hardboiled narration, these stories were colourful, dynamic and swinging – a disco era Batman hanging in his Penthouse apartment, who was definitely getting laid more than in the barren Aids scare 80’s. Oh sure, he was still grieving over his dead parents, but he was also doing the Batusi down at Studio 54.

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Man, no-one writes assholes and losers like David Lapham. His merciless dissection of Middle America’s underbelly easily matches Dan Clowes or Chris Ware. Plus he has tonnes more fights and dancing. In fact fighting and dancing is a nice way to sum up Young Liars his new ongoing from Vertigo, seeing as how the first issue begins with a band about to start a riotous gig before cutting immediately to a girl’s fist smashing into a bouncer’s nose.

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