The Out

Dan Abnett
Mark Harrison
2000AD / Rebellion

The furthest edge of the universe, far into the future. Cyd Finlea is photojournalist working for the publishers Global Neographic, travelling deep into outer space — otherwise known as THE OUT — and cataloguing the sights and alien societies that she encounters. She’s been doing this for so long, she can’t remember how far she is now from Earth, but regardless she keeps going — just her and her camera...

I'd been fancying giving this series a go for a little while now mostly thanks to spotting an image for the next book that features the main character hitching a lift from a passing spaceship.  The story tells of Cyd Finlea, a photo-journalist travelling 'The Out', the deepest regions of deep space. So deep in fact that she has no way of knowing where Earth is anymore.  On her travels she experiences war, death and rebirth as she searches for adventures, parties, other ex-pats and one other thing, the most important thing.

It's a really fun trip and a nice change for me to see Abnett in a more playful mien away from the grim and grimy wars of his 40k playground where he excels.  Harrison has been a regular on the Galaxy's greatest for a long time and have to admit to having never been particularly enamoured of his art - or painted comic art in general.  It's vibrant and imaginative, and when he's doing splash pages it's borderline sublime, but a full page of panels is just too hazy and busy for my tired old eyes - oh and his mouths are really distracting - but I stress this as a purely personal preference, the man can definitely draw.

I'm very glad I took the plunge.  Of the very few graphic novels I buy these days most are 2000AD related and I'm rarely disappointed and this turned out to be a very fun read and I'll definitely come back for more when Vol. 2 appears.

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Nemesis the Warlock Vol.2: 2000AD Definitive Edition

Pat Mills
Kevin O'Neill 
Bryan Talbot 
2000AD / Rebellion

The Definitive series of the Nemesis the Warlock saga continues as Torquemada’s crusade to destroy all alien life reaches the planet of the Goths, a species of alien which has modelled their culture on early twentieth-century Britain. Nemesis must team up with the Goth leader, the Ion Duke, to stop them being eradicated by Torquemada's army of Terminators.
Collecting the entire series in order, with the colour centre-spread pages reproduced in their original form, the Definitive collection of Nemesis the Warlock is the ultimate way to read one of the most important sci-fi sagas published in the pages of 2000 AD.
Written by Pat Mills (Marshal Law) and drawn by Kevin O'Neill (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) and Bryan Talbot (Sandman, The Adventures of Luther Arkwright), this definitive series is a collection of the complete storyline in order.

 As I said in my write-up of Volume 1, I was never a Nemesis reader as a young lad.  Being an irregular reader of 2000AD meant I rarely got to maintain a rhythm on any strips, so I always preferred the one-off stories.  These definitive editions are allowing me the opportunity to rectify that and finally get to appreciate a cornerstone 2000AD series.

Young me was always far more interested in story than art, which was always a distant second, but the one major thing I've noticed on my journey back into these older series is that while the stories have often aged poorly the artwork remains sublime.

Mills, as I wished for in my earlier review, has here got a firmer grip on his strip, and the stories are tighter with a more deeply developed lore and are far more entertaining.  They don't all work as well as they could, the final arc of the Torquemada story was a jarring shift that also contains a 'joke' that I would have thought well below Mills' personal standards.

The art is wonderful,  two of my favourites at the top of their games and complementing each other perfectly.  Talbot was made to draw the goth empire storyline and his art, and the setting brought me right back to the worlds of 'Luther Awkright' and of the anthropomorphic steampunk series, 'Grandville'.

O'Neill was simply born to draw.  I adore his work and pour over every panel at every twistedly beautiful line.

Previously, I'd hoped that Volume 2 was going to be a more cohesive and developed read, and it absolutely was, and so I'm genuinely excited to pull Volume 3 off the shelf.

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Nemesis the Warlock Vol.1: 2000AD Definitive Edition

Pat Mills (writer)
Kevin O'Neill (artist)

Jesus Redondo (artist)
Rebellion

Long regarded as one of the crown-jewel epics from the pages of 2000 AD, at long last Nemesis the Warlock is back in print and better than ever in a brand-new series of definitive editions.
Termight is the ruling planet of a cruel galactic empire led by the diabolical Torquemada, a twisted human despot intent on purging all alien life from the galaxy and punishing the deviants. His motto: Be pure! Be vigilant! Behave! Against his tyrannical rule, resistance rises in the form of devilish-looking alien warlock Nemesis, who represents everything that Torquemada hates and fears. Together, Nemesis and Torquemada are locked in a duel which will affect their fate and the fate of humanity itself as their conflict spans time and space!

Limited pocket money meant I was a pretty occasional 2000AD reader back when these stories were first published and beyond admiring the art, I never really read Nemesis but when Rebellion announced these large-format editions of the full story, the chance to add some more Kev O'Neill to my shelves was too good an opportunity to miss.

Now, the problem I've found with a lot of these older strips is that those telling a longer story can often feel a tad over-stretched.  The peril of publishing a story 5 pages a week means it can become an exhausting barrage of cliffhangers when read en masse.  I grew up loving comics - I worked for years in the late 80s and early 90s in a comic shop in Cardiff - but was never much of a fan of serialised storytelling and immediately stopped buying individual issues when trade paperbacks / graphic novels arrived on the scene and I could read the whole story in one sitting.  Some old strips work better than others in the collected format, and this one - plot wise - suffers a little as it feels stuttery.  Don't get me wrong, I love the ideas, the dark humour, the satire and I'm well aware that this is book one and Mills is taking his first steps with his new creation but, that formatting issue that I mentioned does become tiring and the story-telling is at it's strongest on the self-contained tales where his vision is at its keenest.

Now, onto the art.  This is perhaps O'Neill's defining work here in the UK, and it's a thing of absolute beauty, maniacal, anarchic, and utterly wonderful.  There's a lot of debate over the quintessential 2000AD artist and whether you were to name Brian Bolland, Carlos Ezquerra, Dave Gibbons, Alan Davis, Mike McMahon, Ian Gibson - I could go on - you'll get no push back from me, and I'll join in singing their praises but for me, it's always been O'Neill.  

Backing up O'Neill here is Spanish artist Jesus Redondo whose art I've always had a soft spot for from reading 'Mind Wars' in Starlord and 'The Mind of Wolfie Smith' in 2000AD, and here he doesn't disappoint, but his issues lack the manic brilliance of O'Neill's.

Rebellion have done a beautiful job here and the book is a thing of real joy.  Volumes 2 & 3 are already out and on my shelves - there'll be five in total - and I'm very much looking forward to watching how Mills masters his story and, of course, getting more Kev O'Neill eye-candy.

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Zenith: Phase Four

Grant Morrison - writer
Steve Yeowell - artist
Rebellion

With the Lloigor defeated nothing can stand in the way of the superhumans and universal domination! The remaining members of the original British super-team Cloud 9 with some additional powered affiliates (including Zenith's infant son) have destroyed America in retaliation for an attempt on their lives. Now they plan to incubate in the sun and evolve to the next level of existence, destroying the Earth as they do so.
Once again Zenith and St. John must make a stand for humanity and this time it's personal! Grant Morrison (WE3) and Steve Yeowell (Devlin Waugh) bring you the mind-blowing finale to one of the most celebrated series in British comics.

The fourth and final volume of Morrison and Yeowell's Zenith relocates the story slightly into the future and brings back, unsurprisingly, 'The Lloigor' for one last attempt at dominating the universe.  The end of Book Three saw a number of the supes poised to put their long term plan that's been getting occasional cryptic mentions since the start into action and here we see the consequences.  I'm not entirely sure I thought this story could become more cosmic than 'Chimera' becoming his own universe in Phase Two and the dimension hopping romp that's gone before but Morrison manages it with the black sun that looms over London and the machinations of those superheroes not preoccupied with popstardom and political gain.  Their plan is suitably grandiose and transcendently egomaniacal on a universal scale and unfolds with the type of twisted gothic grandeur that Morrison would later occasionally return to during his run on 'Doom Patrol'.

It's a fitting end to the story and one that is very much in sync with how other, earlier, parts of the story resolved themselves and whilst it's missing the elaborately pulpy joie de vivre of Phase Three's transdimensional shenanigans it's more intimate nature is perfectly suited to bringing the story to it's conclusion and yes I'm aware that describing a universe spanning storyline as 'intimate' is a little odd but this is esentially a story of a family at war. Admittedly a family that can wipe out America in an afternoon but still just a family. 

In the final reckoning though this series proved itself to be big and bold and suitably epic in scope and it was refreshing to see the main character utterly fail to learn anything from his experiences and finish the series just as much of a dick as he started it and depressingly realistic to see the Tory politician at the heart of the story not only get away scott free but to profit from it.

A brilliant series and well deserving of these big, beautiful, deluxe reprints and of your time and attention.

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Zenith: Phase Three

Grant Morrison - writer
Steve Yeowell - artist
Rebellion

After saving London from the supernazi Masterman and a nuclear missile strike, the shallow superhuman popstar Zenith has found that his fifteen minutes of fame are almost up. With his career on the downturn, he agrees to go to Alternative 23 where another version of the WWII superhero, Maximan, is gathering an army of superhuman beings from alternate Earths to take part in a multidimensional battle for survival. With the fate of all reality in the balance, will Zenith be able to drop the sarcasm and take things seriously for once? It's doubtful.

Zenith: Phase Three finds our unheroic hero recruited into the fight to save the multiverse from 'The Lloigor - The Many-Angled Ones'.  To do this an alternative version of the WWII British superhero 'Maximan' has brought together a team of heroes from across the various alternative Earths that includes amongst a host of others 'Cat Girl' (from Sally Comic), 'The Steel Claw' (from Valiant comic), 'Thunderbolt Jaxon' (from Knockout comic and incidentlly one of the reasons why Zenith has been out of publication for so long) and 'Robot Archie' (from Lion comic) now an acid anarchist with an occasional penchant for riding a dinosaur to pursue his plan that involves sacrifices on a planetary scale.

After the fairly sedate plotting of Phase Two where Zenith dealt, quite calmly, with a nuclear threat and we learned more about his history and met some of the characters that were about to play a much larger part in the proceedings Phase Three is a pretty breathless affair.  Hopping between universes in the company of an army of those half forgotten heroes from the heyday of British comics in pursuit of Maximan's plan Morrison and Yeowell really come into their own here with a wonderfully uncompromising and brutal tale. 

The big twist is fairly obvious to spot and my partner is never going to forgive Morrison for what he does to 'Cat Girl', her childhood favourite, but this penultimate book is a series highlight, a great big, fun, transdimensional crossover event of the kind that DC comics used to do in the 1970s but with extra added Lovecraft.

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Zenith: Phase Two

Grant Morrison - writer
Steve Yeowell - artist
Rebellion

It’s 1988 and Zenith is as popular as ever thanks to his victorious battle against Masterman. The threat from the Lloigor has been quashed and now Zenith must face an all-too human threat – Dr. Michael Peyne – the creator of Britain’s post WWII superheroes and ‘father’ to Zenith’s parents, has teamed up with the megalomaniac billionaire Scott Wallace who is intent on taking over the world. Together with C.I.A. agent Phaedra Cale, Zenith must stop Wallace from destroying London whilst also confronting his past and a less-than-happy reunion with his father!

Zenith's second act opens with the pop star superhero riding the success that his part in the defeat of the Nazi Masterman brought him.  It's short lived however when he gets attacked in his own flat by a giant robot type thingy and whisked off to Scotland by an exotically named CIA agent to stop a rogue superhero programme funded by a Richard Branson style billionaire.  

Meanwhile we get a much more detailed look at the bigger picture as former heroes return and new ones appear from across the multiverse as we start to see the extent of the bigger threat that will soon face our arrogant and barely competent hero whilst he himself is shown winning the day thanks to his own unrepentantly shallow world view.

It's beautifully paced and treads some similar ground to the "Project Zarathustra" storyline in Alan Moore's 'Miracleman' although with a decidedly more 'pop culture' bent as we discover some of the truths behind the genesis of the superheroes from the mouth of the comic's very own Dr Frankenstein-esque 'mad' scientist creating new life as Morrison adds depth and mythos to an already genuinely intriguing plot and cast.  With the exception of the, fairly pointless origin story coda, the book ends particularly strongly going fully - and I do mean fully - cosmic as we meet and discover the fate of 'Chimera' a character mentioned in passing earlier in the book in a sequence that allows Yeowell's pristine art to truly shine..  

Phase Two, whilst having a fun but fairly inconsequential menace confronting Zenith,  provides a step back from the main event slowly coming to the boil in the worlds of the supporting cast and a welcome chance to learn the back story of how our superbrat came to be.  Storytelling wise it's real step up from an already strong but breathless start that gives a solid foundation for what's to come and it's going to be a trip seeing where it goes next.

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Zenith: Phase One

Grant Morrison - writer
Steve Yeowell - artist
Rebellion

Berlin, 1945: The allies unleashed the second world war hero Maximan upon the German supersoldier Masterman. Maximan’s defeat was only kept secret by the nuclear bomb which destroyed both men. Forty-plus years later, and twenty years after a generation of ’60s British superpowered heroes came and went, the teenage pop star Zenith is the only superhuman left – and his only interest in women, drugs, alchohol and fame.
So when he is contacted about the threat from the many-angled ones and the impending destruction of our world, his first reaction is to steer well clear.But the superhumans of the past have other plans.

Back in 87/88 when Zenith was first published I was an intermittent reader of 2000AD.  I was working in a comic shop and occasionally flipping through the one copy that was ordered through us so I was aware of Zenith but having read this first of four stunning, large format, hardback reprints I think I only ever read the very first episode, at least from this first story arc.

Zenith is a pop star superhero. The only active superhero in the world following the deaths of the original WWII era superpowered pair and the disappearence and retirement of those active in the 1960s.  He's a party brat, selfish and hedonistic only drawn into any actual heroics by the return of the original Nazi Ubermensch powered by the 'Many-Angled Ones', dark gods from another dimension.

What we see at this early point in the story is Morrison playing around with the same sort of ideas of reinventing superheroes as many of his peers were at the time but, as would continue to be the case throughout his career, doing so with a lot more affection for the genre than was perhaps more often the case at the time with those others.

Partnered with Morrison here is the brilliant Steve Yeowell which means that along with the transdimensional storyline the book has a very strong feel of kinship to the pairs brilliant 'The Invisibles'.  Yeowell is a beautifully delicate artist with the ability to give his characters depth and weight and a sense of realness even in the most ludicrous of situations and, as you can see in the image above above a fantastic flair for the dynamic and the dramatic.

So, this first book, despite being all wrapped up a tad too quickly and neatly it all made for a very satisfying read and I head onwards to book two with high expectations.

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The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire vol.1

Mike Butterworth
Don Lawerence
Rebellion

The first of a four-volume series reprinting The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire - a landmark 1960s science fiction series which rivalled Game of Thrones in popularity and was the precursor to every mythic sci-fi adventure to come!
Under the leadership of Trigo, the Vorg tribesmen band together to resist the Lokan invaders, forming a new country, The Trigan Empire. This is the epic story of its rise and fall.
Featuring an extraordinary combination of the Roman Empire and ancient Greece, Trigo’s story is told in ground breaking fully painted artwork. This is the first in a series collecting all the stories painted by the legendary Don Lawrence.

I first came across The Trigan Empire back when I was a kid and Hamlyn released a big beautiful hardback collection that I adored.  Over the years I've treasured that one and the later Hawk Books edition spending many, many hours poring over them.  Fast forward to 2020 and Rebellion (home of 2000ad) has embarked on a reprint of the entire series in 4 big, bold and beautiful collections.

Now it's got to be said that the strength of this series doesn't lie in Butterworth's scripts, they are workmanlike at best and hackneyed and repetitious at worst.  There's a reason why whenever Trigan Empire is discussed it's in reference to Don Lawrence's stunning artwork but the writing is what it is and I've grown up with these stories - this book being mostly identical to the two older volumes I have - so I'm fairly inured to it and enjoy it for what it is.

The world of The Trigan Empire is one that mixes Roman tropes and spaceships, horseback warriors and hover tanks, sailing ships and giant robots.   It was the perfect showcase for the artist's skills and he delivered again and again and again with artwork that you can lose yourself in for hours, his beautiful panels lifting the story to new heights.

It makes me so happy to see this book back in print and I'm ridiculously pleased to be getting to finally enjoy the complete saga

Buy it here - UK / US

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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain