Hidden Gems: Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E.

 

What is it?: Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E.  is a hilarious piss take on the superhero genre brought to us by my favorite angry Brit and yours: Warren Ellis.  The series followed the exploits of the Nextwave team comprised of Z-list Marvel characters like Monica Rambeau, Tabitha Smith, Machine Man, Elsa Bloodstone and the Captain, the sole original character on the team.   The title is slightly misleading because Nextwave is actually fighting H.A.T.E. (Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort) after learning that they are funded by the Beyond Corporation, who has ties to multiple terrorist groups.  They discover that there are a large amount of Unusual Weapons of Mass Destruction (more on that later) that H.A.T.E. has hidden around the country and head out to stop all of them.  They are pursued by Dirk Anger, who is basically a shitty Nick Fury.

 

Why is it a Hidden Gem?: Nextwave had the misfortune of coming out when the Marvel Universe was embroiled in its Civil War storyline.  With all of the serious business going on in the Marvel U, a non tie-in book with mostly unknown characters was bound to fail.   According to Warren Ellis, the sales on Nextwave were too low to justify keeping artist Stuart Immonen on the book.  He promised more in the form of limited series but as of this writing, nothing has surfaced.  So basically if you’re reading this and haven’t read Nextwave yet, fuck you for getting it cancelled.  I hope you feel like a dick.

 

Fun Fact: Next wave is actually so obscure that there isn’t even porn of it on the internet.  I checked.

Why is it Worth Your Time: Since he puts it so perfectly (and since I feel like cheating on my word count) I’ll let Warren Ellis himself explain to you why this series rules.

“It’s an absolute distillation of the superhero genre. No plot lines, characters, emotions, nothing whatsoever. It’s people posing in the street for no good reason. It is people getting kicked, and then exploding. It is a pure comic book, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. And afterwards, they will explode.”

That’s right, Nextwave fucking rules because it doesn’t give a fuck about any of the bullshit story and deep characterization comics have been floundering in for the last decade.  It doesn’t use tie-ins or huge story arcs to get you to buy it.  It’s almost like a Saturday morning cartoon show in that you can pick it up from any point and still get full enjoyment from that single issue, even if it is part of a 2 part arc or something.  It’s not like Nextwave doesn’t rip you off too, but at least it’s honest about it.  Take issue 11 where Stuart Immonen draws a 12 page series of splash pages intended to be viewed as a single spread, all so that in order to get the full impact you would have to buy six issues.  At the end of the sequence, there’s a little caption that reads “Nextwave: Blatantly wasting your money since 2006.”  Essentially, all you need to enjoy Nextwave is a healthy love for explosions and things getting kicked, which it delivers in spades every issue.

Even though the characters are pretty generic, that doesn’t keep Ellis from making them fucking hilarious.  Take The Captain for instance.  He’s basically a shitty version of Superman, complete with generic Superman-y powers like flight and super strength.  The main difference is that he apparently doesn’t give a fuck.  He credits his inspiration to become a superhero to the mask, which would allow him to beat the shit out of people without repercussion.  He also has some of the best “character depth” moments ever, such as the explanation of his hatred of bears:

 

We also get Monica Rambeau, who used to be a member of the Avengers and won’t let anybody forget it.  Aaron Stack is a robot who hates fleshy humans, unless he can stare at their tits.  Elsa Bloodstone is a British monster hunter who pretty much pisses everybody off and Tabitha Smith has the mutant power of making things explode and a complete lack of a brain.  All of these characters squabble as much as they work together and their fights are fucking glorious.

 

As fun as the characters are, the batshit insane antics of H.A.T.E. and the Beyond Corporation are even better.  First off Dirk Anger is amazing with his shitty evil Nick Furyisms.  His horrible leadership and crybaby abandonment issues never get old and just further the hilarity of this super team fighting such a completely worthless villain.  Also his “No Girls Allowed” clubhouse sign level misogyny is pretty excellent.

Even better though, are the Beyond Corp.’s arsenal of Unusual WMDs.  We get a giant dragon with underpants, a Japanese robot cop, broccoli men, pterosaur men, and killer koala bears to name a few.  All are fucking insane and most have pretty excellent one-liners during their battles.

Basically, if you read comics and want to forego all the story bullshit and just have things fight and blow up then Nextwave is the best thing you’ve never read.  I guarantee it will make you howl with laughter and chastise yourself for spending so many years without it.  Hell, even the “Previously On” page is full of hilarity.  Go out and buy this shit now.

 

Fun Fact #2: Nextwave is the only comic I know of that has its own officially recognized theme song.