H.A.T.E. loves you, so you should love H.A.T.E.! H.A.T.E. (Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort) loves you so much that they spend fortunes pumping General Dirk Anger full of special H.A.T.E. life-extending drugs, just so he can be out there saving your sorry rear-end day after endless day! Why does Anger do it? He does it for H.A.T.E., of course! What kind of stupid question is that? It sounds to me like you don't love H.A.T.E. nearly enough!
Nextwave, the Agents of H.A.T.E, don't actually love H.A.T.E anymore, either. The Nextwave team, a group of B-grade heroes put together by General Anger, found out that the Beyond Corp. (the parent company of H.A.T.E.) was actually a terrorist organization. You can probably see where they might feel a little conflicted about this. So the team absconded from the H.A.T.E. Aeromarine with the super-cool Shockwave Rider, and decided to take the fight to the terrorists in their own way: Healing America by beating people up!
Who are the H.A.T.E. haters who make up the Nextwave Squad? Great question! They are: Monica Rambeau (formerly Photon) who used to lead the Avengers, Aaron Stack (AKA Machine Man) who really hates most fleshy ones, Elsa Bloodstone who is a bigshot English monster-hunter, Tabitha Smith (AKA Boom Boom and Meltdown) who blows things up, and the Captain who, ummm, is really kind of a sucky hero. This unlikely band has taken it upon themselves to hunt down all of the Beyond Corporation's Unusual Weapons of Mass Destruction, such as the underpants wearing monster Fin Fang Foom, and destroy them before Beyond can make any nefarious use of them.
Personally, I love comics that aren't afraid to be a little different, and you can't get much more unique than Nextwave. This crazy, over-the-top series is the twisted brainchild of Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen. Mr. Ellis is already well-known for some brilliant and subversive writing, so it is great that Marvel has been brave enough to let him really run wild with some of their toys. As I'm writing this review, I can't stop rereading the issue and chuckling. Nextwave has witty dialogue, tons of explosions, heaps of satire, more explosions, and quite a bit of punching and kicking. Immonen's unique and stylish art perfectly complements the out-there tone of this book. This series has quickly made it to the top of my favorites list, and it could soon be topping yours too!
If you hate terrorism, and you love H.A.T.E., you must read Nextwave! Try out issue #3 ASAP, while it is Four Color Fantasies' guaranteed Book of the Week! You really don't want to upset General Anger, he'll take a bite right outta ya!
2 comments:
One of the other things I like about Next Wave is that all stories will be two-parters. I give Warren Ellis a lot of credit for self-imposing this restriction to keep the stories within bounds. It also means that I know not to read an even-numbered issue before I read the odd-numberd issue that came immediately before it. That makes it very easy to jump in at the start of a new story.
I agree. I think the shorter story arcs make the book very new-reader friendly. The more jumping-on points, the better!
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