Nextwave is a humorous comic bookseries by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen, published by Marvel Comics between 2006 and 2007. Nextwave consistently features extreme violence and comedy, and simultaneously satirizes and celebrates Marvel's superhero comics. The series frequently uses flashback scenes in which existing Marvel characters such as Captain America, Ulysses Bloodstone and the Celestials act grossly out of character for comedic purposes. In an interview, Ellis said: "I took The Authority and I stripped out all the plots, logic, character and sanity.[1] 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".[2]
Concept
The series was written exclusively in two-issue story arcs. Each issue began with a humorous FAQ, in which questions were answered with enthusiastic marketing copy that veers into the strange or disturbing. It was also used to answer questions posed by uninformed readers.
Nextwave debuted in 2006 and was cancelled after issue #12, which was published in February 2007.[7] The run of the series was written by Warren Ellis, drawn by Stuart Immonen and colored by Dave McCaig. Warren Ellis (on his website) stated in October 2006 that he had initially planned to write the series for twelve issues, then pass it off to another writer. However the initial plan was changed and the series was placed on hiatus until Ellis should choose to return. According to Ellis, this was at least partly because monthly sales could not justify keeping artist Stuart Immonen on the project at his then current pay rate. Ellis has stated that "there will be more Nextwave to come, presented as a sequence of limited series".[8]
Starting with issue #3, Marvel had changed the series title to Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. Artist Stuart Immonen has stated that the title change was due to trademark issues.[9]
A variant edition of issue #5, called the "Crayon Butchery Variant", was printed in black and white on newsprint. Marvel (through the website Comic Book Resources) encouraged readers to color the issue with crayons and enter the results, for a chance to win original artwork from the issue. The winner was announced in the letter column of the tenth issue. Issue #11 contains a series of splash pages that Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen devised so that in order to get the full impact of the scene, a reader might have to purchase six copies. On the last of the pages, a caption reads: "Nextwave: Blatantly wasting your money since 2006".
A theme song was created by series editor Nick Lowe and his brother Matt, by their band Thunder Thighs. It was advertised on their Myspace page and lyrics printed in the "Director's Cut" edition of the first issue.[10] The tabs and lyrics are also in the Volume 1 hardcover collected edition.[11]
Awards
The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has released their Best of 2007 lists and Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. were named among the 2007 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens.[12]Nextwave writer Warren Ellis was happy to learn of the title's recognition by YALSA, saying that he did it all for the children. In keeping with the off-beat humor of his book, Ellis added: "It is good to know that the young people of today are ready and waiting for me to form a Church".[13]
Nextwave also won three Eagle Awards for Favourite New Comicbook, Favourite Comics Story Published During 2006 (for issues #1–6), and Favourite Comics Villain (for Dirk Anger).
Continuity
In a 2005 interview, writer Warren Ellis commenting on his Nextwave stories stated: "I think it has to be a self contained universe. It takes from Marvel history, but I wouldn't necessarily want to drag mainstream Marvel into it for fear of what I would do to it".[14] In 2006, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada said that "for the time being" Nextwave was to be considered set in a universe separate from the main Marvel continuity.[15] In contradiction to these earlier statements, Marvel publications such as Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and Civil War: Battle Damage Report seemed to portray Nextwave's activities as occurring in the mainstream Marvel continuity. To further complicate matters, Nextwave's entry in Civil War: Battle Damage Report states: "Recent intelligence suggests some or all Nextwave members unknowingly had their memories and/or personalities altered by their new employers (H.A.T.E.)".[16] In Captain America and the Mighty Avengers, it is definitively stated that Nextwave happened, with the Beyond Corporation, now revealed to be members of The Beyonders returning, and tauntingly telling Luke Cage and Jessica Jones to ask Monica about "Beyond", making her realize those events were, in fact, real, and reverting to her Nextwave outfit.[17]
The entire Nextwave team was represented in HeroClix form in the Giant Size X-Men (GSX) set. The team of five figures equals an even 500 points.[citation needed]
The Captain
For Steve Rogers, who was the first character known as "The Captain", see Captain America.
Superhuman strength and endurance Flight Enhanced sight
The Captain (formerly Captain ☠☠☠☠, with the crosses denoting censorship of an expletive) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is a satiric superhero appearing in the book Nextwave. He was created by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen and first appeared in Nextwave #1 (January 2006).
In 2006, Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada stated that Nextwave's setting was in a universe separate from the main Marvel continuity.[19] However, recent issues of Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, as well as Civil War: Battle Damage Report,[16] consistently place Nextwave's activities in mainstream continuity.
According to Warren Ellis's series proposal (within Volume 1's collection of stories), he stated that the Captain was pretty much every pointless character who utilized "Captain" in his codename.
The Captain gained his powers from "the Heartstar of the space between the galaxies",[20] also referred to as the "MessianicSiddhe-complex", which was bestowed upon him by a pair of small, green, altruisticextraterrestrials named Spa-Fon and Squa-Tront[21] in order to make Brooklyn a better place. As the Captain was incredibly drunk at the time, it is unknown if he remembers this event exactly, as he immediately attacked both aliens, believing them to be gold-bearing leprechauns.
By his own admission, he used to go by Captain ☠☠☠☠, a moniker so offensive that, when he met Captain America, the Avenger beat him severely and left him unconscious in a dumpster with a bar of soap in his mouth. The Captain used a lot of codenames as well, all of them starting with 'Captain', and had to abandon them all because someone else was already using them. In Nextwave #7 he mentions that he had to pay a "marine-looking melon farmer" to even use his current codename.
The Captain continues to use his codename in the Nextwave group while the other members have dropped them; according to Aaron Stack, this is due to an inability to remember his real name. According to the official theme song of the comic, in tone with the satirical quality of the stories, he doesn't have a name anymore at all, with "The Captain" serving both as a moniker, and as an impromptu first name.
Similar to the rest of Nextwave, the Captain dresses in civilian clothes—sneakers, camouflage pants, a trenchcoat, and a white T-shirt with a black star which resembles the Heartstar—despite becoming a superhero "for the mask", as he stated in issue #1.
The Captain is extremely cynical, foul-mouthed, and hard-drinking. His age is as yet undetermined, but he has said his mother conceived him while listening to Roxy Music's 1982 album Avalon.
A text box in one issue states that, despite his name, he is not actually the captain of anything.
The Captain resurfaces in the 2016 Civil War II storyline, reduced to possible homelessness and whiling away his time in New York City's dive bars. He is spurred back into action when Nova's battle with the forces of Mole Monster causes his beer to spill, an innocuous occurrence that the Captain interprets as an epiphany-inducing "metaphor for something".[23]
^Spa-Fon (1968-?) and Squa Tront (1967-?) were the names of ECfanzines that have been published and republished intermittently since the late 1960s. Apparently the 'zines names were drawn from EC science fiction comic dialog. "Spa-Fon!" and "Squa Tront!" were derived from alien-language phrases expressing surprise, equivalent to "Oh, My Lord!" (both first used in "The Aliens", drawn by Al Williamson, Weird Fantasy #17 [Jan-Feb 1953]).
^Sean Ryan (w), R.B. Silva (p), Adriano Di Benedetto (i), Andres Mossa (col), Deschesne, Albert (let), Devin Lewis (ed). Nova, vol. 6, no. 9 (June 2016). New York: Marvel Comics.
