Comics UK

I think Slaine is terrific. Yeah, he's not likeable, but then is Judge Dredd?

I started picking this up again recently. Had to give it up again. I just don't have the time for weeklies unfortunately. A monthly (not the Meg as I'm not a fan of Dredd's world) or a maybe even a biweekly would be manageable. But the stories were taking a real turn for the best, especially Pat Mills.

Mind you, for me, Nemesis was the classic character I couldn't stand, along with Sinister Dexter. Just don't find either thrilling or amusing.

I agree that Nemesis was also hard to like - to such an extent that I sometimes found myself rooting for his arch-enemy Torquemada instead!

Of course, one shouldn't forget the important part that humour plays in Slaine and Nemesis (and in Judge Dredd too for that matter!).

- Phil Rushton

philcom55 wrote:I agree that Nemesis was also hard to like - to such an extent that I sometimes found myself rooting for his arch-enemy Torquemada instead!

- Phil Rushton

Blimey! I've never heard anyone say that before. I thought Nemesis was great. The early ones anyway. Didn't read the ones after Kev O'Neill and Bryan Talbot. Religion and the humans were the bad guys, - just like in real life.

philcom55 wrote:I agree that Nemesis was also hard to like - to such an extent that I sometimes found myself rooting for his arch-enemy Torquemada instead!

Of course, one shouldn't forget the important part that humour plays in Slaine and Nemesis (and in Judge Dredd too for that matter!).

- Phil Rushton

I always thought that I was the only one that thought that way. Nemesis just seemed too smug at times for me to identify with the character. Especially in the way that they never seemed to take any setbacks except in a way to justify their Great Leap Forward. While I never quite rooted for Torquemada, I did just want him to wipe the smugness off the Nemesis character just once.

colcool007 wrote:

philcom55 wrote:I agree that Nemesis was also hard to like - to such an extent that I sometimes found myself rooting for his arch-enemy Torquemada instead!

Of course, one shouldn't forget the important part that humour plays in Slaine and Nemesis (and in Judge Dredd too for that matter!).

- Phil Rushton

I always thought that I was the only one that thought that way. Nemesis just seemed too smug at times for me to identify with the character. Especially in the way that they never seemed to take any setbacks except in a way to justify their Great Leap Forward. While I never quite rooted for Torquemada, I did just want him to wipe the smugness off the Nemesis character just once.

I'm finding this quite bizarre. Torquemada was depicted as such a vile extremist character that I couldn't imagine anyone showing him an ounce of support. Any smugness of Nemesis' part was surely part of the black comedy of the strip. Or did the character become more unbearable later? As I said, I've only really followed the first three books or so. Kev's Nemesis is the definite one for me.

Lew Stringer wrote:

colcool007 wrote:

philcom55 wrote:I agree that Nemesis was also hard to like - to such an extent that I sometimes found myself rooting for his arch-enemy Torquemada instead!

Of course, one shouldn't forget the important part that humour plays in Slaine and Nemesis (and in Judge Dredd too for that matter!).

- Phil Rushton

I always thought that I was the only one that thought that way. Nemesis just seemed too smug at times for me to identify with the character. Especially in the way that they never seemed to take any setbacks except in a way to justify their Great Leap Forward. While I never quite rooted for Torquemada, I did just want him to wipe the smugness off the Nemesis character just once.

I'm finding this quite bizarre. Torquemada was depicted as such a vile extremist character that I couldn't imagine anyone showing him an ounce of support. Any smugness of Nemesis' part was surely part of the black comedy of the strip. Or did the character become more unbearable later? As I said, I've only really followed the first three books or so. Kev's Nemesis is the definite one for me.

Towards the end, Nemesis became more and more unlikeable, until Purity Brown eventually realised that he was actually no better than Torquemada, and was basically doing what he did for amusement rather than out of any sense of justice. Nemesis and Torquemada ended up as disembodied spirits, basically condemned to chase each other around the Tube system for all eternity.

From what I can remember Pat Mills depicted Nemesis as a creature of pure malice. His people made chairs out of human skeletons! Also, he tended to be so powerful that it effectively cast Torquemada as the underdog: he might have been an evil vicious b******d, but he was our evil vicious b******d!

Of course, I didn't really root for Torquemada, but there were times when his persistence and resourcefulness while faced with overwhelming odds could seem almost heroic in a blindly chauvinistic way! To some extent I think Mills regularly employs characters like Dredd, Slaine and Torquemada/Nemesis as a deliberate exercise in moral ambiguity.

- Phil Rushton

philcom55 wrote:From what I can remember Pat Mills depicted Nemesis as a creature of pure malice. His people made chairs out of human skeletons! Also, he tended to be so powerful that it effectively cast Torquemada as the underdog: he might have been an evil vicious b******d, but he was our evil vicious b******d!

Of course, I didn't really root for Torquemada, but there were times when his persistence and resourcefulness while faced with overwhelming odds could seem almost heroic in a blindly chauvinistic way! To some extent I think Mills regularly employs characters like Dredd, Slaine and Torquemada/Nemesis as a deliberate exercise in moral ambiguity.

- Phil Rushton

Oh, he definitely does-all the time. Look at the ABC Warriors. Nominally heroic characters, but at least half of them are depicted as basically amoral most of the time, and the only one who is seemingly (almost) always on the side of the angels, Hammerstein, is seen as a bit of a joke by his squad because of it.

as regards Pat Mills, I must say that his take on Savage is a helluva lot more gritty than the original Invasion series. And yet, his modern take on Flesh just doesn't quite cut it. The original series still stands out for me. In the modern series, he has brought back the characters - Reagan and Claw Carver and yet, they are not (pardon the pun) fleshed out in character and leave me cold. Whereas Savage has been brilliantly modernised. I guess there are some stories that you should just leave alone. Regarding Nemesis, I always thought that Book Nine was the best. That was gritty and realistic; but then, that story centred more on Torquemada and Purity than Nemesis.

I agree about Nemesis. Never really liked him. Savage is good and in my opinion better than the original Invasion storyline (and far better than Disaster 1990).

I like the new Flesh but I do wish they kept Ramon Sola. I don't think James McKay is as good but he does draw the ladies well.

Speaking of Invasion/Savage, does anybody else remember The Lawless Touch from Tornado? Despite being in a different comic and not by Pat Mills, it did kind of tie-in to Bill Savage's world, in that after becoming a spy, Johnny Lawless was actually sent to deal with a threat from the Volgan Republic! In terms of the continuity of the strips, of course, Invasion was published in 1977 but set in 1999, while The Lawless Touch was set when it was published, in 1980. So Johnny actually took on the Volgs nearly twenty years before Bill Savage.

aye, I have the full collection of Tornado but have yet to read them. Had no idea that the Volgs were incorporated into Johnny Lawless. Another strip from Tornado, Angry Planet, would have fit perfectly into 2000 ad in that period especially with the art of Bellardini. Curiously, Wagner's Walk was my favourite strip from Tornado - that could have fit perfectly into Battle. Maybe that was Tornado's downfall - it didn't know where to fit perfectly.

Wagner's Walk was actually the sequel to Hellman of Hammer Force from Battle. In one scene, they actually start calling each other the Battle series names by mistake.

really! I have only a handful of Battle issues at moment (intend to garner some degree of collection where that title is concerned at some point) but, considering that Wagner's Walk was printed in 1979, that would mean Hellman ended around that time. I always thought that Hellman had a longer run in Battle... ah, the memory can play tricks. But thanks for that piece of knowledge I never knew. Am I correct in recalling that Angry Planet was solicited for 2000 ad originally?

Johnny Lawless does "mess around" with the Volgans by invading their embassy to free a prisoner, which means the invasion had not taken place yet. Chronically correct story lines...