How To 2000 ad Part 2: A Bluffer Offers His Beginner's Guide To Pat Mills & Kevin O'Neill's "Nemesis The Warlock" Books 1 & 3

In which the blogger continues his Bluffer's Guide To 2000 ad for some friends from across the Atlantic, suggesting a first key text for the beginner to enjoy while warning that all may not be exactly what it seems to be;

          
1.

Here’s a little experiment that you can try at home for yourselves.

Take a friend who absolutely devours modern mainstream detective novels from British, American and even Scandinavian authors, and present them with a small and carefully-picked selection of contemporary Italian novels from same genre. If you pick the right friend, and put together your sample of Italian detective fiction with just the right amount of discerning bias, there’s every chance that you’ll be able to thoroughly disconcert your victim. For no matter how fashionably jaded and morally ambiguous so much of modern English and Swedish language detective novels may be, they’re unlikely to be anything as grim and compromised as a great many of their Italian counterparts are.

        

In short, the Italian authors very often begin with a simple, taken-for-granted premise; society is utterly corrupt. Not only are the police so, and the state too, but the folks who work the evening shift in the local 24/7 all-in store and your street’s Neighbourhood Watch scheme too. Worse yet, to the less cynically mind, this state of affairs is often assumed to be the natural way of things. It’s not that a few bad eggs have taken over the nation, the town or the local boy scouts troop. The natural and just order hasn’t been disrupted and so it can’t ever be returned to. The detective can’t simply reveal the guilty party to the applause of relieved citizens while knowing that something of a state of moral and legal equilibrium has been restored. In so much of Italian detective fiction, the perpetrator either can’t even be found, or they can’t be brought legitimately to any kind of justice at all. The police don’t care, the law’s impotent and the government’s nothing more than another bunch of crooks keeping the citizens as quiet as possible while continuing their traditional business of fleecing society.

           

With no good world to return to, and no unsullied mass to appeal to, let alone defend, the Italian detective novel can read as a fundamental, and yet entirely unhysterical, assault upon familiar notions of social justice and human nature. It doesn't simply present a vision of society that's different to the one so often taken for granted elsewhere, so much as shrug its shoulders and laconically insist that all that talk of shining cities on hills and of the people, for the people, by the people, is a rather pathetic way of looking at the world. And as a consequence, the characters who fill the space in these narratives, which to our eyes should be occupied by a flawed and yet still heroic figure, are often so massively compromised themselves that they can seem quite alien and uninspiring. At times, they’re not even players from the other side lending us all a necessary if dishonoured hand, because there are no sides and everyone's hands are conspicuously dirty.

No pure-of-heart guys in even the grubbiest of white hats or dirty windblown capes to entirely save the day. No persecuted and innocent citizenry completely deserving of rescue while nobly suffering oppression. No tiny minority of evil-doers spoiling it for the rest of us. Just an everyday slog through a morass of self-interest, with the slightest gain in the direction of what might naively be called “justice” being achieved only through what to us can appear to be a quite disproportionate, and typically unethical, effort.

         

Why, if you gain the slightest emotional satisfaction from seeing a comfortably identifiable good bring a dispiriting disruptive element to justice, then the Italian detective novel may do more than just profoundly disappoint you. It may rather upset you too. There's no satisfying sense of perfect closure to be reached here for those looking for a hopeful and morally-reassuring ending, and the reader may well even feel themselves belittled for wanting that to be so. There are detectives who on occasion do competent and even heroic things there, and there are people who really do suffer for their crimes, but the field of play that incorporates these characters is so often a profoundly cynical, if not entirely nihilistic, one.

          

2. 

Similarly, trying to enjoy the majority of 2000 ad's best strips while using the skills and expectations developed over years of reading typical Marvel and DC superhero books can be at best a somewhat disconcerting project. For many of 2000 ad's most outstanding strips are written in opposition to the very idea of the noble, social-minded, self-sacrificing hero. Where the cape'n'chest-insignia sub-genre is based comfortingly on the premise that society is essentially decent, and that many if not most of its citizens will do the right thing if set a rousingly colourful and super-powered example, much of 2000 ad takes it for granted that any such social positivity is in truth quite ridiculous. More alienating yet to the superhero fan, the superheroic narrative's frequent presumption that only the worst and most flawed individuals seriously abuse power is absolutely opposed in the pages of 2000 ad. To many of the very best of the comic's creators, Lord Acton's dictum is law; no-one is above temptation and pretty much everyone is to one degree or another compromised if not actively corrupt. 

Or, to put it another way; a relatively small class of bad guys and gals aren't the enemy here; we are. Some of us are consistently far worse than the norm, a few of us are on occasion somewhat better. But the human race and its exceptionally bad habits are the problem as diagnosed. It's a situation which, I'm sure you'll concede, even the most vigorous programme of superhero team-ups and energy-blast-filled punch-ups could do little to allay, and whatever little or great victories the protagonists of 2000 ad achieve, little of lasting social value is achieved, or even appears to be. The heroes can't save us, because, basically, we're the problem.

        
As a result of this, what might appear to be British analogues of American heroic types in the pages of 2000 ad are mostly nothing of the sort. The comic book's heroes are not a breed apart and they're very, very rarely an entirely noble example to anyone. Judge Dredd, for example, may appear to be a futuristic, Dirty Harry-esque lawman, but he's really a nakedly fascist stormtrooper, and perhaps we might pause there just for a moment in order to take that inarguable fact in. ( ... ) For an awful lot of folks on both of the Atlantic seem to grasp something of this truth where Dredd himself is concerned without being willing, or perhaps able, to really grasp the point. Dredd may wear a splendid uniform, carry a big gun and drive a big bike, and he may often fight criminals and protect helpless citizens. But that doesn't change a slither of the bald and undebatable truth that he's a fascist, of the complete and utter variety.

Obviously, the very existence of a comic strip whose title character is only a prejudice or two short of fully-fledged Nazidom means it's impossible to read Dredd's adventures as anything other than a satire on comicbook heroism. And many of even the most apparently brave and decent of 2000 ad's characters fall considerably short of moral paragon status too. Approach Dredd and his breed with the presumption that their tales are going to provide anything other than a caustic view of humanity matched with a dismissive attitude to heroism, and the text of their adventures will nearly always frustrate and disappoint. 

         
It's not that every lead character in 2000 ad constitutes a satire upon comicbook notions of gallant and world-preserving protagonists, or that every strip mocks the idea that our world's just waiting to be either restored to or transformed into a utopia by the violent removal of a small cadre of criminals and ne'er-do-wells. There are some very fine strips associated with 2000 ad, including the exceptionally popular anti-hero "Nikolai Dante", which, while never complacent about authority and the powers-that-be, might be judged to sit more comfortably with the traditions of the superhero mainstream. But as a working premise, and accepting that I'm somewhat over-exaggerating difference in order to make a point, it's worth reiterating that a great deal of what's outstanding in 2000 ad's back catalogue is designed to mock many of those moral qualities and political preconceptions which the superhero book so often serves to bolster and even celebrate.

              
3.

In the light of the above, I can't help but suspect that the best place for a dedicated superhero fan to begin would be with a strip from 2000 ad's pages which stars an unambiguously heroic figure who, for all of his apparent otherness, is clearly embarked upon an unarguably necessary and moral mission. In such a way, you can enjoy a narrative which recognisably shares the same type of underlying heroic structure as those you're most familiar with, while experiencing a story which is also very much not a standard-issue adventure. Hence; 

Rule 4 Of "How To 2000 ad": Begin With "Nemesis The Warlock" Books 1 and 3

In "Nemesis The Warlock", the universe of the future is falling beneath the rule of the vilest of evil empires ruled by a genocidal race of religious fundamentalists butchering their way through a host of unthreatening and defenceless civilisations. Only the sorcerer Nemesis is able and willing to lead the resistance against this impossibly numerous and powerful enemy that's one part Einsatzgruppen and another the Inquisition.

It's a threat that Superman would immediately respond to, it's a scenario which would inevitably find Captain America taking up his shield and helmet-wings in order to defend the threatened masses of the universe.

           
But if the contrast between good and evil couldn't be clearer, and if Nemesis himself might well be described as a playful mixture of Dr Strange and Zorro where his role as a protagonist is concerned, everything else about the strip is a reversal of what the neophyte might expect from the above description. For the fascist fundamentalists slaughtering entire planets worth of helpless victims are the clearly recognisable human soldiers of the Earthly empire of Termight, and Nemesis himself is a profoundly alien creature. In essence, we are the worst of all possible opponents in "Nemesis", and the good folks of the tale are everyone but the human beings.

Where the American superhero tradition tends to suggest that Earth is a very special place indeed, and that its people are in so many ways the best hope for a crowded universe in desperate need of our good example and practical skills, "Nemesis The Warlock" takes quite the opposite view. Humanity is worse than a plague here, since even the most terrible of epidemics tends to leave some of its victims alive as it passes. Not so with the death squads of Termight's ruler, the of-course appropriately named Torquemada, which serve a state whose barbarous behaviour reflects those most inconvenient, unpleasant and recurrent truths about human society.

The distance between our heroes and the villains couldn't be clearer in these early Books of "Nemesis", the mission couldn't be more laudable and any less thrilling, the odds more overwhelming, the innocents in any more jeopardy; if only someone could stand up to those oh-so-recognisably savage, rapacious and self-righteous human beings.

        
4.

Much of the serious and conservative tone to be found in a great many American superhero comics can be associated with their traditional purpose of reassuring the reader, and originally the very young reader, that social disorder can be at the very least challenged, and, at best, defeated entirely. The American superhero book reassures, it stands for particularly conformist values, it assumes that most folks are potentially part of the solution rather than contributers to the problem, and it's founded on the premise that social harmony can not only be achieved, but that such is inevitably a very good thing.

Mr Mills and Mr O'Neill were having none of that with "Nemesis". To them, conformity is a sign of the tyrant's fist, reassurance is the opiate of the people, and political peace of mind is a delusion to be scornfully mocked rather than celebrated. Perhaps most disturbing of all, there's the clear implication that Torquemada's reign hasn't entirely corrupted human nature so much as it's allowed what's constant and appalling in our thoughts and behaviour to come once again to the fore. This isn't a narrative about how a few bad eggs have ruined society for everyone else, although there's absolutely no doubt that Termight's state and its ruler have made a consistently dangerous species into an actively deadly one. And so, the presence of the forces of disorder in "Nemesis" doesn't imply that there is any form of naturally ordered and just society to return to. Even the Warlock's own alien kinship network is riven by exceptionally human-like in-fighting, by murderously jealous lovers and manipulative, lying relatives, meaning that the reader who's used to straight-forward moral solutions being played out in their comicbook tales may find themselves worryingly discomforted here. Even the victories of our hero don't provide us with the sense that right has been in any fashion restored to the universe. After all, just to remove one element of oppression doesn't mean that any kind of state of justice has, or indeed could have, been established.

         
Faced with such a playfully absurd and morally bleak, if undeniably realistic, sub-text, the new-to-2000 ad reader is going to have to make the decision about whether to laugh along with Mr Mills and Mr O'Neill at the worst of the behaviour of their fellow men and women or not. And if you can't run with that satirical purpose, then you're probably going to stay excluded from much of the best of 2000 ad;

Rule 5 of "How To 2000 ad": Human Being's Refusal To Accept The Sad Truth About Themselves While Persecuting Others Is As Gut-Bustingly Funny As It Is Heartbreakingly Tragic

I do realise that the comic-strip I've outlined above sounds as if it might be, shall we say, a touch depressing and a smidgen worthy. But in the hands of Mr Mills and Mr O'Neill, nothing could further from the truth. "Nemesis" is often brutally and laugh-out-loud funny, or, at least, it is if you can accept the rather historically valid premise that human societies have a tendency to do the most terrible things in the name of the most exalted of poppycock. Even in the fine details of the text, there's the blackest and sharpest of humour on show, as might be noted in the comedy of the torture scene below, which, were it to be recreated as a cartoon, would surely need to be voiced by the survivors of the Monty Python team;

        
Even at its most bleak, and there are scenes which are both shiversome and even upsetting in particularly Book 1 of "Nemesis", there's a fundamental sense of glee driving the strip, a joy on the part of the creators that they can be making such unconventionally barbed and outrageous statements about the human condition in the context of a weekly adventure strip, and in such an obviously successful manner too. Creating Nemesis must have been, for all the undoubted hard work involved, incredibly good and satisfying fun. Mr Mills scripts sidestep his oft-prevailing tendency to loose the discipline of his storytelling, remaining focused on the precise progression of the plot while retaining a narrow rather than a scattershot moral purpose. In doing so, the first and third books of "Nemesis The Warlock" serve as the very best of his work, as bleakly hilarious and death-trap-escaping thrilling as they are thought-provoking and decent-hearted. And in the deliberate and disturbing perversity of Mr O'Neill's beautifully paced, innovative and crystal-clear story-telling, Mr Mills found for me his most suitable and successful conspirator. It's in these pages that the most convincing explanation for the Comics Code Authority's reputed decision to declare Mr O'Neiil's very style, regardless of its content, unacceptable can be found. So much of what he shows us of this future world, for example, evokes medieval grotesqueries and medical sketches of syphilitic victims, and his art as a whole might be mistaken by a conservative frame of mind for an expression of a profoundly corrupt sensibility if his images weren't so precisely put to use in service of Mr Mill's story. There's no indulgence here, no attempt to upset for the sake of upsetting beyond the confines of the stories at hand, although there's no disputing that much of what we're shown is apparently askew and often simply disturbing. Mr O'Neill's work is precisely calibrated in its discipline and excess to express the moral sickness of the society he's helping to describe, and in doing so, it's often both horrific and hilarious in the very same panel.

            
Regardless of how Saturday-morning pictures the main thrust of the plot might be, this is the most challengingly and coruscating of comicbook assaults upon the delusions of the morally occluded; racism, sanctimonious ignorance, imperialism, self-interest and plain old-fashioned religious bigotry are all mercilessly and broadly skewered, and then skewered several times more in swift succession too. Perhaps, as a consequence, the reader might care to warm up for "Nemesis The Warlock" with the DVD of "Life Of Brian" or "Idiocracy", with an hour in a comfy chair reading "A Modest Proposal" or "Skin Tight", or perhaps listening to the likes of "Sail Away" or "Springtime For Hitler".

In "Nemesis The Warlock", human beings are as a race so irredeemable and so pathetic that the only option for the beleaguered alien races is to wipe them from the stars unless they can force the bigots to just go home. This is, even on the level of its basic premise, a grimly amusing idea, as well as a depressingly plausible one.

         

5.


It's not my intention, as we discussed before I started these pieces, to provide any full-blown reviews of the strips that I'll recommend in these "How To 2000 ad" pieces. There are plenty of them to be found on the net, and there's little point in detailed pocket summaries when they're so available elsewhere. Instead, all I'm concerned about, as we agreed, is to suggest where to start reading the comic's back catalogue and how to begin that process. To my mind, and I readily accept that I'm probably way off-beam, the problems that an awful lot of newcomers have with 2000 ad is one part practical - what are the rules about reading this stuff? - and one part ethical - what is the point of this?. For if these strips feel different, then it's because they are, and if they can come across as strangely dissatisfying, it's often because they're not setting out to make you feel any better about the world at all.

It's exceptionally fierce and fine work, although, as always, you really might want to tread with a little care at first. The form and content of these Books are, as we've of course discussed, influenced heavily by 2000 ad's chapter-based, weekly-published schedule and by the tastes of the comic's original audience. They read differently. Furthermore, the comparatively unrestrained and joyful onslaught against hypocrisy and exploitation that's woven through just about every single panel of Mr Mills and Mr O'Neill's work means that it's a comic-strip which might pose a few challenges to the unwary reader more used to even the more conditional takes on truth, justice and that American way.

But then, I love the fact that the first and third books of "Nemesis The Warlock" bite every bit as much as they entertain.

"How To 2000 ad " will return next week with another recommendation. Books One and Three of "Nemesis The Warlock" can be found in the first volume of "The Complete Nemesis". The other Books and volumes contain much that's worth your attention, but the Beginner's Guide will reserve its recommendations for the work which the Bluffer thinks is, in the words of Mr John Lennon, "the toppermost of the poppermost".

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