Nextwave: Agents Of H.A.T.E. Volume 2 – I Kick Your Face is the second (and final?) collection of Warren Ellis and Stewart Immonen’s brilliantly subversive kick at underwear pervert comics (a subject both creators have direct personal and bitter experience with). Nextwave are a bunch of angry, potty-mouthed superheros who’ve discovered that their former employers (ostensibly an anti-terrorist organization) are, in fact, terrorist masterminds. Now they’re ronins, fighting HATE (Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort) and innumerable corporate spinoffs in a series of adventures that deftly lampoon the finest traditions of the Marvelverse and its many permutations (“Didn’t Tabby says that Magik was dead?” “Like that matters. X-Men come back more often than Jesus.”).
The visual and verbal gags are thick on the ground — and chapter ten features a series of brilliant notional other comic book lives for the characters, each one gutting another funnybook tradition.
Nextwave isn’t a gentle sendup of the corporation that published it — it’s a merciless assault. It’s hilarious, mean and brilliant.
See also:
Warren Ellis’s NEXTWAVE: subverting the underwear perverts
Warren Ellis’ graphic novel FELL #1 online for free
Warren Ellis’s Desolation Jones – Savage noir spy comic
Warren Ellis’s Mek and Reload omnibus edition
Complete Warren Ellis comic online
Transmetropolitan #1 as a free download
I come to praise Transmetropolitan