MattBrady
11-28-2002, 09:13 AM
It all began with little pomp and circumstance back in 1991 - Dark Horse Presents #54, to be exact. John Byrne began a feature called John Byrne’s Next Men. The series lasted in DHP until #57, and then it vaulted over into it’s own series, lasting thirty issues.
The series followed Bethany, Jack, Danny, Jasmine and Nathan – five young people who thought they lived their entire lives in an idyllic world called The Greenery, a place where there every need was taken care of, and they were free to lives their lives as they chose. Other people came and went in The Greenery, those who were grievously injured faded from existence, while occasionally, new babies would be found in The Greenery’s nursery. They also had special powers, which they were able to use against occasional attackers to The Greenery. All in all, they were at peace.
It was all a lie.
The five were actually subjects in Project Next Men, a secret government program that took orphans or children given up for adoption by young mothers, and experimented on them mercilessly, transforming them from humans into, well, the “next men.” The Greenery was a virtual reality paradise projected into the minds of the subjects. As some subjects proved not to be able to handle the rigors of genetic experimentation, they were withdrawn from the program, hence the “fading out” (those that did fade were dumped in a holding container below the facility in an Auschwitz-style pile of remains.) As new subjects were brought in, new babies would be found in the nursery.
And you thought The Matrix just had similarities to Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles…
For Byrne, the series wasn’t something along the lines of a lifelong dream to create, rather it was an ongoing process of development as he both wrote and illustrated JBNM. “Right up to the moment I drew the first chapter, I was not sure who would get what powers,” Byrne says. “As I saw it in my head, the first page was Nathan approaching Beth, who was staring up at the stars, rather than the other way 'round, as it appeared. I was almost surprised when the powers apportioned themselves as they did -- but that was one of the rules I set for myself, to let things happen without conscious direction.”
Byrne’s Tao-esque storytelling style worked well. The kids escaped from Project Next Men with the aid of government agent Tony Murcheson to find themselves not in any idyllic paradise, but rather in a secret compound underneath an agricultural research station in the American Southwest. Suddenly, instead of living in the Elysian fields as they thought, they were split apart from one another, and labeled as terrorists by the government.
The story was a welcome breath of fresh air in ’91, when Marvel and DC were busily trying to ape each other, and just a few months away from working feverishly to ape Image to the extreme. Byrne’s story was adult in nature – there was sex, there was violence, but what made it most “for mature readers” was in fact its storyline. Young comic fan probably would have missed several of the nuances of Byrne’s story. It was rich, complex, and occasionally, made re-reading old issues a necessity – not because Byrne wasn’t being clear, but just because there was so much information jam-packed into each issue.
One important thing to note about the Next Men – they weren’t mutants. They were test subjects who’d been engineered, changed, and mutated by the activation of their “trigger” gene, but they were not born with the powers they had. It may sound like a niggling little point, but it cropped up time and again, as some critics took Byrne to task for going over to Dark Horse and creating his version of the X-Men.
“I used the word ‘mutate’ about 375 times in each issue -- but the battle was lost before I began,” Byrne says. “Chris Claremont has so mangled the use of the word ‘mutant’ at Marvel, that most fans think anything with powers is a mutant. When I was doing the FF I would get at least one letter a month referring to them as ‘mutants.’”
In fact, to this day, Byrne still strongly contends that the Next Men were not his version of the X-Men, although the title may lead some to make the jump. “Basically JBNM was my response to Watchmen, or more correctly my response to the fans’ response to Watchmen,” Byrne says. “Whenever I asked them what they liked about that book, they would say -- almost as if programmed – ‘It's so realistic!’ Yet it struck me as no more ‘realistic’ than any other superhero book. So I started cogitating on what a ‘realistic’ superhero book might really be like -- and Next Men was my answer.”
And realistic it was. As soon as the kids escaped from Project Next Men, they realized that their physical perfection inside The Greenery wasn’t mirrored outside. Nathan, who had vision powers, had large red eyes that continued to grow and look progressively more…ugly. Danny, the speedster had tremendous leg muscles to support his powers. Jack was a virtual hulk in size, while Jasmine, the acrobat of the team apparently had problems with her…um, sexual appetite. Finally, Bethany, who was invulnerable, was a danger to anyone who touched her, as even her hair could cut steel.
It was Bethany who most typified the group’s alienation – as her powers continued to develop, Bethany’s skin grew whiter and whiter, her nails and hair grew long as they couldn’t be cut, and psychologically, she became withdrawn and distanced herself from everyone, because she could not feel any tactile stimulation, which wreaked havoc with her relationship with Nathan, as the two were lovers in The Greenery. If the series had continued past it’s stopping point, you could almost believe one of the upcoming stories would have been about Bethany trying to commit suicide, so great was her emotional pain.
Instead of being a collection of the beautiful people with fantastic powers who had to endure being called ‘freaks’ by a world that hates and fears them, like the X-Men, the Next men lived up to the moniker of ‘freaks.’ Socially, physically, and emotionally, they were outcasts from the world. It was a gut level punch that Byrne didn’t pull. Just when you’d think they would be happy, he’d find some way to remind readers that these kids weren’t, and would never be “normal.”
Byrne’s “realistic” take on a superhero book spread beyond just the team. Project Next Men was founded and shepherded by Senator Aldus Hilltop, a politico who’d been influenced and guided behind the scenes by a creature called Sathanus since 1955 – a creature who assured Hilltop that if he helped him with his goals, Hilltop would be president of the United States. Under Sathanus’ guidance, Hilltop began Project Next Men, and also down pedaled sex education, guaranteeing that teen mothers would constantly supply Project Next men with new raw materials over the years. 30 years later, they had a success, and five subjects who’d been “triggered” survived.
And yes, he did have a penchant for pulling strings behind the scenes, and he did smoke cigarettes.
But where did Sathanus come from? The future of course.
To explain that further, some behind the scenes information is needed. Sathanus’ story was fully revealed in 1994’s John Byrne’s 2112, a prestige format special from Dark Horse. The special itself began life as something else entirely.
“2112 has a somewhat convoluted origin -- stated as simply as possible, Stan Lee asked me to help him create the ‘future’ of Marvel, so I pulled out a bunch of sci-fi ideas I'd been kicking around, and put them together with a notion of Stan's,” Byrne says. “Then, at Stan's request, I added some specifically Marvel Universe pages, and that was the project that Marvel ultimately rejected. So I took it back, subtracted the MU references, literally by removing pages, and wrote the story I had originally had in mind.”
In the story, Sathanus was the ultimate ruler over a group of super-powers beings, intent on taking over the earth, which by then had become a virtual utopia on the surface. Realizing that he would always be playing catch up, Sathanus opted to travel back in time to alter history to suit his needs, hence the 1955 arrival in JBNM #6
An interesting aside – back in the series heyday, Marvel, as litigious as it was back then, sent a cease and desist lawyer to Byrne’s lawyer, figuring that “Next Men” was too close to “X-Men.” “Marvel had the presumption that someone walking into a comic ship, asking for X-Men might be given Next Men by mistake,” Byrne says. “I personally thought the reverse was much more likely, but we added my name as part of the title, and that was the end of it. People still call it Next Men, but legally that is not its true title.”
As the series progressed, the Next Men regrouped and had numerous adventures, from traveling to and shutting down the Russian equivalent of The Greenery to running from the law, being turned into comic book characters, and finally, being captured by the government and found guilty of the murders of all the workers at the agricultural station.
Around the same time the Next Men were jailed, a girl who’s slept with Danny began developing powers of her own, dreaming comic book characters into life. The trigger gene was activated through sexual contact with someone who’d been triggered already.
More mind control, more visitors from the future, more genetic experiments, more conspiracies, and ultimately, the triggering of Hilltop himself kept the series rolling at whirling dervish speed until….
It ended with issue #30, right when things were really taking off.
Byrne said he was taking a short pause between “Lies” (JBNM #27-#30) and the next story arc.
That was over seven years ago. Helluva long pause.
“I thought, when I set the book aside, that the hiatus would be about three months,” Byrne says. “Six, tops. But about five seconds after I downed tools, the industry crashed, big time, and I realized it was no longer a safe place into which to relaunch Next Men. I'm still waiting for that condition to change. I have about 20 issues of story left.”
“I know pretty much exactly what will happen over the space of those 20-ish issues. As with the original run, there is some elasticity, but Next Men is a book that has a beginning, a middle, and an end -- not necessarily in that order. As for a tease? How about the last line of the last issue: ‘Nathan... I'm cold…’”
fans of the series realize the poignancy of those words and who’s speaking them, for sure.
A quicker way of seeing more new JBNM material may actually be waiting for the movie rather than waiting for the next series. The property is currently being shopped around to producers and studios, and in today’s “How can we make the next Matrix or X-Men?” Hollywood world, JBNM probably looks a lot like The Matrix meets X-Men.
Back to the comic though, sleeping in the same bed along with JBNM #30-#50 or so are Byrne’s long promised 2113, 2114 and 6119 specials, further exploring the future of the Next Men’s world.
Okay, to be fair to Byrne’s assessment of the industry, it’s not all doom and gloom for creator owned works, with Kurt Busiek’s Astro City, Sin City, Shockrockets, Empire, Section Zero, Tellos, and a few other projects by high-profile creators still chugging along at a somewhat profitable clip. The question of “If these guys can, why can’t Byrne?” has been raised more than once by both fans of the series and by Byrne’s detractors. His reason for not returning to Next Men - as simple and understandable one: “Blame my standard of living!” Byrne says. “I've gotten used to being where I am, fiscally.”
If, and hopefully when the series would return, Byrne doesn’t feel that a massive re-education program would be needed “I'd just start off and hope for the best,” Byrne says. “The next arc is more or less self-contained, so a great deal of recap would not be necessary.”
Something that could help drum up interest is keeping the JBNM trades in circulation. All are available through Dark Horse and Diamond, but many stores pas on them, opting for quicker sells, which of course, is their prerogative. But if you’ve never checked out the series, pick up or order JBNM Book I. It’s a solid, self contained read that will have you itching for the next, then the next trades. If the trades can’t be found near you, the back issues won’t cost an arm and a leg, either. And don’t forget to nab 2112 to put the whole thing into perspective. Best bet? Grab the entire series as a single, massive chunk and read it all in one sitting. It’s a good way to spend a weekend.
The series followed Bethany, Jack, Danny, Jasmine and Nathan – five young people who thought they lived their entire lives in an idyllic world called The Greenery, a place where there every need was taken care of, and they were free to lives their lives as they chose. Other people came and went in The Greenery, those who were grievously injured faded from existence, while occasionally, new babies would be found in The Greenery’s nursery. They also had special powers, which they were able to use against occasional attackers to The Greenery. All in all, they were at peace.
It was all a lie.
The five were actually subjects in Project Next Men, a secret government program that took orphans or children given up for adoption by young mothers, and experimented on them mercilessly, transforming them from humans into, well, the “next men.” The Greenery was a virtual reality paradise projected into the minds of the subjects. As some subjects proved not to be able to handle the rigors of genetic experimentation, they were withdrawn from the program, hence the “fading out” (those that did fade were dumped in a holding container below the facility in an Auschwitz-style pile of remains.) As new subjects were brought in, new babies would be found in the nursery.
And you thought The Matrix just had similarities to Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles…
For Byrne, the series wasn’t something along the lines of a lifelong dream to create, rather it was an ongoing process of development as he both wrote and illustrated JBNM. “Right up to the moment I drew the first chapter, I was not sure who would get what powers,” Byrne says. “As I saw it in my head, the first page was Nathan approaching Beth, who was staring up at the stars, rather than the other way 'round, as it appeared. I was almost surprised when the powers apportioned themselves as they did -- but that was one of the rules I set for myself, to let things happen without conscious direction.”
Byrne’s Tao-esque storytelling style worked well. The kids escaped from Project Next Men with the aid of government agent Tony Murcheson to find themselves not in any idyllic paradise, but rather in a secret compound underneath an agricultural research station in the American Southwest. Suddenly, instead of living in the Elysian fields as they thought, they were split apart from one another, and labeled as terrorists by the government.
The story was a welcome breath of fresh air in ’91, when Marvel and DC were busily trying to ape each other, and just a few months away from working feverishly to ape Image to the extreme. Byrne’s story was adult in nature – there was sex, there was violence, but what made it most “for mature readers” was in fact its storyline. Young comic fan probably would have missed several of the nuances of Byrne’s story. It was rich, complex, and occasionally, made re-reading old issues a necessity – not because Byrne wasn’t being clear, but just because there was so much information jam-packed into each issue.
One important thing to note about the Next Men – they weren’t mutants. They were test subjects who’d been engineered, changed, and mutated by the activation of their “trigger” gene, but they were not born with the powers they had. It may sound like a niggling little point, but it cropped up time and again, as some critics took Byrne to task for going over to Dark Horse and creating his version of the X-Men.
“I used the word ‘mutate’ about 375 times in each issue -- but the battle was lost before I began,” Byrne says. “Chris Claremont has so mangled the use of the word ‘mutant’ at Marvel, that most fans think anything with powers is a mutant. When I was doing the FF I would get at least one letter a month referring to them as ‘mutants.’”
In fact, to this day, Byrne still strongly contends that the Next Men were not his version of the X-Men, although the title may lead some to make the jump. “Basically JBNM was my response to Watchmen, or more correctly my response to the fans’ response to Watchmen,” Byrne says. “Whenever I asked them what they liked about that book, they would say -- almost as if programmed – ‘It's so realistic!’ Yet it struck me as no more ‘realistic’ than any other superhero book. So I started cogitating on what a ‘realistic’ superhero book might really be like -- and Next Men was my answer.”
And realistic it was. As soon as the kids escaped from Project Next Men, they realized that their physical perfection inside The Greenery wasn’t mirrored outside. Nathan, who had vision powers, had large red eyes that continued to grow and look progressively more…ugly. Danny, the speedster had tremendous leg muscles to support his powers. Jack was a virtual hulk in size, while Jasmine, the acrobat of the team apparently had problems with her…um, sexual appetite. Finally, Bethany, who was invulnerable, was a danger to anyone who touched her, as even her hair could cut steel.
It was Bethany who most typified the group’s alienation – as her powers continued to develop, Bethany’s skin grew whiter and whiter, her nails and hair grew long as they couldn’t be cut, and psychologically, she became withdrawn and distanced herself from everyone, because she could not feel any tactile stimulation, which wreaked havoc with her relationship with Nathan, as the two were lovers in The Greenery. If the series had continued past it’s stopping point, you could almost believe one of the upcoming stories would have been about Bethany trying to commit suicide, so great was her emotional pain.
Instead of being a collection of the beautiful people with fantastic powers who had to endure being called ‘freaks’ by a world that hates and fears them, like the X-Men, the Next men lived up to the moniker of ‘freaks.’ Socially, physically, and emotionally, they were outcasts from the world. It was a gut level punch that Byrne didn’t pull. Just when you’d think they would be happy, he’d find some way to remind readers that these kids weren’t, and would never be “normal.”
Byrne’s “realistic” take on a superhero book spread beyond just the team. Project Next Men was founded and shepherded by Senator Aldus Hilltop, a politico who’d been influenced and guided behind the scenes by a creature called Sathanus since 1955 – a creature who assured Hilltop that if he helped him with his goals, Hilltop would be president of the United States. Under Sathanus’ guidance, Hilltop began Project Next Men, and also down pedaled sex education, guaranteeing that teen mothers would constantly supply Project Next men with new raw materials over the years. 30 years later, they had a success, and five subjects who’d been “triggered” survived.
And yes, he did have a penchant for pulling strings behind the scenes, and he did smoke cigarettes.
But where did Sathanus come from? The future of course.
To explain that further, some behind the scenes information is needed. Sathanus’ story was fully revealed in 1994’s John Byrne’s 2112, a prestige format special from Dark Horse. The special itself began life as something else entirely.
“2112 has a somewhat convoluted origin -- stated as simply as possible, Stan Lee asked me to help him create the ‘future’ of Marvel, so I pulled out a bunch of sci-fi ideas I'd been kicking around, and put them together with a notion of Stan's,” Byrne says. “Then, at Stan's request, I added some specifically Marvel Universe pages, and that was the project that Marvel ultimately rejected. So I took it back, subtracted the MU references, literally by removing pages, and wrote the story I had originally had in mind.”
In the story, Sathanus was the ultimate ruler over a group of super-powers beings, intent on taking over the earth, which by then had become a virtual utopia on the surface. Realizing that he would always be playing catch up, Sathanus opted to travel back in time to alter history to suit his needs, hence the 1955 arrival in JBNM #6
An interesting aside – back in the series heyday, Marvel, as litigious as it was back then, sent a cease and desist lawyer to Byrne’s lawyer, figuring that “Next Men” was too close to “X-Men.” “Marvel had the presumption that someone walking into a comic ship, asking for X-Men might be given Next Men by mistake,” Byrne says. “I personally thought the reverse was much more likely, but we added my name as part of the title, and that was the end of it. People still call it Next Men, but legally that is not its true title.”
As the series progressed, the Next Men regrouped and had numerous adventures, from traveling to and shutting down the Russian equivalent of The Greenery to running from the law, being turned into comic book characters, and finally, being captured by the government and found guilty of the murders of all the workers at the agricultural station.
Around the same time the Next Men were jailed, a girl who’s slept with Danny began developing powers of her own, dreaming comic book characters into life. The trigger gene was activated through sexual contact with someone who’d been triggered already.
More mind control, more visitors from the future, more genetic experiments, more conspiracies, and ultimately, the triggering of Hilltop himself kept the series rolling at whirling dervish speed until….
It ended with issue #30, right when things were really taking off.
Byrne said he was taking a short pause between “Lies” (JBNM #27-#30) and the next story arc.
That was over seven years ago. Helluva long pause.
“I thought, when I set the book aside, that the hiatus would be about three months,” Byrne says. “Six, tops. But about five seconds after I downed tools, the industry crashed, big time, and I realized it was no longer a safe place into which to relaunch Next Men. I'm still waiting for that condition to change. I have about 20 issues of story left.”
“I know pretty much exactly what will happen over the space of those 20-ish issues. As with the original run, there is some elasticity, but Next Men is a book that has a beginning, a middle, and an end -- not necessarily in that order. As for a tease? How about the last line of the last issue: ‘Nathan... I'm cold…’”
fans of the series realize the poignancy of those words and who’s speaking them, for sure.
A quicker way of seeing more new JBNM material may actually be waiting for the movie rather than waiting for the next series. The property is currently being shopped around to producers and studios, and in today’s “How can we make the next Matrix or X-Men?” Hollywood world, JBNM probably looks a lot like The Matrix meets X-Men.
Back to the comic though, sleeping in the same bed along with JBNM #30-#50 or so are Byrne’s long promised 2113, 2114 and 6119 specials, further exploring the future of the Next Men’s world.
Okay, to be fair to Byrne’s assessment of the industry, it’s not all doom and gloom for creator owned works, with Kurt Busiek’s Astro City, Sin City, Shockrockets, Empire, Section Zero, Tellos, and a few other projects by high-profile creators still chugging along at a somewhat profitable clip. The question of “If these guys can, why can’t Byrne?” has been raised more than once by both fans of the series and by Byrne’s detractors. His reason for not returning to Next Men - as simple and understandable one: “Blame my standard of living!” Byrne says. “I've gotten used to being where I am, fiscally.”
If, and hopefully when the series would return, Byrne doesn’t feel that a massive re-education program would be needed “I'd just start off and hope for the best,” Byrne says. “The next arc is more or less self-contained, so a great deal of recap would not be necessary.”
Something that could help drum up interest is keeping the JBNM trades in circulation. All are available through Dark Horse and Diamond, but many stores pas on them, opting for quicker sells, which of course, is their prerogative. But if you’ve never checked out the series, pick up or order JBNM Book I. It’s a solid, self contained read that will have you itching for the next, then the next trades. If the trades can’t be found near you, the back issues won’t cost an arm and a leg, either. And don’t forget to nab 2112 to put the whole thing into perspective. Best bet? Grab the entire series as a single, massive chunk and read it all in one sitting. It’s a good way to spend a weekend.