WARREN ELLIS TALKS NEXTWAVE

[MattBrady]

by Chris Arrant

For months, comic book fans have been actively speculating and hypothesizing about the Warren Ellis-written book that Marvel Editor-In-Chief mentioned “made Buckley cry”. Endorsing it as his favorite book of 2006, Quesada few sentence started the imaginations of fans worldwide as to what it was. fueled the fire in his mailing list “Bad Signal”, ominously referring to it as “NW” and stating that the tagline was “healing America by beating people up”.

What does ‘NW’ stand for? Some people placed their money on “New Warriors”, while others said ‘New Wanda’ [referring to the Scarlet Witch], while others simply thought it might stand for “New Work”. The speculations were put to rest this week as information was leaked onto the internet, identifying the new title as Nextwave and featuring a cast with a deep, but spotty history with the Marvel universe.

“The team is nominally lead by Monica Rambeau, who was previously, Captain Marvel, Photon, and possibly Pulsar or ‘That Tall Black Woman With The Bad Hair Who Gets Wheeled Out From Time To Time’,” Ellis stated. “Monica Rambeau used to lead the Avengers. She will tell you she used to lead the Avengers until you die. “

“There's Aaron Stack, who used to be called Machine Man when he was the crappiest robot superhero on the block,” Ellis continued. “Since he was last seen, he's rewired his head so that beer works on him, and can often be heard maliciously referring to humans as ‘fleshy ones,’” Ellis revealed. “There's Ellie Bloodstone, daughter of immortal-and-yet-strangely-dead monster hunter Ulysses Bloodstone, who is essentially Lara Croft with the brain of Edina from Absolutely Fabulous. “

Rounding out the cast is a familiar face you’ll remember and a familiar face you won’t remember. “There's Tabby Smith, who has been Boom Boom and Meltdown and probably three or four other names, who used to be in X-Force and Cable And The X-Monkeys or whatever all those damn things were called. She is the mutant Paris Hilton: she makes things blow up, walks around with a cellphone glued to her ear and has a night-vision vagina,” Ellis said with a laugh. “And, of course, there's the Captain -- who is basically every generic superhero called Captain something that Marvel ever published. He's all of them. Changed his name every few months, and then just gave up and called himself the Captain.”

So you have a team, but what are they fighting for? Nextwave is an elite superman task force organized by the government agency known as H.A.T.E. (Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort). Their mission was to stop superhuman terrorists, but when they find out their own organization is the one behind a conspiracy aiding villains in taking out small towns in rural states where heroes never venture, they have to stop it.

Heading up H.A.T.E. is a new face to the Marvel universe, but one that readers won’t be soon to forget.

“The other recurring character is General Dirk Anger, Director of H.A.T.E. He brought them together to form a crack intervention team, the Next Wave Squad,” said Ellis. “The squad found out who really finances and supplies the Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort. And stole an experimental aircraft from him and went on the run. General Dirk Anger is having a very slow nervous breakdown.”

While long-time Marvel readers might remember the members of Nextwave from previous titles, it would be hard to call any of them A-list characters. But for Warren, that was the plan all along: finding the loose bits of Marvel continuity and reinvigorating them for a new audience.

“I think it started with an interview with Brian Michael Bendis I read someplace, wherein he stated he'd hoped that his Avengers Disassembled/New Avengers work would trip off a conversation about team books, approaches to them, their place in commercial comics right now, etc. Which I'm not sure ever happened, but still. I got to thinking about this in the pub one day.”

“Obviously, it couldn't be done with Big Name characters, because they were all under someone else's control. It could be done with original characters as a creator-owned work, but, really, something like that should be done through a big company. I didn't want to do Authority Part Two -- although Authority was, of course, populated by B-list characters, B-list locations.”

B-list characters? Check.

B-list locations? Check.

But what about B-list villains?

“Beyond B-List. Fin Fang Foom. Shogun Warrior,” Ellis said with a smile.

“You see, the threat is products. H.A.T.E. is funded and supplied by the Beyond Corporation -- they are providing weapons to H.A.T.E. that H.A.T.E. is to live-test in the field. It is not generally known to the rank and file of H.A.T.E. that the Beyond Corporation is actually just a new face for their old enemy, the terrorist cell known as S.I.L.E.N.T. -- and, through unknown machinations, H.A.T.E. has actually been product-testing weapons of mass destruction on these obscure cities and towns in the United States.”

But secrets aren’t so easily kept, be it within comics or within H.A.T.E.

“The Next Wave Squad found this out, and stole the Marketing Plan -- the calendar on which this stuff is being released on America -- as well as the plane, and are crisscrossing the States, trying to intercept these ‘WMDs Of The Weird’ before they go live.”

Joining Ellis on this title will be artist Stuart Immonen, who has worked with the writer previous on Ultimate Fantastic Four and is prepared to bring his signature line-work to this all-new Marvel title. In fact, Marvel offices are buzzing on the strength of the title.

“We let Warren go wild and he hasn’t disappointed,” said Marvel’s publisher Dan Buckley. “The things that have come from this man’s mind … I haven’t seen a comic like this, well, ever!”

With the heady tagline of “Healing America by beating people up”, some has speculated that this new Ellis-penned title will be in the style of the “fight comics” that he’s written about before.

“It's a mix of approaches. It has the Explodo, because the Explodo is incredibly important,” Ellis said matter-of-factly. “It also winds in flashback sequences seemingly at random, throws in information boxes, runs the book's ident every eight pages. It's fun to write, because it's got no rules applied to it other than that I tell a complete story every 44 pages/two issues. Give it the first two issues -- after that, I figure I've either got you forever, or you'll never read anything with my name on it again,” Ellis promised.

Ellis’ excitement for this title is apparent, as he’s recently stated that he’s currently writing issue #7 of the book. “I'm just writing it while it's all fresh in my head. I'm going to take it up to #12 -- after that, we'll see if we get renewed for a second year, and then I'll see if I have another six stories in my head for it.”

When asked about the motivations in creating Nextwave considering his colored history with superheroes and “fetish suits”, his derived term for superheroes, Ellis put it al into context.

“I continue to occasionally work in the superhero field because it's interesting to me to try and write superhero books I'd actually read. That, to me, is worth doing. So I started thinking in terms of a team book that I'd actually want to read.”

Nextwave is scheduled for a January 2006 release from Marvel Comics. Check back in with Newsarama later this week for series artist Stuart Immonen.

[Strike]

This sounds wicked cool.

I'm on board for this.

[CharleyX]

This looks totally whacked. I was OK with Ellis on Excalibur, and his X-Force take was odd, but it worked. This might be fun. I think he's right - after two issues we'll split on him one way or the other...

*shudder*

[Julio Diaz]

That's Immonen art in the character sketches? I wouldn't even have recognized it! I like it a lot -- looks like a departure for him, but equally as good as the style I'm used to seeing him do.

This sounds like it could be a winner. I can't believe Ellis is actually going to use the Lara Croft version of Bloodstone -- I thought that character was well and truly forgotten.

I definitely plan to check it out.

[innocentboy]

yes, will be interesting to see what this is all about

[Coward]

Looking forward to the talk with Stuart Immonen. Nextwave looks so far, so sweet

[BlueThunderArmy]

This sounds pretty topical for a Marvel book, and quite interesting as well. Count me in.

[Comic-Reader]

Was Buckley crying because after seeing this, he wished he worked at DC?

I don't know about this one. I like when they take forgotten and underused characters and try to make them cool, like DC's "Primal Force," or that two-parter with DC's Forgotten Heroes and Villains. I also remember a series Marvel published years ago, written by Roger Stern, called "Marvel Universe" that tried to tell stories using C-list characters. That kind of stuff I like.

However, this seems like a bunch of Euro-twaddle to me. H.A.T.E.??? General Dirk Anger???

Bwahhaha aahhh, screw it.

[BanMan]

Interesting approach they're taking with the arcs. And people say Marvel doesn't listen.

[Punchy]

Super sweet stuff here, If it's anything at all like Authority, it will be massive, can't wait to see the shiz hit the pan

[Johnny Triangles]

Originally posted by Comic-Reader
Was Buckley crying because after seeing this, he wished he worked at DC?

Hahaha! Pretty funny, it DOES sound pretty awful.

I think Buckley was crying because when he read it, he thought he WAS working at DC.

[zveles]

ellis and one of the best talented artists at the moment together. it can't be bad even if it's marvel!

i noticed that mr ellis is working more often with fan favourite artists than he used to before. way to go because art is important too.

[Winteriscoming]

This sounds great.

I think team books are at an all time hight right now. JLA, JSA, New Avengers, Young Avengers, Teen Titans, New T'Bolts, heck...even that Day of Vengence team is a blast to read.

I'm really looking forward to this!

[Johnny Triangles]

Tongue-in-cheek or not, why does Ellis (and Azzarello and Ennis) always have to drip contempt for superheroes in every interview? I get annoyed with the annoyingly gushing reverent fanboy extreme in creators too (Busiek, Loeb, Waid), but this extreme is bad as well.

It's like when someone keeps bashing the person they're dating but never breaks up with them.

[Jason Seaver]

I'm in. This sounds like seventeen kinds of crazy, and like Ellis will be throwing ideas around in bulk.

[chap22]

well, i love immonen. and i'm excited by the idea of running it in 2-issue arcs (wow, that's anti-Marvel). but the character thumbnails already sounds like Ellis has no idea who these people are and is just morphing them into his usual pack of a-holes.

seriously: Boom-Boom's a skanky ho?
Machine Man's a robot elitist drunk? (if you're going for the drunk 'bot angle, how 'bout the Rigellian Recorder? Hercules got him loaded on high-weight oil IIRC...and he was funny too)
Monica as a throw-it-in-your-face "I was Avengers leader" bitch?

sorry, Ellis, that's not who these characters are, and you're already fighting an uphill battle with this reader (even with those 2 huge positives i mentioned at the top).

[chap22]

Originally posted by Johnny Triangles
Tongue-in-cheek or not, why does Ellis (and Azzarello and Ennis) always have to drip contempt for superheroes in every interview? I get annoyed with the annoyingly gushing reverent fanboy extreme in creators too (Busiek, Loeb, Waid), but this extreme is bad as well.

It's like when someone keeps bashing the person they're dating but never breaks up with them.

another of the few times we agree wholeheartedly, JT...

[csGuy]

Buckley cried because it wasn't New Wolverines, a team composed entirely of Wolverine, Wolverine, and...Wolverine!

A license to print money, I tell yas.

[SuperStories]

This for some reason does not sound like a Marvel Comic. Not sure why but it sounds more like a Wildstorm or perhaps a DC comic book.

[jmarshall]

HATE? SILENT? Col. Anger? Yuck.

[SerbsInSpace]

Kinda reminds me of Skrull kill krew. Ellis will deliver an entertaining comic, I just think that adding another more popular hero to the lineup would help the book

[The Champion]

“The team is nominally lead by Monica Rambeau, who was previously, Captain Marvel, Photon, and possibly Pulsar or ‘That Tall Black Woman With The Bad Hair Who Gets Wheeled Out From Time To Time’,” Ellis stated.

(sigh) Monica never had bad hair. She had an afro then she had braids. You've heard of those, Ellis? They were/are very common African-American hairstyles. Some people shouldn't talk about stuff they don't know anything about.

Originally posted by SuperStories
This for some reason does not sound like a Marvel Comic. Not sure why but it sounds more like a Wildstorm or perhaps a DC comic book.

And that's a "bad" thing?

[Johnny Triangles]

Originally posted by chap22

seriously: Boom-Boom's a skanky ho?
Machine Man's a robot elitist drunk? (if you're going for the drunk 'bot angle, how 'bout the Rigellian Recorder? Hercules got him loaded on high-weight oil IIRC...and he was funny too)
Monica as a throw-it-in-your-face "I was Avengers leader" bitch?

Exactly, he's already decided the personalities he wants to use and just grafted them onto some existing Marvel characters no one was using. Monica seems to have been turned into Jenny Sparks, except he made her lamer because (a) she's a superhero that had the gall not to be created by Ellis (Elli-s-created superheroes are the only respectable ones, apparently) and (b) she's not British.

[Johnny Triangles]

Originally posted by The Champion
(sigh) Monica never had bad hair. She had an afro then she had braids. You've heard of those, Ellis? They were/are very common African-American hairstyles. Some people shouldn't talk about stuff they don't know anything about.



And that's a "bad" thing?

No, I agree with him here. She had a Jheri curl 4 years too late. Bad hair.

[Grendel Prime]

I'd like to petition for an appearance by the Skull Kill Crew.