The Compleat Next Men Vol. 1

This is too brief to call a review, but I had a nice time reading this book last week. I'm so busy with work these days that it's hard to find a lot of time to read comics, much less review them. But I have started catching up a little on my huge stack of graphic novels of the past few years--the ones that have helped put me in debt. Anyway, so I picked this book from the pile last Sunday and just started reading, and didn't stop until the end. We're talking a few hundred pages here of tight storytelling, and I was totally engaged.

To back up a bit, I first started reading Next Men after a brief period of not reading comics, not the first nor the last. And my return to comics began with the thought, "Hmm, wonder what Byrne's been up to." This was my guy, you know? I'd been with him not from X-Men, which I found after the fact, but Fantastic Four, Alpha Flight, West Coast Avengers, Superman, etc. So I think when I started looking through the back issue bins I was surprised by this Next Men thing, that he was working for then-smallish publisher Dark Horse and that he was perhaps doing a mutant book totally his way. That wasn't exactly the case--Next Men isn't quite a mutant book--but it is a book that's unmistakably, uncompromisingly Byrne. In fact, this is some of the darker work Byrne has done, but as opposed to, say, Blood of the Demon, there's a real point to the dark tone and most of the shocks. That said, women don't fare too well in the book, but I can't really say it's misogynistic as much as just illustrating that those who gain power will always exploit those who don't have the power.

The book comprises the 2112 graphic novel that's sort of a sequel to the unfinished Next Men series, a standalone future story where the main bad guy of Next Men, Sathanas, finally gets his. Next Men would then be not so much about his defeat but how he becomes as powerful as he does. Mainly, though, it's about five young people living in a kind of virtual world, thrust out into the real world, where they display incredible superpowers. Byrne takes pains to present a more realistic side to these powers, such as the speedster, Danny, having huge thighs and burning his feet when he runs fast, and he mainly succeeds in making this a science fiction book rather than a superhero book, even though it's not long before the team goes up against some other superpowered folks. That's just as well, because the book works best when there's action and intrigue, and slows down when everyone is separated. One problem with these characters is that, having emerged from this idyllic, false existence, they don't have a lot to say to each other. It will be interesting to see the next volume* because as much as I liked it at the time, I don't really remember how Byrne left it. I don't think he ever plans to finish it unless IDW has convinced him otherwise.

*I was a little irritated to hear that IDW plans a color omnibus volume for the series, which means I should have waited for that and not bought this black-and-white newsprint edition.