The British anthology 2000AD started life forty years ago this year in February 1977. Its earliest stories were spins on traditional favourites of the genre: war stories, exotic adventures in faraway places, sport strips, and the classic science fiction hero Dan Dare. But even at that point it had a streak of midnight black humour and social satire running through it, as shown most clearly by the comic’s most celebrated star, the man with the iron chin, Judge Dredd.
The début of Nemesis the Warlock in 1980 brought with it a lot more weirdness.
Starting in Prog 167, this demented sword and sorcery sci-fi story of a harpoon headed alien’s war against a xenocidal religious maniac owed more to continental comics like Métal hurlant (which itself appeared only a few years earlier in 1974) than traditional British ones. Set in a nightmarish future where the promise of technology has given way to stagnation and superstition, the cruel humans of the Terran Empire are the masters of vast galactic empire made possible by an ancient piece and mysterious device built into a former Emperor’s tomb. With it, they may guide their ships far from the mighty hive cities of Terra to anywhere in the galaxy in order to purge it of alien life. Even death cannot stop their leader, the tyrannical Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada.
Only one creature can hope to stop Torquemada: the alien Khaos Sorcerer NEMESIS THE WARLOCK!
If you are even a tiny bit familiar with Warhammer 40,000 quite a lot of that description will seem really familiar. Many of the details of 40k’s Imperium in particular and the setting in general can be traced back to Nemesis, and the stories and characters featured in the comic can in turn be fed into games set in Games Workshop’s Dark Future very easily. The author of Nemesis, Pat Mills, has even done so himself – his character Klovis the Redeemer is essentially Torquemada with a slightly different hat.
Technically, Nemesis didn’t start as its own series. Comic Rock was proposed as an ongoing series of stories based (loosely) on pop songs, in much the same vein as the already established Future Shocks or Tharg’s Terror Tales.Nemesis proved so absurdly popular so quickly that the idea was dropped.
If you’ve just found this thread, you can read some other zarjaz 2000AD stories here Dreams of Deadworld and The Fall of Deadworld: >> 54051703 Sinister Dexter:
The bearded man on this page is Kenny Everett is intended to be, a radio DJ, comedian and TV personality who very popular in the UK at the time this was written. youtube.com/watch?v=VImPLTpOnkY
Easton Bell
James Cameron's film The Terminator came out in 1984. 40k's first edition was released in 1987.
A Tumbril is a two wheeled cart usually pulled by a farm animal of some kind. It was infamously used during the French Revolution to transport the condemned to to the guillotine.
Jeremiah Smith
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Joshua Garcia
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Gabriel Morris
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Gabriel Wright
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Luis Moore
>shakaranon dumping nemesis
today is a good day
Charles Nguyen
As far as I know the music the next Comic Rock episode, Killer Watts, was allegedly based on, or what it had to do with this strip, has never been identified. The best guess is this compilation
The Gooney Birds are based on Concorde jets, supersonic passenger airliners which had entered service in 1976. A marvel of British and French engineering and design, Concorde was retired from service in 2003.
Andrew Hill
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Liam Green
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Gabriel Fisher
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Asher Morales
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Brayden Rivera
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Alexander Nguyen
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Logan Foster
A year later, as promised, a new full-length serial began, again with Kevin O'Neil on art duties.
NEMESIS THE WARLOCK: BOOK ONE - THE WORLD OF TERMITE
Angel Wilson
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Jaxson Roberts
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Julian Ward
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Thomas Roberts
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Jonathan Watson
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Blake Young
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Easton Perry
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Hudson Perry
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Mason Jackson
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Easton Cruz
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Evan Jenkins
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Blake Edwards
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Tyler Sanchez
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John Harris
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Justin Sanchez
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Elijah Myers
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Jayden Morales
As well as the obviously draconic and demonic features, the Warlock's characteristic grille mouth and sweeping head was based on motorcycle parts.
Bentley Butler
There's a cameo appearance by two other 2000AD stars in the background of one of these panels which eventually grew into a whole thing.
Luis Morris
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Leo Reyes
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Isaiah Brooks
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Nathan Jones
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Asher Nelson
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Camden White
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Bentley James
Notice how much Torquemada's spirit has begun to change since his first apperence.
Nicholas Mitchell
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Charles Stewart
Mr. PURE Voted least likely to deviate
Elijah Collins
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Elijah Martin
Our hero.
Nathaniel Jones
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Grayson Fisher
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Parker Garcia
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Jeremiah Collins
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Daniel Williams
Nemesis is easily my favourite 2000AD property. Doing God's work, shakaranon.
Jonathan Phillips
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Colton Brooks
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Daniel Harris
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Lincoln Morgan
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Jace Carter
Did you know that it made a special return for Prog #2000 back in September?
Wyatt Martin
Look at those borders, holy Tau.
Parker Carter
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Ethan King
I did not. That's good to know, I'll have to hunt it down.
I'm out for the next few hours but I'll be back later to do the second book. I'll also try and find an amusing anecdote by Kevin O'Neil that might as well be called "Nemesis the Warlock and the Dick Bridge Editorial".
>pictured: Writer Pat Mills and artist Kevin O'Neil c. late 70s.
Jaxon Davis
It's an interesting choice to wait so long to actually show the title character
Eli Young
pat mills don't give a shit about your blue balls
Robert Wood
>Torquemada, Chief of the Tube Police >Sacred traffic regs
The series was chasing this high for the rest of it's run. There are few awesome (and I mean it when I say it) moments in it, but it's mostly hur dur evil religious racists in space, getting their butts kicked by much antihero, sword of such sinster, wow wow. Nothing bad in it- apart from feeling of wasted potential.
Still worth run, even if it's only for hilarious masness of Torquemada. Nice to see you going strong still, Sharkanon.
Blake Adams
Topic termination delayed.
Jacob Mitchell
Are you serious dude?
Levi Morales
I can see where he's coming from. The comic did make this huge dive into anti-Thatcherism that was quite common among British comic artists (and still is) and did lose itself during the later reincarnation arc.
Connor Lopez
I mean, I think that first two were hilaroius and imaginative, next few really good and latter... That whole time traveling buisness was rather meh, latter art direction did not work well for the comic as well.
I readily admitt that Uncle Baal, revelations about the end of humanity or the true motivations of Nemesis are great moments, some most awesome and imaginative from any comic I ever had in my hands. Brother Gogol, Torquearmada and so on were cool as well.
Still, most of the latter arcs is a bit of drag (the '80s UK one was the lowest point in the series IMHO and that comes from a man who honestly hates Maggie Thatcher), with Torquemada hopping in and out of the mortal world to calrify the political statement that was rather obvious from the start. Story would heavily benefit from streamlining.
Tyler Morgan
Be pure! Be viligant! Behave! Guard the thread with your own bump!
I gota go catch some sleep.
Logan Nguyen
Well done, thou good and faithful servant. We return with the origins of EXCESSUS, THE SWORD SINISTER!
Joshua Smith
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Jeremiah Turner
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Dylan Ward
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David Wright
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Landon Fisher
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Kevin Wood
BOOK TWO: THE ALIEN ALLIANCE
The art for this book was provided by a Spanish artist named Jesus Redondo rather than series co-creator Kevin O'Neill. He brings a more knightly, fantastical look to the proceedings in place of the deranged level of detail in the earlier stories.
