Nemesis The Warlock: Enter Candida de Torquemada & Rex Run
Candida is a valid girl’s name and means white or purity and that may be the reason Kevin chose the name. But it is of course popularly known as a common yeast infection.
I’m blown away by Nemesis the Warlock: the Definitive Edition. My compliments to the publishers, Rebellion, and especially their designer Gemma Sheldrake for the truly inspired front and back covers.
Such a Definitive Edition requires a Definitive Commentary, a companion piece for when you’re looking at the beautiful art by art-creator Kevin O’Neill and the other talented artists that followed him. So it’s time for The Secret History of Nemesis the Warlock, an episode by episode revelation of what really went on behind the scenes.
Episodes 5 & 6 - Enter Candida de Torquemada
Bryan’s depiction of Candida is superb and her angry scenes are one of the high points of this book. She is a very modern comic book character and the summary of her relationship with Torquemada, from innocent young bride to vengeful mother, is beautifully realised by Bryan. And it does, of course, parallel the story of the Windsors.
Why anyone with a modicum of self-awareness should be a monarchist is completely beyond me. I have been a card carrying member of Republic for the past fifteen years. I guess that – fostered by the media – people get a vicarious thrill out of identifying with the pageantry and glamour of hereditary rulers, falsely believing there is a magic and mystique about them, despite the scandals and injustices that are invariably associated with the Royals. And so it is for the Torquemadas. The Termites of Mighty Terra really believe in the magic of Tomas, and who can blame them, given how often he has returned from the dead?
Candida is a valid girl’s name and means white or purity and that may be the reason Kevin chose the name for Torquemada’s wife. But it is, of course, popularly known as a common yeast infection and I suspect that Kevin actually knew this at the time. It’s not something he would have necessarily shared with me as he liked to add sly and amusing touches of his own. I didn’t realise the other meaning of Candida until some years later and, if I’m correct, it’s an excellent satirical name for her.
Episodes 7 & 8 – The Rex Run
Nemesis and Torquemada are united in a unholy alliance to find Thoth while a giant fire breathing Satanus rampages through the tubes of Termight. I especially enjoyed the exchange between father and son.
Thoth: I’m going to blow up the World, Daddy.
Torquemada: Is this thing capable?
Nemesis. Easily. Sounds like a good idea, son. I’ll give you a hand.
But Satanus really steals the show in these two episodes. He should really be an ongoing monster in 2000AD, like Godzilla. It’s a great name and he’s a great character, although not one I care to share with other writers who should really think up their own monsters. Hence why I wrote the Blood of Satanus, illustrated by Ron Smith and Blood of Satanus, illustrated by Duke Mighten. Both are impressive depictions of Satanus.
T. Rexes endlessly fascinate me, especially with new research which shows they could outrun a professional athlete. Living in Spain, our village – like many Spanish towns and villages – still has an annual Bull Run. So I found myself thinking about a Rex Run.
I don’t attend the Bull Run for obvious reasons, just as I’ve had the opportunity but have never gone to a bull fight. Hemingway’s example doesn’t inspire me. In fact, during the Running of the Bulls, some foreign residents prefer to leave the village for a couple of days, not least because it can be a gruesome and upsetting business. There is blood on the streets either from the bull’s victims or from the creature’s hooves running on the concrete.
If you’re unfamiliar with Bull Runs, local men and women run through the streets in front of rampaging, frightened and understandably angry bulls. Our house is very close to where the Bull Run takes place, and there are safety barriers to stop them turning down our side street and paying us a visit. Some forty years ago there were no safety barriers and a bull ran amok, burst into someone’s house and killed the occupant. Every year there are still serious injuries and two or three years ago a man died after being gored in our village. The day before the Bull Run, delighted kids are pursued by a toy Bull on wheels, ensuring the next generation carries on the tradition.
The Bull Run in our village is a little different to some runs. It’s called ‘The Bull of the Rope’. It takes place at Easter, on Resurrection Sunday, and a very, very long rope is attached to a single bull. The locals have to grasp hold of the rope and run behind, in front, or alongside the bull. It can get quite chaotic, particularly in the main square, where there is more freedom of movement.
I thought of Satanus in The Cursed Earth before Judge Dredd came to the town of Repentance. I imagined that the locals would hold a Rex Run. Years after Dredd has razed the town to the ground, an old man tells his grandson about Satanus and the day he was in the Rex Run.
Grandson: I thought Satanus was just a legend, Grandpa.
Grandfather: Oh, no, son. Satanus was real, all right. Course he didn’t know he was called Satanus. If he answered to any name, it would have been the word humans used most when they saw him: ‘Shiiiittt!’ ‘Noooo!’ or ‘Heeelp!’
The Grandfather describes how other Rexes were driven through the streets of Repentance, with the locals running in front or behind them, hanging onto a metal rope secured to the animal’s neck, just avoiding their snapping jaws.
While other locals behind the safety barriers would torment the Rexes with goads. After completing the run, the Rexes were killed with energy bolts to their heads, fired from some strange and ancient gun salvaged from the nuclear war.
Then it was the turn of Satanus.
He too has a metal rope around his neck, and trailing behind him. He is faster than the other Rexes, and easily bit the head off one laughing local running in front of him, trampled on a second local and then paused to eat him because he liked to mash his food. Then he was off after a third local who leapt over a high safety barrier to escape. But Satanus just smashed down the barrier and tore off his legs.
Meanwhile, other locals are hanging onto the rope behind him, slipping and sliding in the blood on the road from previous rex runners.
Satanus has reached the end of the run and the locals fire the ancient energy weapon to kill him. But the gun misses. Instead, the energy bolt hits the metal rope and fuses the locals’ hands to it so they can’t get away! The man who fires the gun doesn’t get a second chance. Satanus kills him.
Satanus climbs up onto the top of the church with six screaming locals stuck to the rope, begging relatives to cut their hands off, but it’s too late. They are unable to escape. There Satanus can leisurely eat them, one by one, just as he ate the chain gang in the Cursed Earth.
Impressed by his savagery, this was how the people of Repentance came to first worship the devil beast.
The grandfather completes the story and we see he is in a wheelchair. He was the local who lost his legs to Satanus.
Directly after the Bull Run, I was really buzzing with this idea. I thought about sending the story to 2000AD, but the days when I could dream up an idea, send it in, the editor would ‘get it’, and commission a suitable artist, are long gone. These days nothing is that simple anymore and it just didn’t seem worth the hassle.
So I thought I’d share it with you instead.
Cheers Pat. Many thanks for the Rex Run idea. If I can paraphrase a lament I once heard made by Russell T Davies: "Oh bugger! All the stories that never got made..."
Awesome, I love this idea!