Nemesis The Warlock: Humans are one big joke, The Mistress and The Mimesis

‘It was the way Torquemada liked his aliens to be – utterly evil.'

I’m blown away by Nemesis the Warlock: the Definitive Edition, Vols 1 and 2. My compliments to the publishers, Rebellion, and especially their designer Gemma Sheldrake for the truly inspired front and back covers.

Volume 2 is now on sale from the 2000AD store.

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.

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Episode 3: Humans are one big joke

Given my own background, as you might imagine, I was no fan of Nemesis and the way he exploits Purity in this episode. But it’s entirely consistent with the warlock’s character. I think that today, we expect our protagonists to be more moral which can mean they end up being black and white cut-outs. But it didn’t used to be that way. Thus I recently watched the brilliant Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, starring the late Maggie Smith, where she plays a very dubious character who is pro-fascist, and is happy to send one of her girls to her death in fascist Spain and pimp another one out to a sex-crazed Catholic art teacher.