Preview: ‘Nemesis The Warlock The Definite Edition Volume 1’ — Masterpieces Don’t Get Bigger Or Better

by Richard Bruton

If there’s one series in the history of 2000 AD that deserves a definitive, over-sized, premium reproduction edition… it’s Nemesis the Warlock. And, just in time for Christmas, here it is…

Out on 7th December 2023, this is the first of five new collected editions that collects the entire saga of a Warlock and his human nemesis, all written by Pat Mills and with art from an incredible list of artists – Jesus Redondo, Bryan Talbot, John Hicklenton, and David Roach. But there’s no artist more associated with the deviance and the wonder of Nemesis than the series co-creator, Kevin O’Neill.

And it’s O’Neill’s artwork that’s the draw here, as it’s always been the draw for the numerous versions of Nemesis I’ve owned over the years. Do I need this? Nope, I’ve got them already in multiple hardbacks and softbacks. Will I get it? … well, it is Christmas and I’ve been good all year.

Here’s the 2000 AD PR for you to get an idea what you’ll be diving into…

“Termight is the ruling planet of a cruel galactic empire, an empire led by the diabolically evil Torquemada, a twisted human despot intent on purging all alien life from the galaxy and punishing the deviants. His motto: Be pure! Be vigilant! Behave

But there is rebellion and resistance to his rule in the form of a devilish-looking alien warlock called Nemesis, who represents everything that Torquemada hates and fears. Together Nemesis and Torquemada are locked in a duel which will affect the fate of humanity and each of them on a personal level as their conflict spans time and space!”

The story of Nemesis The Warlock is a simple one, of a freedom-fighter battling against the cruel and repressive alien galactic empire. But that simple tale’s been told way too many times with the humans fighting the aliens. So, Mills flipped it to make it different – now it’s the story of an alien freedom-fighter who must lead a galaxy-spanning resistance effort against the human’s galactic empire – ruled by the fiendishly evil Torquemada. Just that would have made it different amongst the 2000 AD strips of alien invasions and the like.

But then there was O’Neill’s artwork which still, so many years on, looks like nothing else on Earth. To say O’Neill was a genius is too simple. Sure, he was, but his work on Nemesis was so absolutely different to anything else, so innovative, so groundbreaking, so simply amazing to see, and so absolutely nasty and vile. Years later, as DC refused to publish his art under the Comics Code just because of the general look and tone of it, they pretty much encapsulated everything that made it worth looking at in Nemesis. It still feels wonderfully grimy and different. Later in the series, I’ll be saying much the same about Hicklenton’s work, but O’Neill got there first.

It’s now 43 years since we first saw Nemesis, yet it’s still incredibly fresh today; spectacular in its otherworldly, alien nature.

This new series of five volumes comes either as a paperback collection or a rather exquisitely designed hardcover collection – the hardcovers are only available only from the 2000 AD webshop. Recently, 2000 AD announced that they’d decided to increase the size of book paperbacks and hardcovers too. Both paperback and hardcovers editions of the five-volume series will now be published in a large-format size measuring 307 x 231mm (as opposed to 276 × 210mm).

The Nemesis the Warlock: The Definitive Edition will be reprinting and collecting the entire Nemesis saga in order. That means this first volume includes the very earliest of tales, including the proto-Nemesis tales ‘Terror Tube‘ and Killer Watt from 1980, and first Nemesis proper, ‘The Sword Sinister‘ from the 1981 Sci-Fi Special. After that, we dive straight into Book 1, ‘The World of Termight‘. All of those have that magnificent O’Neill artwork.

Then we’re straight into Book 2, ‘The Alien Alliance’, with art by Jesus Redondo, which is still great artwork but it suffers greatly simply by not being by O’Neill. However, we end with two greats, both with O’Neill art – ‘The Secret Life of the Blitzspear’ from 2000 AD Annual 1983 and ‘A Day in the Death of Torquemada’ from 2000 AD Annual 1984.

Nemesis the Warlock: The Definitive Edition comes out in softback and hardcover on 7th December. I’ll be getting it (again) and so will you. And if you’re new to it… well, prepare to be amazed.

Now, plenty of preview material for you…

We’ll start off with the very first appearance of Nemesis… sort of, from Terror Tube in 2000 AD Prog 167 (1980). As it says, it was suggested by The Jam’s Going Underground, one of two Comic Rock stories Mills and O’Neill would do before realising that Nemesis was a much better idea. In Terror Tube, we get to meet Torqumada but don’t yet see Nemesis, who stays in the Blitzspear all the way through.