Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comicsgate, indiegogo, kickstarter, mike baron, richard meyer

Mike Baron Writes a New Nexus Comic With Richard Meyer, and a Novel

Published Sat, 16 May 2020 13:00:13 -0500

Richard Meyer has added a new name to his latest Jawbreakers graphic novel, Mike Baron. Together with Iartist Aaron Alfeche, they will be revival the eighties hit indie character Nexus as a back-up strip. The addition of this strip is a $100,000 stretch goal, and will be triggered as and when the IndieGoGo fund reached that far. It is currently sitting just shy, at $92,305 at time of writing.

After earlier attempts to publish comics, Meyer became a controversial figure in the comics industry, initially rising to prominence in a successful bid to get Hasbro to fire the writer of GI Joe comics at IDW. He then began a YouTube channel with the aim of pointing out what he saw as overly-liberal or diverse plotlines in Marvel and DC comic books, including obscene attacks against a number of creators, before mobilising that audience to fund his publishing attempts with the Jawbreakers graphic novel on Kickstarter as part of #comicsgate. After Antarctic Press changes their minds not to publish the graphic novel on the basis of some of the more objectionable things he has said, he launched a still-ongoing lawsuit against writer Mark Waid, charging him with tortuous interference and defamation regarding the publication decision. He self-published the graphic novel, and followed up with a number of other projects through IndieGoGo, including an Expendables graphic novel with Chuck Dixon and Sylvester Stallone. Bleeding Cool confirmed he was forming a new publisher with Dixon, called Destination Comics, but there has been no further sign of that.

His new Jawbreakers graphic novel, subtitled The Grand Bizarre states that it features 'The Origin Of The Team On And UNDER The Battlefields Of Afghanistan.' With a Nexus back-up strip looking more and more likely,it might also be good promotion for Baron's own Nexus novel, being crowdfunded on Kickstarter.

Nexus, the Cosmic Avenger, faces Gourmando, a vast, alien entity that consumes civilizations. Its herald Gnosis swoops the cosmos on a silver board seeding worlds to make them edible. While Gourmando threatens Nexus' home planet Ylum, Nexus is on Earth executing mass murderers. This is his job. Torn between his duties and the survival of his planet, Nexus must reach deep within himself to save Ylum. The novel is loosely based on a storyline I worked out with Steve Rude, which will be published next year by Dark Horse. The novel is different from the graphic novel, and covers Ylum and its colorful cast of characters in much greater depth. Years ago, Rude asked me what Nexus story I would most like to pursue. Nexus versus Galactus, I said. Marvel owns Galactus, so we created our own planet-devouring monster.

For those with shorter memories than some of use, Nexus is a sci-fi superhero comic created by Baron and Steve Rude in 1981, set in the 25th century. Its first series was published by Capital Comics, before an ongoing series began, later picked up by First Comics, for eighty issues. It was then followed by a number of mini-series and crossover events over the years. A recently planned revival with new material at Dark Horse Comics, who have been republishing the series in Omnibus form, was planned for February but was delayed until the end of the year. But first a novel.

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