Everything and the kitchen sink and yet it all makes a beautiful sort of sense.
Creative Staff:
Writer/Artist: John Byrne
What They Say:
It ain’t over till it’s over. Project Next Men has been undone, the Past has been rewritten, but it’s never easy to reshape the Fourth Dimension. As Jasmine is about to discover. She was afraid to go with Nathan and Bethany back to the 1950s-by the end of this issue, she may regret that decision!
The Review:
After reading the series as it relaunched the previous year while at the same time reading the large black and white omnibus editions from a few years earlier, I was very, very big on how Next Men progressed. I had a hard time at first with the relaunched series after so many years away and its lack of continuity to explain events, but upon rereading the older work and seeing it all tie together, I was increasingly excited to see how it would play out. Though I was saddened that things came to an end, in a big but quiet way, it was cushioned by the fact that John Bryne was coming back for more with this series entitled Aftermath, picking up where things left off and exploring more with these fascinating characters and the convoluted but thoroughly engaging world that they inhabited. While it’s easy to tire of some characters after many years, there are others that you don’t want to let go of as you want to see what happens next.
Similar to the restart before, this issue is filled with, well, everything. It’s certainly confusing in its own way and its mirrored through the lead in Jasmine here as she finds herself in a strange world of ruins being chased by some sort of furry dinosaur. It becomes even stranger when she first comes across a primitive man that seems to want to protect her and even more strange when a man with a Texas accent in a space suit shows up. Though his suit and gun are just props as he claims to have suddenly appeared in this place from 1958, which is certainly different from her late 20th century time period and the ancient hominid’s time original time, never mind the creatures. It becomes even more bizarre when the trio comes across a spaceship from the future with humans in it, as well as an alien that they brought back as an ambassador. Add in a small group of Roman soldiers that are dealing with the dinosaurs and the time traveling group that we saw before like the twisted Bethany from the previous series watching from the distance. Everyone is confused but there’s a smattering of potential here when Jasmine realizes the skies don’t change and it all has a “comic book” coloring to it.
The issue throws a lot at us as it ties in curious ways to what we see before, first with Jazz’s understanding and the things that the black clad group comes up with, but it’s also interesting to watch the group of survivors in general come around each other. With the future men able to speak a bit of Latin and plenty of English, they’re able to bind the group together for survival for the time being while giving us a look at the alien world they returned from and the strange alien that came back with them. The dinner scene has a strange feeling from the first two Alien movies as well, making you wonder what will come next, but it’s mirrored with some very personal moments from Jazz as she takes stock of everything. It’s a surreal situation and they all know it but they still offer up information about each other and try to puzzle things out. They deal with the survival side well, fighting back against the dinosaurs, but there’s no infighting within the group that you’d normally get as well.
Release Notes:
This comiXology edition of Next Men comes with the main cover as released with the print edition and no other extras.
In Summary:
With the standard run of pages here, I am once again amazed and loving the way John Byrne accomplishes so much. Frankly, few comics in the last decade feel as well paced, engaging and exciting as this work does. It’s not stretched out or drawn into pointless dialogue but it doesn’t feel rushed even as so much happens. Within this book you get so much going on and nods towards other events that will intersect and ties to past events that your head can spin from it all. But it treats you like a proper audience, not pandering, giving action that fits the story, character motivations and quirks that are honest and a look at the struggle that they face. It’s wordy without being a drag and the visuals are fantastic with a great sense of motion and carry through. Fans of what has come before may find that the end of the previous run gave us closure, but what Byrne is offering here is hugely tantalizing and shows a man that continues to be at the top of his game.
Grade: A-
Readers Rating: [ratings]
