Story Pile: NEXTWAVE!
In case you were wondering, yeah this article was written before Warren Ellis was known for being a creepy sex pest.
April has been a difficult month to write for, not the least of which because, uh, global pandemic, but also because one of the details about April is it’s a time to write about things I want to write about, the subjects I’ve saved to talk about because they’re personal.
For the non-Pile articles, this has been decidedly easy, with lots of indulgent sniping at other people’s misinformed or inadequately excellent opinions, but for the media piles it has proven difficult because I feel I’ve already addressed some of my favourites and most culturally important experiences and at least right now, in this time of malaise, I find it hard to remember things I consider deep and personal favourites, favourites about which I can say fun or interesting things.
I’ve written about the Quest for Glory games, I’ve written about the Baldur’s Gate games, Doom and Baccano and other games that feel somewhat iconic to myself, and I find myself wondering what more I can even say, what has been worth holding up. John Wick? Tons of people have talked about how great that movie is, what more am I going to bring to bear on the conversation except as someone who has been in some creepily controlled situations with violence as the only out? Nothing useful. Nothing relatable.
Instead, then, I’m going to take an easy route. I’m going to talk about a comic book I love. I’m going to talk about Nextwave, a 2006-2007 limited run comic book that was written to live outside the main continuity of Marvel comics… and we’re going to start with a content warning.
Continue Reading →