>THE ABC WARRIORS HAVE FAILED!
While Nemesis the Warlock pursued his son across space and time to fifteenth century Spain and a confrontation with Tomás de Torquemada, Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition and former incarnation of his archenemy, Torquemada of Termite, the ABC Warriors quested deeper into the labyrinth of time tunnels at the heart of Terra. There, they hoped to find and repair the damage to the legendary Black Hole Bypass, a system of captive black holes that made interstellar travel possible for the humans of the Termite Empire, caused by Nemesis’ son. If they failed, the captive black holes at the heart of the labyrinth would collide and the resulting calamity would scour life from planets across the galaxy.
Eight robots are all that stand to fight for the galaxy: the long-suffering warrior Hammerstein; the devious infiltrator Blackblood; the moronic Mek-Quake; the bestial paratrooper Mongrol; the cool sniper Joe Pineapples; the malevolent sorcerer Deadlock; the human former slave Terri; and the repulsive everyman Ro-Jaws. But they are dogged by enemies at every turn: Mekaniks, the brutal guardians of the Bypass complex; time displaced soldiers of an earlier empire, led by the piggish Major Savard; and the Monad, a fell creature composed of the tortured souls of humans from the end of time fused together to form a primal evil. Worse still, it seems that there may be a traitor among the warriors...
ABC Warriors: The Black Hole (Part One) – starts here >>44393355
The Black Holes tie into the other long running 2000AD series Nemesis the Warlock. There are links to the earlier Nemesis books in the old thread
Sorry that I couldn't do this yesterday like I planned.
Note on OP pic:
Lemmy was not only a fan of 2000AD, but before he was in Motorhead he was in a 1970s progressive psychedelic space rock band named Hawkwind. Hawkwind’s inspirations included Michael Moorcock (who was actually in the band at one point!), whose Elric books basically invented the eternal conflict between Chaos and Order and the Eight Pointed Star as the symbol of Chaos. Nemesis had its roots in the pop rock and punk of late 70s early 80s, and drew on a lot of Moorcockian symbolism as it developed.
It all comes back to 2000AD
Backstory and worldbuilding.
Just to make this bit a little clearer, while this story started in the era of Nemesis the Warlock and Torquemada's empire, the warriors have travelled back in time to an era long before Torquemada's rise in order to fix the thing. This page shows us what Terra looked like before their society collapsed to what we see in the first few books of Nemesis, where even looking outside your window at can drive you insane.
Anti-nuclear protests by groups like the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) were a lot more common in the 1980s. The arguments on this page would be very familiar to a contemporary reader.
Pat Mills has many fine qualities, but subtlety is not always one of them.
Revelation 9:11
>They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).
Sorry, meant to post the full text. You can clearly see how the artist used the chapter of Revelations as a guide.
>9 The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. 2 When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. 3 And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. 4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 They were not allowed to kill them but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes. 6 During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
>7 The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. 8 Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. 9 They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. 10 They had tails with stingers, like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months. 11 They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek is Apollyon (that is, Destroyer).
Blackblood got his name from his habit of drinking the oil of fallen enemies, something considered a distasteful perversion at best by other robots
>>44464207
I thought 'Abaddon' meant 'failure'. Maybe that's in arabic.
Bugger, accidentally ate my post. Short version: this isn't just neopagan weirdness, its also a link to Mills other comic Slaine (which is, to be fair, filled with neopagan weirdness). Danu is the earth goddess from Slaine, is depicted much like this. Its one of the less obvious ways Mills tried to tie all his stories together.
Also the origin of the Termite Tau symbol.
>>44464430
It might be, I don't know enough about the languages to comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxYQo43dw00
Simon Bisley returns for the art of the final part of the story.
gurps-vs-freeform-rp.jpg
>The drill counts as a power weapon, right?
>Ah... yes.
>I duel with his leg.
>You know I'm still alive and fighting Joe, right?
>Yep!
If anyone is still reading along could they occasionally bump the thread from time to time?
Joe PIneapples was originally built as an assassin and worked as an X-Terminator (although he was fired for an unspecified incident involving an officer's wife). Centuries (potentially millennia) later he became an undercover policeman on the free robot world of Mekka, where Nemesis recruited him for his latest adventure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMCl9eOBlsY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptA39Awo0FE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WftIhN5GxGk
Gasp! Will Hammerstein reach Terri in time?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itAOGRiYRLI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJxCdh1Ps48
>>44465268
I'm following along.
>>44465551
Thank you.
Revelation 6:15
>The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. 15Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains
The memories are mostly references to the original ABC Warrior stories.
You're a dick, Blackblood.
If you look carefully Joe is reading another Mills comic, Marshal Law, about a violent superhero hunter.
>>>/co/78414968
The End
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1aec2i42w3xp7/Book_04_-_The_Black_Hole
The Warriors would return some years later in 1991's Khronicles of Khaos. Nemesis the Warlock, meanwhile had already finished one more book while The Black Hole concluded and would shortly begin a new one. I'm hoping to be able to get both of those done later tonight.
>>44465807
Thanks OP. Loved every single work of Pat Mill's so far.
>>44464755
Ow.
>>44464819
>Dio
HOLY DIVER
>>44464961
topkek
>>44465430
They wouldn't have been allowed to publish that in America.
>>44465469
>first panel
Blackblood, my sides. You've stabbed me in my sides!
>>44465600
>3rd panel
Is that a japanese war robot?
Awesome!
>>44467504
I don't think so, but there was one called Hitaki in earlier storiesuntil Mek-Quake fixed himwho was programmed by a Japanese secret society to believe he was a Samurai. In context its very likely a Volgan (not-Russian) warbot, from WW3 / 2082-84, although later comics would change their appearances quite a bit.
The Volgan war is something Mills keeps coming back toand to be honest, he should give it a rest for a bit. It actually started in 2000AD Prog #1, with a story called INVASION! about, and you'll never believe this, the invasion of Britain and the heroic resistance of hard man Bill Savage. The original script had it that it was a Russian invasion,it being the late 70s and at the height of the cold war. Changes were made at the last minute (using tip-ex, I think) so that it was the fictional, totally-not-Russian Volgs who smashed their way in, murdered the queen and prime ministers and established a Vichy style collaborator government while oppressing the natives. Invasion was surprisingly hardcore for a kid comic war story, but it got rebooted for a somewhat more modern audience in 2011's "Savage". Well worth reading, its near-future, gritty action.
>>44465932
You may find this site useful if you want further reading. Its the English counterpart of a French wiki that's attempting to catalogue his entire bibliography.
http://www.thearchdeviant.org/
They're not all great. His 90s work got the mix of preachyness / absurdity wrong a lot of the time, to the point where some of his 90s Slaine reads more like a pagan Satanist Chick Tract. Its not helped by the art, which for much of the 90s was all over the place - there were problems with the publishers, with the editors, and there was a policy in place to use every bit of submitted art no matter how crap. Yes, really.
In case anyone was interested, this is the first book of Savage
http://www.mediafire.com/download/34t4qqqf48h8liw/2000AD_%231387-1396_Savage_-_Taking_Liberties_%28Book_1%29.cbr
You'll be happy to know >>44465932 that it's Pat Mills again.
Not forgotten about Purity's Story, by the way, just busy with something else right now.
NEMESIS THE WARLOCK: BOOK EIGHT - PURITY'S STORY
When we last saw Nemesis at the conclusion of the last book >>44415717, he and companion Purity had just escaped the fifteenth century following their latest confrontation with Torquemada. Thoth, son of Nemesis,was dead, slain by Torquemada with what can only be described as the primordial chainsword. The two rivals chased each other through the time tubes, each trying to murder the other one with their vehicles, until a massive time wave (caused, we now know, by the ABC Warrior's antics) explodes behind them.
Who will survive, and what will be left of them?
It's getting very late here (or possibly very early, depending on your point of view), so I may have to pause in the middle of this one to get some shuteye. It's relatively short so it hopefully won't come to that, but I thought it best to give anyone still reading a heads up.
Stalscrapers are the stalactite-like housing complexes making up large parts of Termite's subterranean cities.
Nice use of the german expressionist, Nosferatu style shadows here.
Anyone about?
Oh my, what a fetching outfit.
When did 40k first get chain-axes? I mean, its a natural extension of the chainswords that have already been shown, but still.
The next chapter is quite important for breaking down Nemesis' character and motivations.
Credo!
http://www.mediafire.com/download/546yqq9118n42up/2000AD_-_Nemesis_The_Warlock_Book_VIII_-_Purity%27s_Story.cbr
There's only two books (and a couple of very short side stories to fill the decade long gap between them) left of Nemesis now. May even be able to do them all tomorrow. The next one is a bit weird because its not set in the distant past or future but in the present and sees a return to John Hicklenton's art.
>>44475528
Man, fuck Nemesis.
>>44475950
Yep. That's kind of the point, emphasising that both him and Torquemada are monsters but for different reasons. Not sure I buy it completely given that as an audience we've been privy to Nemesis internal monologues in the early issues and he certainly seemed more of a straight antihero. You could see it as him becoming more distant and embracing evil in response to his son's death (twice really - first time when he found out about Magna, and the second time for real when Torquemada kills him). Maybe he's planting memories in Purity's head to prove a point.
Or something. Maybe its Pat Mills going maximum edge. Would certainly fit Deadlock et als characterisation in Black Hole. I don't know, I'm way too late for me thinking about this.
>>44476118
He never felt like a total edge lord earlier. Didn't even Deadlock say he was more orderly kind of khaos?
Well, good to read some of the later volumes, I've ever only read up to the bit with the future Earth goo. Local library didn't have any other volumes.
>>44463971
Is that Lemmy?
>>44476509
Yes, he loves 2000AD, and so should you.
>>44478667
I grew up on them. I read every single volume I could find in the local library as a kid and been buying albums later in life.
Thanks, Shakaranon.
>>44476509
Certainly is. I meant to title this thread "Lemmy Tribute edition" because of the sad news, but I messed it up.
>>44481711
>Let's hope we both make it to 30..
Apparently Run DMC were Dredd fans too. That I didn't know.
I've done a bit of digging and found some more of the short stories that appeared in between the longer books. I'm still missing a quite important one called ‘Bride Of The Warlock’ (by Pat Mills, artist Chris Weston and coloured by Annie Parkhouse) which I think appeared in the 1992 Winter Special, so if anyone has a link to that I'd be very grateful.
This is "A Bedtime Story" and it was published just before The Two Torquemadas >>44412988. What makes it a bit unusual is that its a photo-story rather than drawn art. Photo stories aren't that common, but there were several in other comics and newspapers at the time (and I'm pretty sure there's one or two being published even now). The most well-known today, relatively speaking, is probably Eagle Comic's DOOMLORD by Dredd scribes Alan Grant and John Wagner.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomlord
Happy new year to
Sydney–Melbourne Conurb and Hondo City readers.
Don't know why that got cut off.
With Candida's sudden return to sanity, a holiday was in order. Torquemada's Second Honeymoon was published a month later in the 1988 2000 AD Annual
PC_Plans.gif
Finally, back the the present. Quite literally, in fact.
I'm pretty sure this special comes after Purity's Story but before Book Nine, but its a bit tricky to place exactly.
That last two panels are a lot more ironic in context if that's the case.
Oh 2000AD, you so silly.
This story is of course followed by a faintly disturbing satirical critique of late 80s politics and society featuring Torquemada in his most evil incarnation yet:a landlord
Nearly forgot, there's also this poster. Its a model of Nemesis made by Tony Luke for a 12 minute animation pilot for a stop-motion Nemesis series.
http://downthetubes.net/?p=14877
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lg1bAV-f0A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqitGOJo8Jc
Unfortunately the models have disintergrated over the nearly thirty years its been since the film was made. Still, its an interesting glimpse into what might have been.
