Dark Horse Comics
John Byrne, writer and artist
***mature content warning***
John Byrne's Next Men initially saw print as four short vignettes in the pages of Dark Horse Presents in the early 1990s. The anthology title offered Byrne the chance to slowly introduce some of the players who would be key to his series, and the four pieces were collected together in a JBNM 0 issue for those who had missed the initial printings. Many readers expected a typical superhero story (if one can gauge by the letters printed in the first few issues of the title), but Byrne was telling a story that fit more comfortably into the science fiction realm. To be sure, JBNM makes use of many superhero themes; in fact, I would be willing to say that the series could not exist in this form without story-telling tools familiar to superhero fans. But to call JBNM a superhero comic is to ignore so much more of what is going on.
The first issue of JBNM came out in January 1992 and obviously had some readers scratching their heads as the action clearly starts "already in progress" and even an inside-front-cover "The story so far" synopsis leaves many questions unanswered. In a move of brilliance, Byrne and/or Dark Horse must have anticipated the confusion as the 0 issue was published the very next month.
The title characters in JBNM are five young people ranging in age from mid-teens to early-20s. Jasmine, Bethany, Nathan, Jack and Danny all live in an idyllic environment they call "the Greenery." Occasionally, newborns appear in the Greenery, so there are younger children present, but they aren't the focus of the story. There have also been older youths before these central five. At random times, older children in the Greenery might start to display special abilities. Not long after that happens, each in turn has "faded" from the Greenery to be replaced by a stone marker in a field. This is the only life these five young people have ever known until Jack unexpectedly "wakes up" to find himself and the others hooked into some kind of machinery in the "real" world.
Before we ever meet these five youths, readers are introduced to U.S. Sen. Aldus Hilltop, the financial backer behind the secretive Project Next Men. Hilltop and his lead scientists are trying to end the genetics project and destroy all evidence of its existence before they are discovered by federal investigators. We also meet one of those investigators, Tony (short for Antonia) Murcheson, who already knows some of Hilltop's secrets and is determined to expose his crimes. Murcheson finds the five awakened youths, and she tries to help them escape before Hilltop can have his research facility destroyed.
Along the way, Murcheson's charges discover they have some fantastic new mutations here in the real world. Danny can run at incredible speeds, but in the course of a day, his legs bulk up to look like those of a bodybuilder, not a 15-year-old like the rest of his body. Jack is incredibly strong, but finds he has lost the ability to control that strength; he can't touch anything without crushing it. Nathan can see long distances and wavelengths of light others cannot, but his eyes take on a hideous, large, blackened appearance. Bethany is invulnerable to any harm to the point that a single strand of her hair can slice through iron, but she has lost the sense of touch. Only Jasmine has no visible side effect to go along with her new acrobatic prowess. But despite being identified in the story as the oldest of the Next Men, she seems to be the most naive and child-like in her behavior. Maybe that's just my interpretation and not something Byrne intended, but otherwise, it seems odd that she would have no "curse" to go along with her "gifts."
Other characters figure prominently in the Next Men story as it progresses through these first issues. Willis Ducummen, or "Control," is the leader of the federal investigators trying to expose Hilltop's misdeeds. Sathanas is the true brains behind Hilltop's schemes. Ben Horowitz is the publisher of Dollar Comics, a master showman who introduces the Next Men to the world as real-life superheroes. Sandy Tolliver is a young artist at Dollar Comics who takes an interest in the Next Men's plight as they are hunted and reviled by the public.
A number of subplots are also introduced along the way and later brought into the story proper. JBNM No. 7 introduces a backup story titled M4, which continues until issue No. 23 when that storyline is brought into the overall narrative. M4 refers to an android designated M-IV or Mark Ivey. Mark and Hilltop's former secretary and lover, Amanda Watson, run into each other and try to figure out who or what Mark must "get away" from. Later, a time traveler named Thomas Kirkland shows up and claims he has come back from the year 2115 to prevent an attack on the president of the United States that will set in motion a chain of events centered on the Next Men that will lead to the extinction of most of humanity.
Believe it or not, all of these various plot threads tie together into a climax in JBNM No. 30 which looks to have dire consequences for our heroes. Except the series ended on that cliffhanger. The book was released more or less monthly at first. After a point, each new story arc was released monthly, with small breaks in publishing between arcs. The letters page in issue No. 30 starts off with an explanation by Byrne that he will be taking a hiatus and that he has a definite end game in mind for the series. But fans would end up having to wait quite some time before being offered an ending to this series.
I did not read this initial run of JBNM when it was originally published. I don't even remember being aware of the series in the early '90s, despite the fact that I was in college and paying regular visits to my then-local comic book shop. Some time after all 31 issues had been released, however, I became aware of the series and was curious about it. So, I managed to get my hands on the first 19 issues of the series (0-18) read them and enjoyed them. So I kept watch for more issues to continue the tale.
Fast forward several years. The four-issue Faith arc beginning in issue No. 19 was one I could never find in single issues, but I'd finally managed to get the Faith trade collection and single issues for Nos. 23-30. At about the same time, I'd managed to fill in holes from several other series in my collection and had decided I wanted to go back and re-read every comic in my collection in order of publication. (I was crazy to attempt it, I now realize, and I did not complete the task, although I stuck with the effort for several years.) The important point here is, I opted to wait to read the rest of these JBNM issues until I reached the 1990s in my collection. So, this is the first time I have read the second half of JBNM Volume 1.
All in all, I have to say this is a very entertaining and satisfying narrative, although Byrne's deliberately slow pacing would have been maddening on a monthly -- and later less than monthly -- basis. This story is built with secrets within secrets -- many kept from the readers as well as the characters -- and quite a few twists and surprises, even for the writer. For instance, it is clear from the letters pages that many followers of the series guessed at a secret relationship between Sathanas and one of the other characters in the story. It seemed an obvious connection to me early on as well. But then the text piece in issue No. 30 explains that the readers' guesses were a surprise to Byrne. He had not intended the relationship readers were so certain of, but it made so much sense to Byrne after the fact, that he incorporated that into the story.
Come back next time for the (eventual) return of JBNM.
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