Saturday, November 21, 2009

Possibly my favorite Nexus hit, or the oddest:

After the death of replacement Nexus Stanislaus Korivitsky (I suspect because Baron tired of typing the name...) Horatio returns to the job. Ostensibly, it's to keep the fusion power from falling into the wrong hands, but Horatio may feel there is nothing he does as well as being Nexus.

Luckily, Nexus has worked out some better working conditions now: instead of suffering through terrible dreams of mass-murderers, now he's working off a list. Today's target: Dexter Qassat, who admits he was a passionate warrior who killed hundreds "who raised no hand against me" during a war for independence; but now lives as a simple farmer. An old man now, Qassat was waiting for his daughters, and Horatio spends the day with him, eventually coming to believe Qassat was "rehabilitated."

Nexus plans to move Qassat down the list, or "work overtime" so his quota is met, but finds the indignant Merk waiting for him on his ship. Horatio maintains Qassat's death would serve no purpose now, and the Merk compromises: finish three other executions instead. Horatio agrees, and the first hit is pretty straight-forward, but the next one...

Is the standing cop Grimjack, also of First Comics? Well, that's the least of my questions: did Nexus kill a baby? A bad baby, but even so? Or did he lobotomize it, which would be worse somehow? Or did he somehow wipe Glom Norr out of the baby? This page also shows why Nexus sometimes didn't enjoy the best of reputations...

From Nexus #79, "Skip Day" Written by Mike Baron, pencils by Hugh Haynes, inks by Randy Clark. This would be the second-to-last First issue...First Comics, that is. And Haynes was the regular artist for the last year or so, but we've got one more artist to check out tomorrow...

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