Nextwave #6

Issue Date: 
August 2006
Story Title: 
Untitled
Staff: 

Warren Ellis (writer), Stuart Immonen (penciler), Wade von Grawbadger (inker), Dave McCaig (colors), VC’s Joe Caramanga (letterer), Sean Ryan (assistant editor), Mike Marts (consulting editor), Nick Lowe (editor), Joe Quesada (editor in chief), Dan Buckley (publisher)

Brief Description: 

Dirk Anger continues his assault against Nextwave. Elsa Bloodstone and Tabitha Smith are in battle with Samurai Batch 23. Monica is being pursued by the Assault Pterosuit Flock, but as she’s injured she has no time to mess around. She incapacitates them with an ultraviolet nova, which sends them to the ground in flames. Dirk rants for a while before ordering the main batteries engaging. Aaron senses that their guns are about to be deployed, so the Captain decides to give Dirk Anger something to think about. He crashes through the reactors at the tail of the ship, wounding the craft. Aaron decides on a different course of action. Dirk prepares to fire at those on the ground, whilst Aaron enters the ship and takes out the soldiers on board. Monica uses her own energy powers to attack the craft but, after threatening Dirk and his crew with X-rays, she is assaulted by Homicidal Crabs that emerge from the ship’s exterior. As Dirk orders yet more crazy assaults on the team, Aaron Stack appears in front of the ship holding a dress. He threatens to burn it if Dirk doesn’t surrender immediately. Dirk caves in and order his crew to stand down. He turns his ship around and departs, leaving Nextwave with a Shockwave Rider to repair. Aaron joins them, wearing a bra he’s recovered from the ship. The ladies aren’t impressed and proceed to beat on him, whilst Dirk Anger puts on the dress and disappears into his own tortured past.

Full Summary: 

Dirk Anger’s assault on Nextwave continues unabated. Samurai Batch 23 surrounds Elsa and Tabitha, and Elsa readies her shovel in preparation. “I make it six each,” she remarks, as she stands with her back to Tabitha’s. Tabitha asks her not to try and impress her with her English counting. Elsa knows that she grew up in a trailer park. “Let’s just kill’ em.”

Elsa uses her strength and agility to leap into action, whilst Tabitha attacks with her plasma bolts and time bombs. Elsa shows her love of martial arts movies by copying moves seen in the movies to good effect, decapitating her assailants in a variety of styles.

Meanwhile, Monica Rambeau, suffering from having a quantum drill bit pierce her shoulder, is also surrounded, but this time it’s by the Assault Pterosuit Flock. She’s furious now, and figures that she’s tried to do the whole non-lethal thing, but now she’s been shot she doesn’t much care. “Ultraviolet nova,” she says, and the air around her extends in a blast of ultraviolet energy, setting the flock on fire. They fall to the ground like wounded airplanes, much to Dirk Anger’s horror.

Dirk shatters the wheel of the Aeromarine in his clenched fist, before launching into an uninhibited verbal tirade against Monica, despite her being outside the craft. He rants and raves about how he asked Monica to do just one little thing. What was so awful about it? He asked her to perform weapons tests and not to worry her little girly head about the weapons coming from the company that used to be a terrorist cell. He asked her to blow up chunks of America for freedom! “But no!” he exclaims. “You couldn’t! One little thing!” It’s like she suddenly turned forty and her face went south and suddenly it was - no, Dirk, I won’t do those things with the chickens and the wig and the bath full of acid for you any more. “And by the way Dirk, give me all your cash, let me paint everything pink, adopt a million screaming little snot-factory children for me and don’t you dare touch me or my womb will fall out.

He’s almost at breaking point as he clenches his teeth together hard. “And you know what I did?” he asks. Dirk then turns to see his entire crew looking at him as if he were a gibbering imbecile. He laughs nervously and scratches his head before turning and asking the crew to just kill ‘em. “Engage main batteries.”

Aaron Stack and the Captain are flying close to the Aeromarine and Aaron’s sensors pick up on the fact that its power output just ramped up. They’re going to deploy their guns. The Captain confirms with Aaron that the reactors are at the rear of the Aeromarine, before flying downwards to pick up speed. He informs Aaron that they need to take away their advantage and give them some trouble to deal with. He asks Aaron to use his clever robot brain to think of a way to take them out. He’ll use his stupid human head to give them some trouble.

Surely enough, numerous guns emerge from the main body of the Aeromarine. Monica notices them. “Those are some big **** guns.” She assaults the craft by creating a petawatt laser effect, which tears its way down the ship’s hull. The Captain is now at full speed and heading upwards. He knows this will hurt, but he has no alternative. He smashes straight into the tail of the ship, damaging the reactors. Unfortunately, the impact renders him unconscious and he falls to the ground helplessly.

Elsa and Tabitha continue their fight with Samurai Batch 23, with Elsa relishing the fact that she’s great at this kind of thing. Tabitha isn’t bad either, with an almost unlimited supply of power to see off the sword-wielding robots. As they fight, the Aeromarine struggle to maintain its latitude. Dirk Anger’s assistant, wearing pink this time, informs him that there’s trouble in the reactor feed to engine two. Dirk replies that he doesn’t care. He asks for a forty-degree declination. They’re going to fire the remaining batteries right at the three members of Nextwave on the ground. He grabs a bottle of booze and chews off the top of the bottle: not just the cap.

A further explosion rocks the Aeromarine as it begins its descent. Aaron Stack enters the ship through one of the holes created by the Captain. He lands inside, but finds himself surrounded by soldiers. Meanwhile, Monica flies alongside the craft and floods the bridge with X-rays. Inside, Dirk asks what in the name of Satan’s underpants is going on. Monica informs them that she’s flooded the hull with x-rays. It was a quick burst. A long burst will leave all of them with permanent cell damage. She warns him to back off. “Like hell!” exclaims Dirk. “Homicidal crabs!”

Small panels open on the outside of the ship, and hundreds of small, orange crab-like robots emerge. They have little rocket boosters on their tails and they chase Monica away from the ship. Aaron engages the soldiers inside; his extendable arms allowing him to sweep them all together. He throws one hapless soldier away like he was waste paper before grabbing two rifles. “No more mister nice robot.”

Monica is airborne, blasting away at the Homicidal Crabs that rocket towards her, and Elsa continues her physical fight against Samurai Batch 23, taking out the last of the robots. She understands that this whole thing is ridiculous. They’re just going to throw something else at them now. They’ll beat them down in waves unless they do something drastic. Tabitha looks at the Captain and wonders if he’s dead. Elsa replies that he’s a guy: how would they be able to tell. Tabitha says that he wouldn’t be farting.

Meanwhile, Aaron makes his way through the Aeromarine. He used to sneak around there at night to steal beer until he discovered that Dirk Anger brewed it himself and what he made it out of. He thought ‘lizard squeezings’ was a brewery name. On the bridge, Dirk Anger is in full-on ranting mode again. He swallows the booze and orders the release of the Neo-Hyde Spawn. They’re human scum empowered by the cloned chemically-mutated cells found in the stomach walls of the corpse of Henry Jekyll himself! “They eat girls, Monica! Ha ha ha ha ha! They eat girls!”

He grabs the wheel of the ship and orders the Atomic Puppies be put in the torpedo tubes. “Yap yap bang! Ha ha ha ha ha! Yap yap bang!” Aaron Stack then communicates with the bridge and he asks Dirk to direct his cameras directly in front of the Aeromarine’s prow. He has something to show him. He asks if he can see it. Aaron is hovering there, holding an orange dress in his hand with pink flowers on it. Dirk’s rant is stopped in its tracks. Aaron points his finger at the dress and asks Dirk to give them his word that he’ll turn and leave, and he will replace the object. Press his attack, and he will incinerate the dress.

Dirk drops to his knees. He suddenly looks like a broken man. He begs Aaron not to do this. Can’t he just let him kill him? Aaron says he is a clumsy robot. The longer Dirk makes him wait, the more likely it is that something will go wrong. His finger lights up. “Oops. My blowtorch unit just lit. It was an accident. I’m sorry.” Dirk doubles over, asking his assistant to give the order to stand down. She reminds him that they’ve got Nextwave where they want them. “How can some old dress…” Dirk shouts at his crew to stand down.

Moments later, the Aeromarine turns tail and departs, its reactors leaving a smoking trail in testament to the battle. The Captain is still unconscious, his butt sticking upwards and his face stuck in the ground. When Monica asks if he’s dead, Tabitha tells her that he’s farting. “Okay,” Monica replies. Aaron then descends after leaving the ship. He is wearing an overly large bra over his jacket. He says that he gave Dirk back the dress but borrowed some stuff. Monica thinks she’s going to throw up. Elsa asks why he’s wearing one of Andrea Dworkin’s bras. Monica thinks that she’s now definitely going to throw up.

They look at the Shockwave Rider, which is still lying in its crash position. Aaron reckons he can get the thing running again. There’s plenty of repair gear inside. Elsa orders Aaron to take of the bra. “It’s ****ing disturbing.” He tells her to lick his diodes. He’s the hero today. Elsa smashes him in the face with her shovel, and both Monica and Tabitha grab shovels of their own and proceed to pummel Aaron into the ground.

Aboard the Aeromarine, Dirk sits alone in a darkened room, chewing on a Lizard Boom Stick and wearing the dress he recovered from Aaron. “It’s all right mother. It’s all right,” he mumbles to himself. However, it’s not all right. It will never be all right. Nothing will ever be the same. No good can come of a robot in a bra.

Characters Involved: 

Elsa Bloodstone, the Captain, Monica Rambeau, Tabitha Smith, Aaron Stack (Nextwave)

Dirk Anger and his assistant

H.A.T.E. personnel and troops

Story Notes: 

Strangely, in this issue and the last, the faces of Samurai Batch 23 are upside down, probably to confuse their opponents.

Henry Jekyll is a character in a book by Robert Louis Stevenson called ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ published in 1886.

Andrea Dworkin was an American feminist best known for her anti-pornography stance.

Issue Information: 
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