Nemesis the Warlock
Encyclopedia
Nemesis the Warlock is a story created by writer Pat Mills
Pat Mills
Pat Mills, nicknamed 'the godfather of British comics', is a comics writer and editor who, along with John Wagner, revitalised British boys comics in the 1970s, and has remained a leading light in British comics ever since....

 and artist Kevin O'Neill
Kevin O'Neill (comics)
Kevin O'Neill is an English comic book illustrator best known as the co-creator of Nemesis the Warlock, Marshal Law , and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen .-Early career:...

 which appeared in the pages of the weekly comics anthology
Comics anthology
Comics anthologies collect works in the medium of comics that are too short for standalone publication.- U.S. :- UK :British comics have a long tradition publishing comics anthologies, often weekly...

 2000 AD. The title character, a fire-breathing demonic alien
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...

, fights against the fanatical Torquemada
Torquemada (comics)
Tomás de Torquemada is the fictional main villain from the comic strip Nemesis the Warlock in British comic 2000 AD, who eventually appeared in 7 episodes of spin-off adventures of his own...

, Grand Master of the Terran Empire in Earth's distant future, and his attempts to exterminate all alien life. Grotesque, hyperbolic and violent, the series possesses a dark wit and biting satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 intent.

Publication history

The series began in 1980, in issue 167 of 2000 AD, with a story called Comic Rock "The Terror Tube", in which a freedom fighter called Nemesis escaped from Torquemada, the chief of the Tube Police, after a protracted chase through a complex travel-tube system on a planet called Termight, later revealed to be Earth. All that was seen of Nemesis was the outside of his spaceship, the Blitzspear (See 1983 200AD Annual The Secret Life of the Blitzspear). The roots of the story lay in an episode of Ro-Busters
Ro-Busters
Ro-Busters is a British comic story that formed part of the original line-up of Starlord. Similar in premise to that of the Thunderbirds television series, it was created by writer Pat Mills and was drawn by Carlos Pino and Ian Kennedy initially, before Starlord's merger with 2000 AD...

(also by Mills and O'Neill) in which the heroes escaped from the police in a car chase through a tube network, which IPC
IPC Media
IPC Media , a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Inc., is a consumer magazine and digital publisher in the United Kingdom, with a large portfolio selling over 350 million copies each year.- Origins :...

 management objected to. In "Terror Tube" the police were portrayed as a cross between the Spanish Inquisition
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...

 (Torquemada is named after the notorious inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada
Tomás de Torquemada
Tomás de Torquemada, O.P. was a fifteenth century Spanish Dominican friar, first Inquisitor General of Spain, and confessor to Isabella I of Castile. He was described by the Spanish chronicler Sebastián de Olmedo as "The hammer of heretics, the light of Spain, the saviour of his country, the...

) and the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...

 (or from Spanish Easter penitents), making it easier to position them as the bad guys.

"Terror Tube" was the first of a planned series of one-offs inspired by popular music, called "Comic Rock" - in this case The Jam
The Jam
The Jam were an English punk rock/New Wave/mod revival band active during the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were formed in Woking, Surrey. While they shared the "angry young men" outlook and fast tempos of their punk rock contemporaries, The Jam wore smartly tailored suits rather than ripped...

's "Going Underground
Going Underground
"Going Underground" is the first British number-one chart single by The Jam, released in March 1980. It went straight in at number one, a rare feat at the time, and spent three weeks at the top...

". The series never got going, but did produce a second Nemesis story, a two-parter called "Killer Watt", in which Torquemada chased Nemesis through a bizarre teleport
Teleportation
Teleportation is the fictional or imagined process by which matter is instantaneously transferred from one place to another.Teleportation may also refer to:*Quantum teleportation, a method of transmitting quantum data...

 system based on telephone lines.

These stories proved popular, prompting Mills and O'Neill to develop a regular series, Nemesis the Warlock, which combined the early high-concept science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 with fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 in the "sword and sorcery" mould. Torquemada was promoted from chief of the Tube Police to Grand Master of Termight. Nemesis was revealed as a demonic alien with a face based on the nose of his Blitzspear, fighting to protect aliens from Torquemada's genocidal tyranny, although his inhuman attitude and anarchic "Khaos" philosophy made his motivations ambiguous. Such as in Book Five; The Vengeance of Thoth; during a chase; Nemesis is forced to hijack a bus full of children, which ends up crashing, killing all onboard as he escapes.

Written at the height of Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

's government, the fiercely left wing Mills depicts anarchic anti-heroes violently railing against a bullish, intolerant authority. That the authority in question is the human race thousands of years in the future adds a further dimension: a heavy-handed condemnation of human nature. Particular targets for Mills's ire were imperialism and religious fanaticism. Book 6 had a comment about South Africa and Apartheid removed, which was reinstated in the Titan Book reprint. The ABC Warriors
ABC Warriors
ABC Warriors is a long-running 2000 AD comic strip written by Pat Mills, which first appeared in prog 119 in 1979 and continues to run today. Art for the opening episodes was by Kevin O'Neill, Mike McMahon, Brett Ewins, and Brendan McCarthy - who between them designed the original seven members of...

 and Satanus the black tyrannosaur
Tyrannosaurus
Tyrannosaurus meaning "tyrant," and sauros meaning "lizard") is a genus of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur. The species Tyrannosaurus rex , commonly abbreviated to T. rex, is a fixture in popular culture. It lived throughout what is now western North America, with a much wider range than other...

, both Mills creations, were reintroduced as supporting characters, and a time travel element was introduced which left the series' timeline extremely convoluted.

Book 9 concluded in 1989, and the character barely appeared for ten years. Finally, in 1999, Mills and artists Henry Flint
Henry Flint
Henry Flint is a British comic book artist who has worked mainly for British sci-fi comic 2000AD.-Biography:Flint has established a cult following for his hyper-detailed and wildly inventive work on series such as Judge Dredd, Zombo,,ABC Warriors, Shakara, Low Life and Aliens.A recent project was...

 and O'Neill wrapped up the series with Book 10: The Final Conflict, and an epilogue of sorts, Deadlock, which explored the political state of Termight in the aftermath of Nemesis' and Torquemada's deaths.

Artists

O'Neill's imaginative, grotesque art helped to establish the popularity of the series, but the efforts he put in to creating it led to a low rate of productivity. There were a number of delays in the publication of the Book One, and a second book was drawn by Jesus Redondo
Jesus Redondo
Jesús Redondo Román is a Spanish comic artist who has been published in many countries, including Spain, the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden and the USA....

. This and the higher rates of pay available in America led O'Neill to leave the series after a handful of episodes of Book Four (although he has occasionally returned for short runs since then) to be replaced by Bryan Talbot
Bryan Talbot
Bryan Talbot is a British comic book artist and writer, born in Wigan, Lancashire, in 1952. He is best known as the creator of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and its sequel Heart of Empire.-Career:...

. Other artists to draw the series include John Hicklenton
John Hicklenton
John Hicklenton was a British comics artist best known for his brutal, visceral work on flagship 2000 AD characters like Judge Dredd and Nemesis the Warlock during the eighties and nineties.He suffered from multiple sclerosis and recorded an award-winning documentary about...

, David Roach, Clint Langley
Clint Langley
Clint Langley is a British comic book artist best known for his work on series with Pat Mills at 2000 AD and as the cover artist for Marvel Comics' Guardians of the Galaxy....

 and Henry Flint
Henry Flint
Henry Flint is a British comic book artist who has worked mainly for British sci-fi comic 2000AD.-Biography:Flint has established a cult following for his hyper-detailed and wildly inventive work on series such as Judge Dredd, Zombo,,ABC Warriors, Shakara, Low Life and Aliens.A recent project was...

. O'Neill returned to the strip to illustrate its last ever episode.

Characters

Nemesis the Warlock : The main character and antihero of the series, Nemesis is a firebreathing demonic alien who fights to free the world from tyranny. Mills decided that with a religious fanatic as the arch-villain, it would be fitting to have a demon as the hero. Demonic heroes have also been used in comics such as Spawn
Spawn (comics)
Spawn is a fictional comic book superhero who appears in a monthly comic book of the same name published by Image Comics. Created by writer/artist Todd McFarlane, Spawn first appeared in Spawn #1...

 and Hellboy
Hellboy
Hellboy is a comic book superhero created by writer-artist Mike Mignola. The character first appeared in San Diego Comic-Con Comics #2 , and has since appeared in various eponymous miniseries, one-shots and intercompany crossovers...

.
Tomas de Torquemada
Torquemada (comics)
Tomás de Torquemada is the fictional main villain from the comic strip Nemesis the Warlock in British comic 2000 AD, who eventually appeared in 7 episodes of spin-off adventures of his own...

: Primary antagonist of the series, a haughty tyrant and fascist human supremacist who rules the Earth with an iron fist and is hellbent on ridding the universe of all alien life. Through Past life regression
Past life regression
Past life regression is a technique that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives or incarnations, though others regard them as fantasies or delusions. Past life regression is typically undertaken either in pursuit of a spiritual experience, or in a...

 it is shown that he was many people from Earth's history, including Colonel John Chivington
John Chivington
John Milton Chivington was a colonel in the United States Army who served in the American Indian Wars during the Colorado War and the New Mexico Campaigns of the American Civil War...

, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 and the original Torquemada himself.
Purity Brown : Human aide to Nemesis; Her father was put to death when she was only fourteen (as revealed in Book Five; The Vengeance of Thoth) by thought detectors
Thought Police
The Thought Police is the secret police of Oceania in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.It is the job of the Thought Police to uncover and punish thoughtcrime and thought-criminals, using psychology and omnipresent surveillance from telescreens to monitor, search, find and kill...

 for having a dream in which he insulted Torquemada.
Candida de Torquemada : Wife of Tomas de Torquemada and mother of two of his children, both of whom are among those slain in a bus crash caused by Nemesis. On several occasions, including a major plot arc for book 5, Tomas is shown to genuinely love Candida to the extent he is willing to consort with aliens in an effort to prevent her from leaving him.
Sister Stern : Insane second wife of Tomas de Torquemada and mother of his third child who she occasionally considered inpure so tried to commit Filicide
Filicide
Filicide is the deliberate act of a parent killing his or her own son or daughter. The word filicide derives from the Latin words filius meaning "son" or filia meaning daughter and the suffix -cide meaning to kill, murder, or cause death...

, before Tomas had her assassinated.
Grand Dragon Mazarin : The leader of Termight after Torquemada's death. A reformer, he ended the persecution of aliens, which did not last for long when Torquemada returned, convincing the Terminators to mutiny
Mutiny
Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject...

 against him, so he could be executed by Tomas via a unique form of evisceration
Evisceration
An evisceration is the removal of the eye's contents, leaving the scleral shell and extraocular muscles intact. The procedure is usually performed to reduce pain or improve cosmesis in a blind eye, as in cases of endophthalmitis unresponsive to antibiotics...

.
Grobbendonk : The alien pet of Nemesis, formerly the familiar of Baal, Nemesis's great-uncle. Grobbendonk also speaks Gibberish, a Fringe World dialect. Deliberately eaten alive by Magna days before her wedding to Nemesis.
Chira : Warlock and first wife of Nemesis, mother of his son Thoth, despite the odds, she goes down fighting when faced by her assassins, ensuring only Sir Hargan escapes with his life.
Magna : Warlock and second wife of Nemesis. Out of jealousy of Chira being Nemesis's wife, she leaked information to Torquemada that allowed him to locate Chira and Thoth. Swallowed Grobbendonk whole as the first phase of her plan to separate Nemesis from his allies. Killed by Nemesis minutes after the wedding, when he discovered her deeds.
Great Uncle Baal : Nemesis' eccentric great uncle, banished for his controversial experiments on humans.
The ABC Warriors
ABC Warriors
ABC Warriors is a long-running 2000 AD comic strip written by Pat Mills, which first appeared in prog 119 in 1979 and continues to run today. Art for the opening episodes was by Kevin O'Neill, Mike McMahon, Brett Ewins, and Brendan McCarthy - who between them designed the original seven members of...

 : Robot mercenaries and allies of Nemesis.
Nostradamus de Torquemada : Insane brother of Tomas de Torquemada. He was horribly disfigured when Tomas abandoned him during an ambush by the Primords, and was later hidden away in a lunatic asylum to conceal Tomas' disgrace. Nostradamus was originally introduced into the series as Tomas' Grandfather, and not shown to be his brother until Book five.

Stories

Most of the saga was told in 'books', with additional stories told in one-offs, which appeared in annuals, specials, or in the weekly comic.
There are a number of collections of the original six-page installments available, which roughly follow the books as they were originally published. The earlier books were not given individual titles.

Book One

The World of Termight

In collected form this book also features the first three Nemesis stories - Going Underground, Killer Watt and Olric's Great Quest.

Book Three

The World of Nemesis

Features Chira, Nemesis' mate and the birth of Thoth, son of Nemesis.
Chira is killed by imperial assassins and Thoth is adopted by Sir Hargan, his mother's killer.

Book Four

The Gothic Empire

Originally intended to be the first full-length Nemesis story, other stories were written as an introduction to the character and his world(s), ballooning into the preceding three books.
Torquemada is killed at the end of this book. Thoth, still in the 'care' of Sir Hargan and his wife is growing in power.

Book Five

The Vengeance of Thoth

Starting ten years after the end of Book Four, an earlier version of Torquemada is brought through time by Thoth, so that he can punish his mother's murderer. Nemesis ends up causing the deaths of Barbarossa de Torquemada and Pandora de Torquemada; offspring of Candida & Tomas. Satanus re-appears.

Book Six

Torquemurder / The Time Wastes

The introduction of the Monad. This book also gives the explanation for Torquemada's "grandfather" Nostradamus' words in the previous book about Termight ending in "a sea of fire and blood".

Torquemada the God

A five-part story not run under the Nemesis banner, in 2000 AD #520-524. Torquemada consolidates his power on Terra, though is affected by a curious malady, which is eventually revealed to be a plot by Thoth to punish Tomas further, by killing his former incarnations.

Book Seven

The Two Torquemadas

Nemesis and Purity go back in time to 15th century Spain to retrieve Thoth. Torquemada goes back in time to kill Thoth and prevent his degradation. Tomas de Torquemada meets his namesake
Tomás de Torquemada
Tomás de Torquemada, O.P. was a fifteenth century Spanish Dominican friar, first Inquisitor General of Spain, and confessor to Isabella I of Castile. He was described by the Spanish chronicler Sebastián de Olmedo as "The hammer of heretics, the light of Spain, the saviour of his country, the...

.

Book Eight

Purity's Story

During an interlude Purity recalls how she first met Nemesis, remembering details that had previously been blocked from her.

Book Nine

The Deathbringer

Tomas escapes the time wastes into 1980s Britain, leaking time radiation as he does so. Subsequent side effects of the radiation leak create upheaval, and Tomas seizes on this to become variously a slum landlord and chief of police.

Book Ten

The Final Conflict

The last series-length Nemesis story, after more than a decade of appearing only in shorter episodes, as well as "The Hammer of Warlocks", an 18-page series intended as a prelude to this book, telling the story so far and Torquemada's intentions of finding this ultimate weapon against the Warlock. The series ends with Nemesis and Torquemada both destroyed, yet occasionally haunting Earth in spectral forms, tied to the Warlock's "Blitzspear". Purity Brown takes over as leader (president) of Termight, renaming it Terra. The Deadlock series, by Pat Mills
Pat Mills
Pat Mills, nicknamed 'the godfather of British comics', is a comics writer and editor who, along with John Wagner, revitalised British boys comics in the 1970s, and has remained a leading light in British comics ever since....

 and Henry Flint
Henry Flint
Henry Flint is a British comic book artist who has worked mainly for British sci-fi comic 2000AD.-Biography:Flint has established a cult following for his hyper-detailed and wildly inventive work on series such as Judge Dredd, Zombo,,ABC Warriors, Shakara, Low Life and Aliens.A recent project was...

, is so far the only direct sequel to Nemesis that's been produced.

Collected editions

The series has been collected into a number of trade paperbacks
Trade paperback (comics)
In comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...

, including:
  • The Complete Nemesis the Warlock:
    • Volume 1 (collects "Terror Tube", "Killer Watt," Nemesis the Warlock Books 1-4, "The Sword Sinister" and "The Secret Life of the Blitzspear", 320 pages, Rebellion, 2007, ISBN 1905437110)
    • Volume 2 (collects Nemesis the Warlock Books 5-7, Rebellion, 2007, ISBN 1905437366)
    • Volume 3 (collects Nemesis the Warlock Books 8-10, Rebellion, 2007, ISBN 190543748X)

Computer games

Nemesis the Warlock: The Death of Torquemada was released as a game made for the Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

, Amstrad CPC
Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom,...

 and ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...

. The C64 version of this game was made by Martech
Martech
Martech Games Ltd was a video game publisher active between 1982 and 1989.Martech was formed by David Martin and brother-in-law John Barry, initially under the name Software Communications Ltd under partnership with a firm of exporters. They were initially based at Bay Terrace, Pevensey Bay, East...

 in 1987, programmer Michael J. Archer, musician Rob Hubbard
Rob Hubbard
Rob Hubbard is a music composer best known for his composition of computer game theme music, especially for microcomputers of the 1980s such as the Commodore 64...

.

Music video

The video for Shriekback
Shriekback
Shriekback are an English rock band, formed in 1981 in Kentish Town by Barry Andrews, formerly of XTC and League of Gentlemen , and Dave Allen, formerly of the Gang of Four , with Carl Marsh, formerly of Out On Blue Six soon added to the line-up. They were joined by Martyn Barker on drums in 1983...

's 1985 single "Nemesis" featured Nemesis the Warlock.

External links

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