Main Menu

FFT - ROUND of 16 - Nemesis the Warlock vs Zenith - Heat 08

Started by Colin YNWA, 25 August, 2022, 06:25:03 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Colin YNWA

Sponsored by 2000ad in Stages - see links below.

Nemesis the Warlock - more info

VS

Zenith - more info

What a way to finish off Round 6 and get our final Quarter Finalist. For many this will be the tie of the Round. I had these two down as potential finalists, one admittedly an outsider for that. Looking at the form book both of these have had tough journeys to this stage. Though neither has faced an opponent quite of this level.

Form book - Thrill vanquished to date (in order of round met earliest to latest):

Nemesis the Warlock: Bison; Indigo Prime; Defoe; Insurrection
Zenith: Harry Twenty; Buttonman; Ace Trucking; Anderson

Round 6 - or "Round of 16" as folks seem to like to call the last 16 these days (?!?) will feature just one thrill a day. I'd like to pretend this is to give these epic thrills more space and time to be commented on... but really it's to buy myself a bit of extra time to plan what comes next!

To Vote Just reply in this thread naming your favourite thrill of these two series at the beginning of your post (or use Bold tags so I can spot it easily) and say what you like about these wonderful stories after that.

Match ends early on the morning of Sunday 28th August and the winner gets a place in the Quarter Finals.

What on Earth is ALL of this?

For those that need 'um and can be bothered to follow 'um there's some simple rules

Any questions, just ask as ever - and have FUN!

broodblik

When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Magnetica

I just love Zenith. I've got the original Progs, the hard back editions with signed book plate, the Apex edition. I've even got the digital version.

It's got some of the best one liners ever in 2000AD. It features Steve Yeowell's best ever work. It's the best thing I've ever read by Grant Morrison.

But when it comes to deciding on this vote, it was an easy decision. Close but never in doubt: Nemesis The Warlock.

JayzusB.Christ

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Trooper McFad

Citizens are Perps who haven't been caught ... yet!

The Enigmatic Dr X

Lock up your spoons!

IndigoPrime

Zenith, which is remarkable throughout, if we ignore the very last strip. Early Nemesis is superb too, but for me goes off the boil, never recovers and outstays it's welcome. And the last story was even worse than Zenith's.


abelardsnazz

Ooohh. Zenith is arguably (or not) both Morrison and Yeowell's best work. Nemesis has O'Neill, Redondo, Talbot, Hicklenton, Roach and Flint. Ahhh...err....Zenith.

credo

This isn't going how I'd expected! Zenith is almost perfect from the start of Phase 1 to the end of Phase 4 (although who thought it was a good idea to put Jim McCarthy on that Mandala story). Nemesis certainly can't lay claim to that, but was so utterly original and is still so unlike anything else I've read in comics* that I can't help but vote for it. Its highs were so, so high and its characters were so, so good.

Nemesis the Warlock gets my vote.


*so unlike anything else, that even a thrill accused of being derivative of it (Shakara) is still breathtakingly original.

Huey2


Barrington Boots

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 25 August, 2022, 08:23:24 AM
Zenith, which is remarkable throughout, if we ignore the very last strip. Early Nemesis is superb too, but for me goes off the boil, never recovers and outstays it's welcome. And the last story was even worse than Zenith's.

Nicely put. Furthermore Zenith was running when I first got into the Prog and absolutely blew my mind with it's stark artwork, psuedo-Lovecraftian themes and brutal violence. Zenith for me please.
You're a dark horse, Boots.

paddykafka



AlexF

Oh crikey! Gotta gets some votes in for my alien quick!
Look, I'll take the point that Zenith basically doesn't put a foot wrong (except Zzzenith, as many have pointed out). But it's also kind of always one thing, and it's not a thing I'm super in tune with. So an easy choice for me here.

But are people really suggesting that Nemesis the Warlock is anything less than perfect for not just 4 books, but 7? And at least book 8 does something interesting by putting a new character at the front, while revisiting some of the best ideas from Book 1; Book 9 has astonishing Hicklenton art; and although I can see why people dislike the final 2 one-off Nemesises, might it help to remember that Mills conceived the whole thing in the first place as the result of being abused by Catholic priests at his school and in a sense the whole thing is a massive FU to to the established church, and as such even though Nemesis himself is not a good or praiseworthy guy, the overall story HAS to end with Torquemada being eternally and totally humiliated?

What I'm saying is, Zenith may be a masterpiece of cynicism in taking down superhero tropes, but Nemesis is a masterpiece in heartfelt skewering of evil authority figures.

Vote Nemesis, vote Warlock, vote often!