History ComicBook / NextMen

* AnArmAndALe: While trapped in the 1860s American South, agent Tony Murcheson suffers a left foot amputation by her slave master.

* CaptainErsatz: According to [[spoiler:Sandy Tolliver]],
one of [[spoiler:her]] boss's first comic books was a rip-off of DC Comics's ''Kamandi'' named ''Kay-Mandy, Last Girl on Earth''.

* CrypticBackgroundReference: The 1975 plot focuses mostly on the two agents Gower and Blaine, with [[spoiler:Nathan and Bethany]] tagging along and making vague references to their shared past, e.g., [[spoiler:their future/former teammate Jasmine and Senator Hilltop.]]

* Bethany, who is invulnerable to harm, but who loses physical sensation and whose skin bleaches white.
* Danny, who can run at superhuman speeds.
* Jack, who is super-strong but cannot control his strength.
* Jasmine, a young super-acrobat.
* Nathan, whose mutated eyes are large and black and allow him to see a wide spectrum of light.

* Foreshadowing: In what might be a case of subtle foreshadowing, in issue #23, [[spoiler: time-traveller Kirkland narrates that Hilltop's presidency ushers in a golden age for America, and the artwork depicts a glasses-wearing woman that looks suspiciously like Hilltop's former secretary and mistress.]]

!!The series contains examples of:

* WhatsUpKingDude: After Murcheson is thrown through time and ends up in the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar, she is startled to learn how easy it is for her to walk into the White House and meet with Abraham Lincoln.

* LeftHanging: The end of the original series had [[spoiler: Danny, Bethany, Jasmine, Nathan and agent Antonia dragged by an armored figure through a portal; the White House exploding and severely injuring President Hilltop - closing the circle of him becoming Sathanas -, and Cornelius Van Damme posing as Hilltop as if he had survived the explosion - all the while helped by Hilltop's former secretary. Jack's fate is left unaccounted for.]]

* LeftHanging: The end of the original series had [[spoiler: Danny, Bethany, Jasmine, Nathan and agent Antonia dragged by an armored figure through a portal; the White House exploding and severely injuring President Hilltop - closing the circle of him becoming Sathanas -, and Cornelius Van Damme posing as Hilltop as if he had survived the explosion - all the while helped by Hilltop's former secretary.]]

* LeftHanging
* MatingDance: The Next Men call Sex "dancing" this leads to some interesting conversations and misunderstandings [[spoiler: when they escape into the real world.]]

* FiveManBand

* BigBad - Aldus Hiltop appears to be this, but the true Big Bad is [[spoiler: Sathanas]]; then again, [[spoiler: Sathanas is a future incarnation of Hilltop]].
* {{Crossover}} - One of the earliest appearances of ComicBook/{{Hellboy}} was in this series. Also featured in the series are guest appearances by Concrete, Monkeyman and O'Brien, and characters from ''ComicBook/ElfQuest''.
* DeusSexMachina - When the Next Men have sex outside of their team, it becomes a catalyst which [[SuperEmpowering bestows super-power mutations]] on normal humans, leading to the world seen in 2112.
* DoesNotKnowHisOwnStrength - Jack cannot control his super-strength and has to be guided places so he does not break objects by accidentally brushing up against them.
* DoesNotLikeShoes - Justified for Danny. Shoes tend to wear out quickly or burn his feet as a result of his running. So he toughens up his feet on rocks and gravel, etc, until he's able to run barefoot anywhere. Also somewhat justified for Jasmine due to her super-gymnast powers.
* FeelNoPain - Bethany is NighInvulnerable but the side-effect of this is that she can't feel ''any'' physical sensation, including pain.

* FourLinesAllWaiting - About halfway through the original series, the plots began to take on this format.
* HeroicBuild - For Jack and Danny. Jack is the typical "exaggerated bodybuilder physique," though in a MusclesAreMeaningful case, as he's just as strong as he looks. In Danny's case, his leg muscles are extremely developed and disproportional for his age and size, to support his SuperSpeed.

* MatingDance - The Next Men call Sex "dancing" this leads to some interesting conversations and misunderstandings [[spoiler: when they escape into the real world.]]
* NighInvulnerability - Bethany is the MadeOfDiamond type.
* RazorFloss - Bethany's hair (being as indestructible as the rest of her) worked like this. She could use a single strand of her hair to saw through an iron bar (and if you tried to grab her hair, you'd lose your fingers).

* SenseLossSadness - Bethany gradually becomes more withdrawn from the team, and from humanity as a whole as she loses the ability to feel physical sensation.
* StableTimeLoop - [[spoiler: Sathanas and Thomas Kirkland are both traveling to the past, though Sathanas is attempting to make sure history happens as he remembers it, while Kirkland has been taught that history is immutable, he still attempts to alter history.]]
* TokenMinority - Intentionally averted. The Next Men were the result of a white supremacist project, so they're all caucasian. One of the reasons Byrne did this, [[WordOfGod he admits]], was to avoid dealing with various controversial race issues that might have interferred with the story.
* TrueCompanions - The Next Men start off like this, [[spoiler: but then the two couples that make up four fifths of the group grow further apart once they are in the real world,]] and the group begins to operate less like a family and more like a unit of soldiers.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse - With so many plots being juggled near the end of the original series, it's unclear what will be picked up in the new series and what will become a case of this.
* WhatsUpKingDude - After Murcheson is thrown through time and ends up in the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar, she is startled to learn how easy it is for her to walk into the White House and meet with Abraham Lincoln.
* WritingAroundTrademarks - Byrne intended to have a character named Dreadface appear in the ''Next Men'' as an exaggeration of the type of name Creator/MarvelComics gave characters. A few months before the character was due to make his first appearance, an issue of ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' came out featuring a character called Dreadface. The ''Next Men'' character was hurriedly renamed, becoming Lord Trogg.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters - The series started off just focusing on the FiveManBand, Nathan, Bethany, Jazz, Jack and Danny. By the end of the series, the villains, time traveling cops, human supporting characters, amnesiac robots and other mutated characters were beginning to share the spotlight.

The original run of the series ended with a cliffhanger in #30. Byrne had intended to conclude the story in a second series, but [[TheGreatComicsCrashOf1996 the collapse of the American comic book industry in the mid-1990s]] made it financially unfeasible for him to do so at the time, and he returned to working for hire at Creator/DCComics and Creator/MarvelComics. He eventually restarted the series at Creator/IDWPublishing, leading to a more satisfying (if not absolutely final) conclusion.