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Aaron Stack DOES knows about Myspace.
"I took The Authority and I stripped out all the plots, logic, character and sanity. (...) It’s an absolute distillation of the superhero genre. No plot lines, characters, emotions, nothing whatsoever. It’s people posing in the street for no good reason. It is people getting kicked, and then exploding. It is a pure comic book, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. And afterwards, they will explode."
Warren Ellis & Stuart Immonen's irreverent parody of Super Teams, which featured five relatively obscure Super Heroes fighting the forces of H.A.T.E. , a S.H.I.E.L.D-style organization who was discovered to be in league with the Beyond Corporation, the current incarnation of their former rivals, S.I.L.E.N.T. ( Who doesn't love a good acronym?)
The Team Consisted of:
- Monica Rambeau (Formerly known as Captain Marvel and Photon): The leader of the group. She used to lead The Avengers, and reminds her teammates of this fact at every available opportunity.
- Tabby "Taby" Smith (formerly known as Boom-Boom & Meltdown): A trailer-trash klepto with the "mutant powers of blowing things up and stealing all your stuff" (actual description). Her theft of the Beyond Corporation's Marketing Plan provided the impetus for the team to leave the employ of H.A.T.E.
- Aaron Stack (formerly known as X-51 & Machine Man): A surly, alcoholic, robotic Jerkass. Ended up as Ensemble Darkhorse for precisely those reasons.
- Elsa Bloodstone: Daughter of a famous monster hunter, she was the series' resident Action Girl.
- The Captain (Formerly known as Captain Power, Captain Ron, Captain L. Ron, Captain Universe, Captain Ultra, Captain Avenger, Captain Avalon, Captain Marvel, Captain ***, and various others before finally giving up): An idiot from Brooklyn who received his powers from benevolent aliens while drunkenly stumbling home. Subversion of The Good Captain and frequent victim of The Worf Effect. The only member of Nextwave created specifically for the series.
The series ran for 12 issues, with each story arc being two issues long (although a case can be made for the final arc actually being four issues long). Plot wasn't a high priority, and served mostly as an excuse for the team to beat things up and cause things to explode.
This series provided examples of:
- Action Girl: Elsa Bloodstone is capable of kicking anything's ass. Anything. Even if it doesn't have an ass.
- Affectionate Parody: Imagine every single comic book trope ever created subverted or lampshaded to hell, but adding in tons of Ruleof Funny and Ruleof Cool to it.
- Alternate Continuity: Word Of God states that the events of this series did not occur in the Marvel Universe, but references to the series have crept into mainstream Marvel continuity. Alternative W.O.G. states that this was the only series taking place in the Marvel Universe, and all the others featured "Anal Skrulls." (Now that the Marvel U is caught up in Secret Invasion, make of that sentence what you will.)
- A later, more serious Marvel Comic said that the heroes of Nextwave were given Fake Memories, explaining both the inconsistencies in their childhood flashbacks, and all the weirdness and out-of-character behavior that was actually shown in the book.
- From what we've seen, rather than been told: Monica Rambeau showed up in Marvel Civil War, wearing her Nextwave outfit, but she never had any lines so who knows. Aaron Stack has become a major supporting cast member in Ms. Marvel, wearing his Nextwave outfit, showing behavior totally in line with his portrayal in Nextwave, and then appeared as the hero of Marvel Zombies 3 again in full Nextwave mode, and making references to the events of Nextwave and his memories of his teammates, so it seems that Nextwave is in continuity now (or at least a frequently mind-scrambled robot's perception of it is).
- There was also a single line in one of the early Runaways comics, where the Pride were discussing their plans and the "Nextwave Project".
- Another example comes in an X-Men Comic where Tabitha throws a tantrum over her defeat at the hands of a nobody supervillain. "Where does she get off blowing me up! I was in X-Force! I was in Nextwave!". Hank is less than impressed.
- The best answer is probably that Nextwave wasn't supposed to be in-continuity, but it was so beloved by creators and fans alike that they put it in anyway.
- Badass Longcoat: The "Nextwave outfit" consists only of a Badass Longcoat thrown over whatever superhero costume/civilian duds the team members happen to be wearing.
- Berserk Button: Don't make fun of Forbush Man's hat.
- Beyond The Impossible: Put it this way: if a Nextwave animated series were to be made, it would be Western animation's answer to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Except funnier.
- RELEASE THE HOMICIDE CRABS!!!
- BFG: the extremely... suggestive looking Armageddon Horn.
- Also the ginormous suicide pistol nearly used by Dirk Anger. Cow sized rounds? Oh Jesus. . .
- Bigger On The Inside: the team aircraft the Shockwave Rider, explicitly kept that way by Applied Phlebotinum which is later damaged, forcing a hurried bail-out.
- Calling Your Attacks: Monica Rambeau has developed this somewhat Animesque habit.
"MICROWAVE STORM!"
- The Captain also has a special, ultimate attack. It's called "Kick!".
- The Caligula: Dirk Anger. Barking mad, momma's dress-wearing, sticking-baby-chicks-in-a-blender-and-ingesting-them-intravenously, Russian Roulette-playing Dirk Anger.
- Catch Phrase: "Fleshy one." "Kick.'Splode." "Tick tick tick boom." "My robot brain needs beer."
- Character Derailment: Everyone except for The Captain, and he was created for this series. But none of us are complaining.
- Character Development: Played with in an issue.
- It had been a long night for the Nextwave Squad. One of them finally had his turn at winning. One even got a Character Moment. You can be damn sure we won't let *** like that happen again!
- Combat Stilettos: Elsa Bloodstone.
- Crazy Awesome: this is a series in which out-of-character established superheroes and the Captain blow things up while being pursued by a Nick Fury spoof in an airship made from submarines welded together.
- Crosses The Line Twice: The below mentioned childhood trauma? Hilarious.
- Also, evil beam-shooting Stephen Hawkings getting massacred by the team
- Crouching Moron Hidden Badass: Tabby
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: At least one per issue. Usually more.
- Crowning Music Of Awesome: How many other 12 issue comic series have their own Theme Song
 ?
- The Ditz: Tabby Smith
"I hate cops! Because, like, cops keep arresting me and stuff? For stealing? Like stealing's a crime or something?"
- Do Anything Robot: Aaron contains pretty much every conceivable sharp pointy object ever made within his body. Read the trope article and become enlightened.
- Expy: Dirk Anger, H.A.T.E, and S.I.L.E.N.T are stand-ins for Nick Fury, SHIELD, and HYDRA, respectively. (Warren Ellis wanted to use the originals, but was shouted down. After seeing what he did with them, that's kind of a relief.)
- Although Brian Bendis & John Hickman later recycled the idea, making both SHIELD and the goofier version of HYDRA sub-divisions of a larger HYDRA network; presumably, Marvel editors refused the earlier idea not because they were afraid of it... but afraid of Ellis.
- Eat Me: Machine Man, against Fin Fang Foom
- Flashback Cut (mostly used to illustrate childhood trauma, and almost all totally at odds with established Marvel canon).
- Flying Brick: The Captain's powers, which even he refers to as his "generic set of super-hero abilities".
- Fun With Acronyms
- The Good Captain: Naturally, The Captain is a spoof of this
- Getting Crap Past The Radar:
Tabby: They shot their muck all over meee!
Aaron: Like that's never happened before.
- Gigantic Gulp: Aaron and his barrel full of beer.
- Girls Need Role Models Averted in that despite the team's gender balance being skewed towards female, none of them are terribly good role models. Monica comes across as a Ted Baxter, Tabitha is an Idiot Hero and Elsa seems to just be there for the killing. That said, they're paragons of decency compared to the guys.
- Handsome Lech: "I analyze your every word, identifying subconscious speech patterns that betray your poorly hidden lust for my rock-hard robot body..." — If it's possible for a misanthropic robot to be one, Aaron Stack is it.
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood - Elsa Bloodstone.
- Humongous Mecha - Beyond Corporation's Ultra Samarai Seed turns people into one.
- Infant Immortality - Hilariously subverted with Baby Modok.
- Killer Rabbit: Drop bears. "Widdle cuddly bears of DEATH!?"
- Kleptomaniac Hero: Tabitha.
- Made Of Explodium: "Oh my God, they explode. My life has taken on new meaning."
- Narrator: The Captions served mostly to hang a lampshade on the tropes being employed here. The captions also have No Fourth Wall — at one point, they pop up to indicate that the current panel showing the Shockwave Rider was inserted precisely so people could crop it out and use it as signature/avatar images on message boards. Ironically, it's remarkably difficult to find a scan of.
- "Unless you stole it off the internet"
- Leet Lingo: Tabby often uses Net acronyms when speaking out loud. "'Zomg'?"
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: the third story features such wonderful creations as the man-eating drop bears and samurai robots. Bloodstone destroys an army of the latter with a shovel.
- Power Walk - The Nextwave team does this at the end of one comic.
- Quirky Miniboss Squad - Number None assembles several teams of second-rate supers to fight the Nextwave.
- Reconstruction: Ellis' earlier The Authority was basically the JLA without all that pesky Thou Shall Not Kill nonsense. As indicated by the page quote, Nextwave is pretty much that, except with lots more irreverent parodies of the Marvel universe and much more explosions.
- Refuge In Audacity
- Rescued From The Scrappy Heap: All of the Nextwave cast members (save for The Captain, who was created for the comic). Oh, and Forbush Man.
- Robot Buddy: Aaron would be a subversion.
Aaron: I could make you pregnant.
Elsa: Not unless you could do it from over there, Clanky.
Aaron: I am full of very useful devices.
- Rule Of Cool: When the aforementioned samurai robots appear, Elsa Bloodstone realizes that her handguns aren't nearly cool enough to defeat them, so she drops them and fights with only a shovel.
- Rule Of Funny (or Character Derailment, depending on who you talk to)
- Shout Out / Take That: "DO YOU THINK THIS LETTER ON MY CHEST STANDS FOR AMERICA?"
- Also the memorable "Millar licks goats."
- The art styles in the Alternate realities are based on the art of Paul Pope, Daniel Clowes, Mike Mignola.
- Senseless Violins - Elsa Bloodstone keeps her arsenal of guns in a guitar case.
- Signature Style
- Splash Panel (a page from the penultimate issue is used as an example of the trope)
- More precisely, six pages.
- Stern Chase
- Stuff Blowing Up: Lots of it. Everywhere.
- The Man Behind The Man: Number None, really a baby M.O.D.O.K. in disguise, was the Giant Floating Head Behind The Man for Dirk Anger...and then he turned out to be an underling of Devil Dinosaur
- The Undead: Dirk Anger's suicidal retirement is not accepted by H.A.T.E.
- Unsound Effect
Monica: Aaron, help them. <burst of white noise as Monica turns into 120 pounds of photons>
- Villainous Breakdown: Dirk Anger has one that lasts for the entire series.
- Writer On Board: Writer Warren Ellis' well known distaste for superhero comics is evident, but is funny rather than annoying.
- More like distaste for the current age of comics and the Dark Age of comics. This is just as much an Affectionate Parody as it is an insult.
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