Ended up doing a couple of random marker ideas after watching Wandavision the other year. Particularly the episode introducing Monica Rambeau and deciding to give her her Photon powers towards the end of it (spoilers I suppose?).
Anyway, after that, I began thinking up a daft idea based on the NextWave comic I'd been rereading at the point. What if that ended up as an MCU tv series at some point in the future? Because the people who make things for the MCU are a lot more talented/ better connected/ smarter than me, they probably wouldn't make a series exploring some of the weirder cuts from Marvel comics and ripping the absolute piss out of themselves, I have decided to take it upon myself to draft up a pitch for what would make a NextWave tv series.
Read on to see what nonsense I came up with to amuse myself while scribbling up some character concepts for the look of the NextWave gang....
NEXTWAVE: AGENTS OF H.A.T.E.
Imagine, if you will, a team of good-looking women, one average-looking guy and a machine... No. Not like that. Imagine, if your non-filthy and feeble minds can muster, a team of five superheroes! Can't properly see it? No? Well, that's what the visuals above are for....
Now then! Got them pretty pretty pictures seen and memorised? Well, tough titties, were carrying on! These lovely people and sexy robot are the NEXTWAVE squad! Agents of the Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort (hey that makes a nifty acronym, dunnit?)! So-called because they are being promoted by H.A.T.E. (A subsidiary of the Beyond Corporation) as the 'Next Wave of superheroes after that first colourful lot called the Avengers! It should have been easy, hire a bunch of randos with powers, dress 'em up all nice and heroic (maybe give them matching jackets to help with Brand-recognition) and have them fighting crime and big threats! That leads to merchandising, movie-deals, endorsements and of course, PROFIT! Easy right?
Well, no frankly. Not really. They hired Monica "I know Captain Marvel!" Rambeau as their field leader. That was a bad decision on management's part, but really how were they to know she had ethics and morals and things like that? Following that debacle, she managed to convince the rest of the team to go all piratey and leave H.A.T.E (Bet SHIELD took aaaages to make their acronym work).
Stealing something called the Beyond Marketing Plan, Monica and the rest discovered the origins of H.A.T.E. (More than SWORD did I reckon), the Beyond Corporation and their plan to do... something nefarious involving giant monsters, samurai robots made from cutlery, magical deals with dirty-minded other-worldly beings and blowing up chunks of America in the name of freedom!
Join NextWave as they face off against some of the weirdest bollocks in Marvel's archives twisted into something which might work in the MCU as well as the machinations of H.A.T.E. (Did they ever figure out what HAMMER's acronym was?) led by the probably deranged Dirk Anger (Nick Fury, except instead of Samuel L. Jackson's built-in cool, he's loud and prone to explosive bouts on impotent rage. He's also having a nervous breakdown (he thinks no one's noticing).) with an army of Broccoli Men and a flying headquarters which looks less fancy than that Helicarrier Fury and his mates had and more like someone drunkenly welded four submarines together and persuaded the thing to fly. But enough about them, let's meet our heroes!
PHOTON/MONICA!
Leading these idiots (her words) is good ol' Monica Rambeau! Given the codename Photon, Monica's not impressed with anything to do with her position on the team. In fact, she's annoyed most of the time, either by her team, her job or the fact her costume is one piece and that makes toilet breaks reeeeeeeeeally time-consuming. Yes, she's got fancy powers which involve manipulating various forms of energy and knows Captain Marvel personally, both of those qualities mean little when a giant lizard threatens to shove your teammate down his pants. (I'm not explaining the pants, just go with it...) She's the team mum whether she likes it or not and the only reliable one. The team's moral compass when they remember to look.
Mostly happy with this, I've only got a limited number of markers and sadly none of them covered the darker skintones. Really the only thing I'd change if I could.
MACHI-- AARON STACK!
Did you know there was an attempt to make another Vision level robot? No, not that white one from that other show. This one's different. He's got flesh-y coloured bits and purple. Also he's version 51 created by Dr. Abel Stack in his Machine Man project. Following the disastrous previous 50, Dr. Stack decided that he would raise Z2P459-X-51 as a son instead of the standard dump an AI in and hope for the best. There was one problem however, Stack was a crap dad. Eventually, after running away and enduring a long legal battle involving the rights of sentient machines, property and emancipation(?). X-51 was finally free and changed his name to Aaron Stack. Since then he's mostly been wandering around, experiencing the human world and stealing beer. He joined NextWave mostly out of boredom.
Armed with an amazing array of abilities such as flight, extendable bits and a lot of weaponry, Aaron could be a force to be reckoned with... If he gave a ****...
Did this one first, mostly he's based on the Vision's aesthetic designs but with Machine Man's costume in mind. There's a couple more little bits, but it mostly speaks for itself.
ELSA BLOODSTONE!
Prim, proper and more than willing to shoot you in the face if you keep staring at her chest. In fact, she's quite happy to shoot anything in the face given half the chance, if it's a monster. Trained from birth to hunt monsters, Elsa's childhood was... interesting? ...memorable?... Traumatic--It was traumatic. Ish. She's mostly over it. Or lying. She's got supernaturally enhanced abilities and an encyclopedic knowledge of monsters and folklore. And a well-stocked armoury. She's also very British and bossy. Insult her at your own risk.
Overall design's fine but look at that uzi!!! Don't draw many guns, but I'm pleased with that one!
TABBY!
I think her t-shirt says it all... Redneck-'splody girl, Tabby is just like that dude Scorch from that one episode of Agents of SHIELD, remember him? Well, she's either one of whatever he eventually was classed as, or a mutant. If they're canon at some point. Tabby's shallow, crass and really lacking in a lot of things. Education, amongst others. She can also make things explode, using self-generated balls of destructive energy. Even people, which is why all the rest of the team have an infinite amount of patience dealing with her, especially as she's the youngest on the team. She's also the main reason the team left in the first place. Because she's a klepto and stole the Marketing Plan which led Monica to learning the truth about H.A.T.E. (Getting really tired of having to type the dots for this).
THE CAPTAIN!
No really, that's his name! I mean, I'd have written his actual name up there if he could remember it. Having that power set known lovingly as the "Flying Brick", the Captain saw fit to put as much effort into his costume as his creators put into making him! He can fly, he can lift heavy objects, he's mostly indestructible! Now if only he was more intelligent, he might be able to do something useful with his powers... Frequent butt of jokes, the Captain suffers the most during the fights, usually with a good dose of humiliation. This might be part of some karmic justice in universe for drunkenly assaulting the beings who gave him the Heartstar of The Space Between Galaxies (his origin), or just because it's funny. He's from Brooklyn and is not actually a Captain of anything...
If you're still reading here, first of all why? It's should be clear that this is a comedic series. I envision it as someone at Marvel Studios said "Let's do a show that's like some horrific hybrid of our current output and one of them Abridged shows on Youtube!" and wasn't immediately sacked. Skewering everything from weird and wonderful comic tropes, character designs and maybe even some stuff poking fun at the hand that feeds, crossed with all the awesome stuff that makes the MCU shine. If this goes anywhere I may write up a small script for shits and giggles, I don't know.
So, that was my dumb idea behind this. If Marvel Studios see this and are interested(ha!), I'm willing to talk. I swear all these are real characters and in an actually published Marvel comic series, it is all real, even the lizard bit. I was also sober when I wrote this. Don't know why I felt the need to clarify that...
Ah, NEXTWAVE. I remember it was a real cult classic (right up there with, like, Kelly-era Deadpool) in the genre of “irreverent mainstream comics with funny panels you could post online”, back when that was a bit more of a novelty. And it’s hard to beat that Ellis/Immonen teamup! I remember Elsa, Monica, and Cap (with the iconic trenchcoats and ☠☠☠☠s) showing up very occasionally over the years, but I think NEXTWAVE is still pretty niche overall.
And now that irreverence/continuity gags/weird comedy is more mainstream I’m not sure if it needs a full revival! Despite owning the trade I haven’t revisted it lately, partially because I’m worried that the ~random~ humor may not have aged well? But I do remember laughing a lot, especially at the Captain’s “I’m not stupid” origin story. Definitely has earned its place in comics memory.
Anyways I felt like doing a closet cosplay of this ☠☠☠☠er for some laughs. Please forgive the photoshopped star. Between this and Lupin III, one of these days I’m going to actually grow out and keep sideburns…
"Every day I smoke two hundred cigarettes and one hundred cigars and drink a bottle of whisky and three bottles of wine with dinner. And dinner is meat. Raw meat. The cook serves me an entire animal and I fight it bare-handed and tear off what I want and eat it and have the rest buried."
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I am not sure if Dirk Anger deserves any fanart but here he is anyway..
