Steve Rude

Maybe I shouldn't have read Ozymandias's prequel first.

He was the most interesting character to me in Watchmen--he's an incredibly smart guy who makes such irrational, stubborn decisions. Which is one of those big traps for people who like to think of themselves as giftedly intelligent; thinking that you are too smart to be irrational, make mistakes, listen to people. And haha, that's exactly when you make irrational mistakes that you could have avoided if you just listened. And if you do show more that enough times, it's enough to make a "good guy" the big bad. Or is he? Was he right? Bwahahhahaha! Oh Ozymandias, I look upon your works and despair.

But anyway, Before Watchmen: Ozymandias, though it has really beautiful art, was just kind of a blah story. Like, he misses his mom, his girlfriend got fridged, he travels Asia, becomes super rich, like... if I didn't know anything about a superhero in any given comic book I would make the same story, basically... which I guess, is Batman? But still, nothing too exciting. It was like, "Well, I don't really have an idea for the Ozymandias prequel, but I can come up with a story that's not terrible," and it was like, okay, good enough.

Received free from Netgalley
BUT the other two stories here, about the Crimson Corsair and Dollar Bill, were very entertaining! If you thought that kids reading pirate comics instead of superhero comics in Watchmen was kind of weird, well, they were reading Crimson Corsair comics and Crimson Corsair comics are fuckin' badass. More badass than any superhero comic I can think of, with escalating levels of awesome ludicrousness. Dollar Bill's story was pretty good, but... really his story could be told in six words: "Superhero's cape gets caught. Gets shot." And that would be all you needed to know about this hapless, sweet guy. show less

I don't know if this is allowed but I'm going to post the same review for each volume in the Nexus Archives. This series is top of the line comic book writing. It's science fiction but it also has wonderful characterization,world building, politics and religion all thrown into the mix to create a one of a kind comic book series. Really, I've read many comics over the years and nothing comes close. The art as drawn by Steve Rude is absolutely wonderful too. He has a very clean line and show more expressions are fit to a tee. Some other artists have picked up where Steve had to let off for a while and while they don't do as well as Steve they still are all right . Paul Smith is one who does very well. Highly recommended... if you pick it up from Amazon you can get it for quite a bit less than the $50.00 cover price. show less

I don't know if this is allowed but I'm going to post the same review for each volume in the Nexus Archives. This series is top of the line comic book writing. It's science fiction but it also has wonderful characterization,world building, politics and religion all thrown into the mix to create a one of a kind comic book series. Really, I've read many comics over the years and nothing comes close. The art as drawn by Steve Rude is absolutely wonderful too. He has a very clean line and show more expressions are fit to a tee. Some other artists have picked up where Steve had to let off for a while and while they don't do as well as Steve they still are all right . Paul Smith is one who does very well. Highly recommended... if you pick it up from Amazon you can get it for quite a bit less than the $50.00 cover price. show less

I admit I have a weakness for Ozymandias, which probably bumps up the rating here more than it should. He's a fascinating character. There's some mind-bogglingly dumb things in this comic - like somehow making Bubastis on accident when trying to create a giant alien squid beast? - and it really doesn't contribute to the world or character at all - its just more of the same.


I was never a fan of Tales of the Black Freighter in the original Watchmen, but I understood and appreciated how it show more mirrored the narrative of the book. Crimson Corsair doesn't do that - its just filler to me, and uninteresting.

I was surprised how much I liked Dollar Bill's story. It was simple but actually felt new. show less