NASH #1 Image Comics, 1999

I pause before dissing on Nash #1, an Image Comic from the creative Dark Ages of the 90’s that stars Kevin “Big Sexy” Nash, the professional wrestler. I pause because of all the comic creators that I may slight with my mockery of their work, Kevin Nash is the only one who I feel sure could physically kill me.

Actually, Marc Silvestri’s a pretty big guy, he could probably take me out. Ed Brubaker looks kind of tough, too. And you know, I don’t know what Chuck Dixon looks like, but I’ll bet he carries a gun, so he could definitely kill me. Dale Keown did time in the slammer, I’ll be the picked up some “jailhouse rock” moves. Micah Wright, of course, was a commando… You know, I’m kind of a pussy now that I think about it. Peter David could probably kick the shit out of me.

Anyway, at the risk of having Big Sexy show up at my door one night to play a game of Slap The Rag Doll with me, I shall commence my critique:

Nash #1 sucks.

Bad.

You know you’re in trouble when you see a photo cover on a comic book. It’s a fad that has thankfully died off, but there has NEVER been a good comic book that had a photo cover. No, that last issue of Spider-Woman doesn’t count; it was a cool cover but the comic itself was crappy. It’s just not physically possible to marry quality sequential art storytelling with a photo cover. Furthermore, it is not possible to have a quality comic if your comic revolves around a real life professional wrestler, Playboy model, or the Insane Clown Posse.

Nash! The Comic was created by Kevin Nash and artist Maryat “Demonslayer” Michaels. That’s another problem; you can’t write a comic book about yourself, dude, even if you do put yourself in a post-apocalyptic setting. That’s just vain. But then, I’m guessing anyone who refers to themselves as “Big Sexy” doesn’t have confidence issues.

Before the comic starts, we get a two page set-up that explains the whole crazy mixed-up world that Nash lives in and modestly introduces us to the man himself:

We start the story out in The Wastelands, where a mean, bald truck driver gratuitously kills an old woman begging for food and is about to pop a cap in the woman’s poorly-drawn grandson until Nash arrives.

Nash blows the mean, bald truck driver’s head off with a grenade, then asks the traumatized kid: “You okay, little man?”

“Yeah, Nash, I’ll be fine as soon as I wipe the brain off me and bury grandma. Thanks for asking.”



The comic continues. The art is bizarre - everyone looks partly melted and over-rendered. It looks like Michael Bair's art - if he was drawing with his left hand or his eyes closed. Anyway, Nash jumps around, blows some shit up, breaks an arm or two, sticks a sharp piece of metal up a guy’s nose, and has on-panel sex.

Don’t believe me? Behold:



That’s something I did not need to see.

Who is the target audience for this book? You gotta know that even in 1999 there were only so many Nash fans in the world. And of that group, not all of them read comics – or even read, really. I figure there are like, 2,500 people world wide who eagerly awaited the publication of Nash #1. And that’s being generous. Out of those 2,500, I’d say about 500 are probably related, or at least live in the same trailer, so they’re sharing an issue. Probably 500 potential readers are female fans who can’t get enough of Big Sexy and are drawn by the photo cover – but the interior art only superficially looks like Nash, so only half of those women actually buy the book. I’m guessing 100 potential buyers opened the first page, saw all the intimidating text, and put it down. 100 more underage buyers were “cock blocked” by their parents, who flipped through the comic, saw the sex scene, and made their kid buy Youngblood instead. That leaves only about 1,800 people who actually bought this comic – and of those purchases, 500 were gag gifts and 100 were from confused stoners who thought the book was called Hash. All in all, the numbers don’t look good for Nash.

I could go on, but I think I need to go read some Jane Austen or something to purge all this extra-testosterone from my system.

I grant Nash #1 a special Asgardian “The Pain” Award, because the regular Pain Award just didn’t have enough bitchin’ facial hair.