That's tough news to take, but every story has to end sometime. According to the latest Steve Rude newsletter, jauntily titled "Old Year, New Year, Easy on the Cold Beer-- It's Still Rock and Roll to Me," when Rude and writer Mike Baron finish the Nexus story currently running in Dark Horse Presents, they will "suspend things for now." Or, as Rude writes, "[We feel] our finest work is yet to come, as represented with the upcoming climax of the Nexus/Clayborn saga in Dark Horse Presents comics."
Baron will continue writing novels, and Rude will do some mysterious project for DC West, then jump back into his personal, creator-owned properties with the return of The Moth. You may remember a certain 5-issue miniseries Rude worked up with Gary Martin a while back for Dark Horse. I liked it a lot. The circus setting, the diverse cast of characters, the old-fashioned heroic virtues on display and all that kind of thing. Right in my comics-enjoying wheelhouse, as it were. This won't be self-published; it's coming out under the Flesk Publications banner.
So here comes the end of about thirty years of exciting and provocative space adventuring. I'm not sure what more Baron and Rude could have done with Nexus and Sundra. Nexus has quit being Nexus, come back again, killed more mass murderers than any handful of Wolverines, Ursula X. X. Imada met her long-fated demise, other characters have died and lived and aged, and now there's a newborn child in the mix. While I don't know how Baron and Rude will leave their little family and cast of thousands, I have a feeling there will be a fitting valediction that will leave us satisfied.
And yet still wanting more.
At least they have the opportunity to conclude Nexus where they want, unlike with "Nightmare in Blue" where economic factors forced them to leave things kind of hanging. That was truly heartbreaking in a way this latest announcement isn't. I wanted to weep at the time. Similar causes seem to have crashed Rude's attempt at self-publishing, too. Hey, I forget that story and it's too cold here to spend a lot of time looking it up. You probably know more about it than I do. We Nexus fans were definitely lucky Mike Richardson at Dark Horse acted the way I wish all comics publishers did: making sure Baron and Rude got their character and story rights back, then giving them a place to tell more Nexus stories when they felt it was time.
One thing I really regret about this is, they had just introduced long-anticipated character Origami into the storyline. I don't think the character is exactly as they intended. My guess is they took the concept and folded (ha ha, aren't I clever) it into the Nexus universe just to make sure the name and costume didn't go to waste. I would love for them to revisit her sometime. Or someone under their supervision! It's hard to resist a character whose catchphrase is, "I like to fold things" as she zips away from the mayhem she's caused.
Well, I'm looking forward to more Baron and Rude. And The Moth!
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