The Nevermen

Writer/Artist: Phil Amara, Guy Davis

Publisher: Dark Horse, $14.95

Nevermen is a brilliant hybrid of crime noir fiction with steampunk sci-fi and good old pulp action. It’s essentially what you would get if you mixed the movie Dark City with a little bit of Dick Tracy and H.P. Lovecraft and then tossed the whole thing in a blender, except it’s even more awesome than that.

The main plot focuses on the Nevermen, mystery men with a flair for gadgetry who try to keep their city clean and prevent the horrors of the Underworld from taking over. One of the Nevermen has gone missing while investigating a mad scientist who has created a horrible weapon, so his compatriots start to search and shake down the criminal element for clues.

Amara provides an interesting script with some heavy themes of science gone wrong, the loss of identity, and of morality vs corruption. The real push of the series though is Davis’ detailed line work that can be both beautiful and disgusting at the same time. His character designs are brilliant from the octopus with a fedora underworld boss Honshu to the halfdead reaimator Manboulian and the beautifully simplistic League of Crows. I spent half my time just pouring over the designs and layouts.