SCI-FI COMIC NEXUS

When it's time to call in the big guns, you want to be sure you've got a crew that can handle whatever comes their way. Muscle and heavy artillery will go a long way, but for that extra edge you need a team with something special... Dark Matter are not your everyday mercenaries; these guys also have some very effective psychic abilities. The Narata Corporation in the Draco galaxy calls the team in for a retrieval mission. The planet Shipway Minor is stick in the middle of a permanent war zone. Buried under the ruins of the once-great Library of Ages in the city of Fabery is a data crystal containing a wealth of knowledge that the galaxy needs. The crystal is secured in a psi-locked vault which only this particular team can break into... Dark Matter by writer Alan Holloway and artist Ian Beadle is the eleventh editon of Sentinel , an independent sci-fi/horror/fantasy series created by a variety of guest creators. In this issue the emphasis is very much on lots of action: guns b...

At the dawn of the 22nd century smart cities are the new nations. Citizens rely on corporate technology, resources, and protection. Those left behind have turned to crime to survive, a black market as ruthless as its gold-plated counterpart. One man, forever trapped between the old world and the new is the only one who can stop these factions on a collision course. Can Detective Rumble save the future or will the sins of the past tear him apart once and for all? Eighty years from now a woman walks into a police precinct for a consultation with Detective Druid Rumble. Her company has been robbed. A mysterious item, 'Lot 130-245' was being transported by train at night. Despite heavy security measures a gang of mercenaries was able to break into the carriage and grab the prize. Two dozen elite professional guards lie  injured or dead and the train did not even decelerate. Gone in 110 seconds... Who could pull off such an audacious heist?  Rumble recognises the M.O. of ...

"See, we are spies, assassins, Gold Digger Killers. Our CPUs are not in our heads. They are in our vaginas." Cyberfunk Streetz - The Book of Afrofuturistic Hip Hop Stories by writer Jeff Carroll and artists Alan St Clark, Joey Martinez, Rolo Ledesma and Zebra Comics is a far cry from your average comic book. With a fresh, energetic style and a bold, flippant humour, this is a triptych of stories that explore the future of love, sex and relationships in a world where technology is reshaping our perceptions and expectations... maybe a little too fast for the fragile, flesh and blood human heart to keep up? As a framing narrative, Carroll stars as the presenter of his own late night talk show, introducing each tale as he chats to his guests, Cyber Bae and the Cyberettes, a trio of female sex robots. This issue includes a short preview of their upcoming story. Cyber Bae is the standout leader of the group, with her afro, gleaming bronze bodywork and sass. These are no brainless ...

The Space Age has arrived. Earth is peaceful and prosperous with a world government, war and disease eliminated. A colony has been established on Mars.  Welcome to the future ... 1996. This is, of course, a future envisaged in the very middle of the 20th century, by writer/artist Frank Hampson from Southport, England. Cities are dazzling futuristic sculptures of chrome and glass and flying cars are all the rage, but in this version of 1996 people still sport the fashions and hairstyles of 1950. It is an enduring truism that science fiction all too often describes a future in which technology has come on leaps and bounds, but social mores continue to mirror those of the creator's own culture. Eagle was a comic that came along between the end of World War Two in 1945 and the beginning of the 'Space Race' with the launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to reach Earth orbit, in 1957. Southport parson Marcus Morris was dismayed at the popularity of American horror ...

"Yep, I'm gonna die... I'm... going... to... DIE!" The good news? Caspian Porter, freighter pilot and all-round failure in most of his life's endeavours, has evaded certain death at the hands of the goons working for the powerful man whose wife he drunkenly bedded by falling through a very conveniently located wormhole. The bad news? He then crash lands on Mars in the year 500 million BC...  The good news?  The planet back then had a breathable atmosphere and a thriving ecosystem! Who knew? The bad news? This includes huge, ravenous dinosaurs... I think you get the picture. Our hero has an unerring capability for lurching from one disaster to the next, only to survive by sheer dumb luck, accompanied by his long-suffering robot companion CRB.  In the latest instalment: Caspian Porter #2: The Savage Outcasts of Rooster Valley by writer Drew D. Lenhart and artist Juan Fleites, our protagonist - rescued from the aforementioned dinosaurs by a shapely local warrior ma...

"I have lived a very fortunate life.  Or should I say... lives. My youthful quest for adventure led me to experiences I could never have imagined ... experiences both glorious and terrible ... testing body and soul. But taken as a whole those many experiences, those many lives, taught me that nothing is ever truly as final as it seems. I have never been as eager to embrace that lesson as I am now." The Romulan Empire, mighty and formidable, faces a crisis like no other in its long, fearful history: the sun of its homeworld has become unstable and threatens to explode in a devastating supernova, taking out many nearby worlds. Nothing can stop this tremendous natural event. The only possible recourse is evacuation, but to transplant such a tremendous number of individuals in a limited amount of time is a task that challenges even the resources of an empire. Disaster seems inescapable. Salvation comes from an unwelcome source: the United Federation of Planets learns of the impen...

The fourth and final installment of the Aldebaran Cycle by writer/artist Luiz Eduardo de Oliveira (a.k.a Léo) takes our intrepid heroine Kim Keller back to her roots on her home world, a colony which is now the centre of humanity's first rapprochement with an advanced extraterrestrial race, the serene and technologically superior Tsalterians. A mysterious cube has been discovered on Aldebaran 4 which appears to be a transportation device, allowing instantaneous transfer to other worlds. A team of human and Tsalterian scientists has been assembled to investigate this strange phenomenon and hopefully unlock its secrets. Kim is assigned by the UN as their official representative; a stipulation insisted upon by the Tsalterians. Of course, things are not nearly so straightforward. A large segment of human society is untrusting of the Tsalterians, especially as the aliens appear to have no regard for human officialdom. As the mother of a hybrid daughter, Kim is also the subject of para...

" We're living in a box, Scott. And the sunlight doesn't make it in. Is that your idea of a paradise? A world where we never know if it's day or night?" S cott Peon is waiting for the sun to explode. Not our Sun, a much bigger star, around which orbits a desolate desert planet. A star that should not be there because it is situated in the exact centre of where the Gum Nebula should be. Over a thousand light years from Earth, the Gum Nebula is the remains of a supernova that occurred a million years ago... Eleven years ago - or, one million years later, depending upon your perspective - Scott is an investigator for Tianzhu Enterprises, looking into a series of mysterious explosions on the corporation's experimental research stations. Tianzhu is the biggest company there is, for one simple reason: it is the only company there is. It owns and runs the huge space station colony that houses the entirety of the human race. Below lies the Earth, uninhabitable for c...

I'll just lock my heart away deeper and deeper. If I do that I won't have to feel pain outside or inside... or the fear... I won't have to feel anything at all. 2015, Tokyo-3. Fourteen year old Shinji Ikari lives with his uncle after being abandoned by his father a decade earlier. He then gets a letter from his father who is sending his attractive young assistant Misato to pick Shinji up and bring him in for a reunion. Why now, after all these years? Shinji is a mopey, disconsolate introvert with no goals, no friends and no joy in life. Still, he is intrigued by the summons... However, when he sets out to meet Misato a state of emergency is declared across the whole city and the monorail station shuts down. Walking to the next stop, he sees a large shape descending from the sky, a gigantic alien creature. Fighter jets attack it with missiles but they have little impact. Then a huge robot appears and the two behemoths begin fighting. Misato arrives in her car and ushers him ...

NUNS WITH GUNS!  It's a killer combo. And these are some very tough nuns with some very big guns. These Sisters are definitely doing it for themselves... Welcome to  Warhammer 40,000 - Sisters of Battle by writer Torunn Grønbekk and artist Edgar Salazar. The Warhammer 40,000 universe - originally from the miniature wargame by Games Workshop (beginning in 1987) - is a far future setting in which humanity is locked in a never-ending war with creatures of 'Chaos'. These beings originate from the Warp, a dimension which is the source of paranormal energy.  The Imperium of Man is perpetually battling these beings, ruling the galaxy with a strict  military-based ethos based upon the religious worship of the Emperor ... who has been dead for over ten thousand years but still sits on the golden throne, a symbol of hope and strength for the faithful.  Imperium culture is a mixture of influences, mostly medieval European Christianity and 20th century war motifs: here ...

Ten hard-as-nails women face off in an ancient contest of champions where the winner truly takes all: the title of "Queen of the Galaxy." To win the challenge each contestant must survive the hazards of the planet's harsh landscape, the ferocious predators on and below its surface, and their fellow contestants. The Gilmoran Empire is missing a monarch; the former Empress, being found barren and unable to produce an heir, has been relieved of her position, her marriage annulled. The ancient ritual to decide upon her replacement is soon up and running. Ten  über -fit Amazonians will face four challenges to determine who is the most deserving candidate. Teleported into hostile terrains, facing ferocious alien beasts - and, no less lethally, each other - each woman has to stay sharp to stay in the game... and to stay alive. Fight Girls by writer/artist Frank Cho is unapologetic sexploitation fare in which lithe-limbed lovelies brave the elements and race to be the best in an...

" There's two of them and two of us. If I'm honest I'm not even sure how this is gonna work with the insect chick, but I'm still gonna get my larvae on and find out." The Intergalactic Space Federation has accepted the membership of Earth and has shared its warp technology with us. The final frontier is ours to explore! Exciting adventures await! Just one teensy problem: Thanks the the ISF the galaxy has been at peace for over a century. There are no brave new worlds to seek out. No evil empires to contend with. No despotic megalomaniac villains to battle. There is simply... work. Business as usual. For Jim O'Hara, long distance lorry driver from London, it's all a bit of a let down. Hauling one hundred tons of genetically enhanced flying buffalo wings between star systems is really not quite what he envisaged when he signed up to boldly go... When he and his fellow trucker Scott find a bar to go and "blow off some steam", Jim is still not im...

"The world runs on lies but we can see the truth and that makes us a threat." A massive solar flare hits the Earth, knocking every single human being unconscious for 29 minutes. Vehicles crash and many people die. When the survivors wake up, one tenth of them have the ability to read other people's minds. This includes Boston police Sergeant Jack Kelly and convicted murderer Miles Terrence. Riots erupt worldwide as millions of people become aware of each other's thoughts. Those without this new ability fear those who do, creating panic. Governments attempt to control telepaths, leading to violent backlash. Boston PD calls in Dr Stephen Conroy, head of neuroscience at MIT as a consultant to help deal with the situation. The president of the United States - his life saved from assassination thanks to the new ability of one of his advisors - holds emergency meetings to determine how to hold together a nation that is coming apart at the seams... Telepaths  by writer J Mic...

San Francisco, 2052. It's a run down world but nobody cares. Everyone is connected to the net, information transmitted directly into their brains. If you want to see things a different way, you simply choose a 'veil' - an augmented reality filter - that transforms your surroundings into something more to your liking. Some choose to live in a beautiful paradise, a glamorous hallucination, or an exciting world of adventure... But not private detective Sam Dunes. He chooses Clear, a veil that shows things exactly as they are. A routine case turns up links to the trade in 'black' veils, those which show the user forbidden content, "veils you buy when you don't want anyone to know what you're seeing". .. and worse, shared veils,  those which can be accessed by more than one person simultaneously. These are even more dangerous because shared delusions cause chaos... Clear by writer Scott Snyder and artist Francis Manapul is a cyberpunk thriller in which...