cover: Jim Aparo (signed)
title: "Nemesis!"
writer: Cary Burkett
art: Dan Spiegle
letterer: John Costanza
colorist: Adrienne Roy
colorist: Adrienne Roy
editor: Paul Levitz
Synopsis:
Marjorie Marshall receives a special delivery box that turns out to include a statue of Justice with an operable scale. Also included is a weight with the name of her dead husband engraved on it. And there is a note from "Tom" promising to balance out the scale.
Outside of Marjorie's home a mysterious stranger who turns out to be Tom Tresser watches the delivery men leave. Tom is secretly "Nemesis."
Later, Tom makes himself up as a vagrant to spy on George Peal, who is a private assassin for a criminal mastermind named JR Ogden. At Hogie's Tavern Nemesis watches and waits until Peal arrives. Nemesis bumps into him in order to plant a listening device on Peal, but Peal catches him and sees that Nemesis is wearing a disguise. Nemesis barely manages to escape without getting shot.
The next day Peal meets up with Ogden, who orders him to kill a man named Sidney Shelton. Nemesis is secretly recording the conversation, and turns the recording over to the police.
Later, police drag Peal to Ogden's office to confront and arrest Ogden. When faced with the taped evidence, Ogden goes temporarily crazy. Believing that Peal must have ratted on him, he grabs a policeman's gun and kills Peal.
Nemesis, from a hotel room across the street, manages to see the whole scene. His intention was to have them arrested, but he is not complaining that Peal is dead and Ogden will get the death penalty for murder.
Nemesis later sneaks into Marjorie's home and leaves two bullets on the scale of Justice marked "Ogden" and "Peal."
Later, Tom makes himself up as a vagrant to spy on George Peal, who is a private assassin for a criminal mastermind named JR Ogden. At Hogie's Tavern Nemesis watches and waits until Peal arrives. Nemesis bumps into him in order to plant a listening device on Peal, but Peal catches him and sees that Nemesis is wearing a disguise. Nemesis barely manages to escape without getting shot.
Commentary:
In the summer of 1980, DC added eight more pages to all of their titles. In some titles this expanded the length of the main story. In others, such as the Batman team-up book The Brave and the Bold, "back-up" stories were added. NEMESIS was one of these series.
Nemesis made his debut in this story. He appears, fully developed, in a story that mixes melodrama with Mission:Impossible style espionage. The story by Cary Burkett starts off with a mystery delivery to Marjorie, and we don't learn why Thomas Tresser, aka Nemesis, arranged for the statue of Justice to be delivered until the very last panel of the story.
After this initial glimpse into Tresser's personal life, however, Burkett jumps right into the "mission": to catch a criminal boss who is responsible for killing "more people than (Nemesis) has met."
Anybody else out there see this scene of Tresser in his apartment looking at "mug shots" and think of the old Mission: Impossible "dossier" scene? Tresser is letting the audience know who the intended targets are in this episode...er, I mean, adventure....and artist Dan Spiegle evokes the old spy series with real class. (Although I have to point out the unlikeliness of Tresser sitting around in his Nemesis all-black spy togs!)
Burkett has established motivation for the antagonist (although it is still unknown to us) and then set his hero on a specific quest. Spiegle's art supports the drama well. He is a competent, no-flash artist who seems right at home at this non-super-heroic series. Look at the details in Marjorie's home, and then later on the docks and in Ogden's office. When we get into the bar itself, and for a few of the close-ups, you almost don't notice that there aren't any backgrounds. You're too busy being impressed that the every character looks different. On the other hand, there are few women and no people of color in this adventure. That is a complaint I will mention often, unfortunately.
Gotta love Tresser's and Ogden's full heads of 1980s hair, though.
Burkett is obviously a fan of Mission:Impossible because we get two more call-outs to the classic TV series before the end of the story: Nemesis putting his make-up on to become a vagrant calls back to the make-up scenes we got with Martin Landau or Leonard Nimoy; then, later, Nemesis listening in on the conversation between Ogden and Peal on a miniature tape-recorder reminds me of a certain tool from every later episode. This tape player, luckily, does not self-destruct in 5 seconds.
Not that there aren't a few things that don't quite work here. The police not holding on to their side-arm at Ogden's office seems especially inept. And speaking of that scene, the idea that they would play the tape to Ogden also seems a bit too theatrical.
Writer Cary Burkett has fashioned a tightly-plotted, suspenseful story in 8 pages. This teen-ager couldn't wait to read more about Nemesis.....especially since the next issue promises to reveal Nemesis' secrets!
Nemesis made his debut in this story. He appears, fully developed, in a story that mixes melodrama with Mission:Impossible style espionage. The story by Cary Burkett starts off with a mystery delivery to Marjorie, and we don't learn why Thomas Tresser, aka Nemesis, arranged for the statue of Justice to be delivered until the very last panel of the story.
After this initial glimpse into Tresser's personal life, however, Burkett jumps right into the "mission": to catch a criminal boss who is responsible for killing "more people than (Nemesis) has met."
Burkett has established motivation for the antagonist (although it is still unknown to us) and then set his hero on a specific quest. Spiegle's art supports the drama well. He is a competent, no-flash artist who seems right at home at this non-super-heroic series. Look at the details in Marjorie's home, and then later on the docks and in Ogden's office. When we get into the bar itself, and for a few of the close-ups, you almost don't notice that there aren't any backgrounds. You're too busy being impressed that the every character looks different. On the other hand, there are few women and no people of color in this adventure. That is a complaint I will mention often, unfortunately.
Gotta love Tresser's and Ogden's full heads of 1980s hair, though.
Not that there aren't a few things that don't quite work here. The police not holding on to their side-arm at Ogden's office seems especially inept. And speaking of that scene, the idea that they would play the tape to Ogden also seems a bit too theatrical.
Writer Cary Burkett has fashioned a tightly-plotted, suspenseful story in 8 pages. This teen-ager couldn't wait to read more about Nemesis.....especially since the next issue promises to reveal Nemesis' secrets!
- The team-up in this issue is between Batman and Black Canary. "Requiem For Four Canaries!" by Michael Fleisher and Dick Giordano & Terry Austin is one of the most beautifully drawn awful stories of the Bronze Age. Suffice it to say that DC continued its shabby treatment of Black Canary in this story.
- No readers' letters commented on this adventure were printed in The Brave & The Bold #171.
This story has not yet been reprinted. Therefore, I happily reproduce the eight-page story here in its entirety. Please do not let it fall into the hands of criminals!
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