20 funny comics to lighten your mood and make you laugh

Nextwave (Cover image via Marvel Comics)

18. Nextwave

Want a little more cosmic strangeness in your funny comics? Warren Ellis is your man. Or transcendent cosmic being. Whatever.

Along with Stuart Immonen, Ellis created the series in part to feature minor Marvel Comics characters. These include Monica Rambeau (a former Captain America), the mutant Tabitha Smith and monster hunter Elsa Bloodstone, to name a few. We also encounter Captain ☠☠☠☠, now called “Captain.” His original name was apparently so filthy that Captain America beat him up and left him in a dumpster with a bar of soap in his mouth. So, it must have been pretty good.

Like God Hates Astronauts, Nextwave is a satirical take on superhero comics. As such, it delves gleefully into the bloodshed and general violence that is so often smoothed over in more mainstream stories. Seriously, this is not a series for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.

Nextwave even takes on the acronym-happy world of Marvel. The superheroes are assembled by H.A.T.E., the Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort, for one. They are then ordered to fight UW.M.D.s (Unusual Weapons of Mass Destruction) by Dirk Anger, the director of H.A.T.E. who is definitely, totally not a take on Nick Fury.

The series can also get strangely meta. Each issue begins with a list of frequently asked questions, which is normal enough. It gets strange when you realize that the marketing-heavy answers become more and more bizarre as you read. Sometimes, on odd occasions, the FAQs even answered straightforward questions from the readers.