NEMESIS THE WARLOCK

Believe it or not, Nemesis was a member of the ABC Warriors, albeit briefly. He temporarily took the place of Deadlock in their ranks, before sending them off to the Time Wastes of Termight to repair the damage done by his son.

The Warlock's story has become so intertwined with that of the Mek-nificient Seven over the years, it would be a mistake to ignore him...

This series history was written by Mike Butcher and originally appeared in the 2000AD Winter Special, 1992

NEMESIS THE WARLOCK is neither good nor bad, but somewhere in between. Unlike Spitting Image's Paddy Ashdown puppet, however, he does not rally to the cause of a party seeking to hold the 'balance of power'. Instead he seeks to tip the Universal balance firmly in favour of his school of magic, Khaos, against the forces of Order. In fact, it would probably be more accurate to say that Nemesis is not even between good and evil, but somewhere outside.

As self-proclaimed leader of the Cabal, an interplanetary alien alliance, Nemesis is regarded throughout the Universe as a saviour and the greatest opponent of human atrocities waged against the so-called deviants. Indeed, Nemesis enjoys his status as 'arch-deviant' and revels in his role as scourge. The human's hatred of all things different and his proclamation of absolute discipline makes him the embodiment of Order. In the bizarre and terrifying transport system of a future Earth gone mad, nothing would give Torquemada more pleasure than getting the Terror Tubes to run on time. He is therefore a natural nemesis for The Warlock and this may well have more to do with their enmity than alien's desire to save the universe from the ultimate fascist.

Nemesis has certainly fought many heroic battles against Torquemada's Terminators, both on Termight and on alien worlds way off in space, travelling around in his alien craft, the Blitzspear. As the Terminators have spread their leaders doctrine of "Be pure, be vigilant, behave!" across the Universe and set about cleansing it of all alien lifeforms in the process, The Warlock has saved countless lives and has even spared whole planets from their terrible evil. After his first major battle to the death with Torquemada, that had resulted in the apparent demise of the human's spirit form (his corporeal form had already been destroyed in a Travel Wire accident), Nemesis actually advocated peace with Termight. His alien alliance was sceptical, despite the new attitudes that were developing among the humans, at least freed of their Grandmaster's influence. Perhaps Nemesis believed the 'game' to be over with his enemy dead and sought to rest for a while, but the respite was short-lived. Torquemada's spirit, weakened but not extinguished, rose up again in time to wreck any overtures of peace and to reinspire the interplanetary inquisition.

The war with Termight rejoined, Nemesis was concerned for the well-being of his family and returned to his home planet, Gandarva, in the mysterious Nether Worlds. He was there in time to celebrate the hatching of his son, Thoth, but he soon set forth once more to battle the Terminators. Somehow his wife, Chira, sensed she would never see him again and she was right, thanks to her betrayal by Magna, another female Warlock and Chira's jealous rival for the affections of Nemesis. Magna did a deal with Torquemada and set up the assassination of the Warlock's wife and child, though the homunculus Thoth escaped and used his highly developed mind-powers to force his would-be assassin to 'adopt' him and raise him as his own on Termight. This, of course, was unknown to Nemesis, and when he learned of the death of his family, he vowed to destroy Termight and eradicate the human race from the Universe. Possibly for the first time, Nemesis had allowed his mask to slip. An acute sense of loss had lowered his guard and his apparent wish to rescue humans and aliens alike from the worse excesses of Torquemada was submerged by his disdain for the 'insects' of Termight and his appetite for revenge. Purity Brown, a human and faithful lieutenant to Nemesis, was shocked by this new side of Nemesis, but he managed to convince her that he had spoken in anger and his heroic status was restored.

The Warlock was able to mete out personal revenge on Torquemada himself soon enough anyway. The spirit form of the Grandmaster had joined his Terminators in their attack on The Gothic Empire, a group of planets populated by chameleon-like creatures who had copied their civilisation from Victorian England and actually believed they were human themselves. Naturally, Torquemada disagreed and set out to cleanse them all, but not before allying himself with a group of Young Goths who were able to furnish his spirit with a new (and permanent) body. Although his new body was made with alien flesh, the Grandmaster of Termight decided this was a price worth paying, with all the 'good' work he could accomplish by having it. Following a showdown with Nemesis, however, this new body began to mutate and Torquemada's own deviancy was evident to all. Delighted by the irony, The Warlock was able to allow the Terminators themselves to carry out his vengeance by killing him. Some ten years passed after the death of Torquemada before he was resurrected in extraordinary circumstances by a being who hated him more than anyone - the now-mature homunculus, Thoth. Termight had made peace with the aliens during these years and, surely in the true spirit of Khaos, Nemesis had married the betrayer of his family, Magna. Thoth, sharing his father's predilection for playing with the lives of humans and other creatures, first summoned the Tyrannosaur, Satanus, to be his pet and then plucked Torquemada out of time and set him free on Termight. The confused Grandmaster could hardly believe how lax things had become and was surprised to find that he was branded a blasphemer when he claimed to be Torquemada himself, back from the dead. He was tied up and burnt for heresy by his own former Terminators and then he returned to life once more. Thoth had put him in a time loop, so that he could enjoy Torquemada's death over and over again. The young Warlock and his 'pet', Satanus, then headed off into the Time Wastes, a nightmarish region left over from the old Age of Science, when humans had experimented with some very dangerous natural forces. Thoth had decided to disrupt the balance between the artificial black and white holes on either side of Termight and thereby destroy a sizeable chunk of the Universe.

Although Nemesis could barely contain his admiration for his son's plan, he nonetheless set out to thwart it. Khaos would surely have been served if Thoth had succeeded, but perhaps the rather perverse act of freeing Torquemada from the time loop and then teaming up with him, enabled Nemesis to justify his heroics in attempting to save Termight from destruction. Nemesis set the robotic ABC Warriors the task of repairing the Time Wastes, while he and his arch-enemy pursued Thoth to the end of the world. Too late to intercept the fledgling Warlock, they were forced to battle The Monad, a creature of pure evil created during a previous visit to the era by Torquemada. In the aftermath of the battle, the Grandmaster was able to escape and return to Termight in triumph, claiming to be a God, having cheated death on so many occasions, Torquemada was restored to power by his most loyal Terminators, but his body soon began to exhibit signs of degeneration, due to an assault on his Ka by Thoth, who was travelling through time and killing all his earlier incarnations.

Through the Time Wastes, Nemesis was still following his son and, having missed the demise of such masters of mass murder and persecution as John M. Chivington of the US Cavalry and notorious Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins he arrived In the era of the Spanish inquisition before Thoth came to kill the original Torquemada. The Warlock's main goal was to make peace with his son, who hated him for abandoning him and his mother so many years before, so he wove a spell of containment to prevent any use of magic by Thoth before Nemesis had time to tell him how much he cared. The father and son made their peace, only for the Grandmaster of Termight to arrive and, taking advantage of the Warlocks' temporary inability to use their magic, he was able to murder Thoth for real this time. Consumed with grief, but determined not to let his son down again, Nemesis unleashed the 'power of the flies' on Torquemada and then joined Thoth so that they could spend the dying Warlock's last moments together. Enduring almost unendurable pain, Torquemada escaped once more into the Time Wastes, his mind perhaps that little bit more unhinged by his latest encounter with the 'Lord of the Flies'.

The death of Thoth left Nemesis unable to maintain his heroic image in the eyes of Purity Brown. In his anger, the alien's true feeling for humans was revealed. Purity and her race meant no more to him than a colony of insects, they merely provided him with an amusing diversion in his service of Khaos.

Torquemada, by killing Thoth, had proved to be the insect that bit back. Brown herself had been quite blatantly used by The Warlock when he met the young rebel on Termight, so much so that he had wiped the memory of her first task for him from her mind. Having woven a spell on Torquemada, Nemesis arranged for Purity to become his mistress, so that she could report back on his plans to the alien resistance. Understandably, she was horrified to learn of this forgotten episode and, while the Warlock removed her memory of it again, he could not completely dispel the human's suspicion of his motives in times to come.

Purity Brown finally turned against Nemesis when they tracked down a particularly unstable Torquemada to an 'alternative' 20th century Earth, but though she appeared to side with the deranged Grand Master in the common sense of 'humanity' against the 'deviance' of The Warlock, she in fact bore no allegiance to either. Following this confrontation, Torquemada escaped once more and returned to Termight, while Nemesis was reunited with the ABC Warriors, who had been successful under their new leader, Deadlock, in repairing the damage to the Time Wastes done by Thoth. The Warriors were visiting Gandarva, the home world of Nemesis, to where the Warlock had returned to lick his wounds, and they found that he had abandoned any pretence of heroism. In publicly burning fresh humans on the grave of his first wife, Chira, Nemesis had apparently decided that his 'good-guy' image was no longer worth cultivating. Deadlock, however, had a score to settle with his fellow follower of Khaos, as the repair of the Time Wastes had the result of restoring Order in the Universe. By leading the Warriors in their mission, Deadlock was guilty of betraying Khaos, as was Nemesis for sending them on the mission in the first place. The two magicians fought quite literally to the death and were then reborn to free them of their guilt.

Thus was the balance of Khaos restored and two of its greatest exponents were joined together to make a fearsome team. Strangely enough, Nemesis and Deadlock are in fact the same entity and yet they are also quite separate. That is the nature of Khaos - nothing is truly as it seems. Perhaps the human-torturing, callous and brooding Nemesis is no more his real self than the hero of the spaceways known to millions of aliens across the universe. Perhaps his magic dictates that all his good work must in some way be balanced by as many dark deeds. Perhaps the insanity exhibited by his Great Uncle Baal is just as strong within Nemesis himself. One thing is certain for human, alien and robot alike, as Deadlock warns, "You'll learn to deal with Khaos, or Khaos will deal with you..."

CREDO!

Hammerstein | Joe Pineapples | Deadlock | Blackblood | Mongrol | Ro-Jaws

Mek-Quake | Steelhorn | Nemesis the Warlock | Tomas de Torquemada

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Thanks to Andrew Campbell for the scan assist.