Last week, I read Hellspawn: The Complete Collection, which was a fantastic art book with a pretty good story, too. Since I’ve been having so much fun with mainstream books, I thought I would try another. I decided to go with one of the biggest, most mainstreamy names I could think of, so I read NEXT MEN PREMIERE EDITION VOLUME 1, written and illustrated by John Byrne, published by IDW.

The "Next Men" are late teens/early 20-somethings who were genetically modified as babies and raised in a computer generated world. The group is freed from the machines that "store" them and they quickly discover the real world is far different from the one in which they were raised. While they were normal looking inside the computer world, once in the real world they quickly start to mutate as their genetic enhancements develop. They are the first people in the world with abilities beyond the normal person… but is the world ready for them?

Over the past decade I think Byrne’s outspoken and slightly grumpy attitude has cost him some of the respect he is rightfully due. His run from X-Men to Fantastic Four to Superman has got to be of the greatest runs by a writer/artist ever. Next Men is at the tail end of that peak period but it still packs a punch. This is a solid science fiction comic with slight superhero overtones. This is one of the earliest books to really address the idea of superpowered people in a modern world.

This volume collects John Byrne’s Next Men issues #0 to 10, which were originally published in 1992. Byrne quickly sets the premise and starts working his way through the obvious plotlines with deft skill. The questions, such as why were the children mutated and how it was done, are quickly answered. At the same time Byrne spends equal time developing the group as individuals and how they deal with the changes that are happening to them and around them. It’s interesting to see how Byrne tried to apply real physics to superpowers and the likely consequences of having them.

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