Publication History
The Next Men made a prototypical appearance as "Freaks" in a lithography plate that was published within the History of the DC Universe Portfolio in 1986. Byrne had originally pitched the series to DC, but the series for some reason never surfaced. With some changes, Byrne changed the concept to fit in with his work on the graphic novel 2112 to become the John Byrne's Next Men series. Two characters from the "Freaks" artwork somewhat retained their physical looks and became the lead characters of the Next Men series: heroine Jasmine and villain Aldus Hilltop.
The Next Men officially debuted in a four-part storyline in Dark Horse Presents #54-57 (later reprinted, in color, as John Byrne's Next Men #0). The series ran until issue #30 and ended with a cliffhanger. According to Byrne, he intended the series to be science-fiction that had a "sort of smell" of being a super-hero book. In addition to exploring mature topics such as sex, abortion, and child abuse, Byrne also set aside some of the more traditional conventions of the medium, such as "thought-bubbles" and sound-effects.
Byrne had intended to conclude the story in a second series after a six-month hiatus, but the collapse of the American comic book industry in the mid-1990s made it financially unfeasible for him to do so, and he returned to working for hire at DC Comics and Marvel Comics.
On October 12, 2007, Byrne announced on his website that comic publisher IDW would release black & white "phonebook"-sized reprints of the Next Men series sometime in 2008, with the first collection released in May 2008. He stated on his message board: "All the Next Men stuff will be coming from IDW in big, honkin' black and white 'phonebooks' in the New Year. Don't have a more precise schedule than that, but when I know, you'll know.”
In an interview with IDW appearing in the publisher's April 2008 comic books, when asked about the possibility of a new Next Men series, Byrne answered, "If it looks like Next Men can be done as something other than a vanity project, I will certainly do it. The series has a definite ending--I even know the last line!--and I would very much like to shake those 20 or so issues out of my head someday!"
At the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International, Byrne revealed that he was creating new issues of JBNM to be published by IDW Publishing. Byrne said that the new series would be both a continuation of the previous series as well as a place for new readers to discover the characters. He expects the entire story, previous series plus new series, to run about 50 issues. IDW's John Byrne's Next Men #1 was released on December 15, 2010.
It was announced in February 2011 that Byrne would finish the Next Men series with issue #9 of the 2010-2011 series, but a sequel titled Next Men: Aftermath immediately followed.
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