New Statesmen

New Statesmen
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Publication information
Publisher	Crisis
Publication date	1988 - 1989
Number of issues	15
Creative team
Writer(s)	John Smith
Artist(s)	Jim Baikie
Collected editions
New Statesmen	ISBN 1-85386-217-7

New Statesmen was a "political superhero series" featured in British comic Crisis, created by John Smith and Jim Baikie, which lasted for fourteen episodes from 1988 to 1989.

Publications history

The series was published in Crisis from issue #1-14 with a reappearance in issue #28. It was also repackaged for the American market as a five-issue prestige format limited series that was released in 1989. This had been part of the business plan for Crisis from the start but only the early series, like New Statesmen, got this treatment. In 1990 the story was collected into a trade paperback.

Plot

Set in America in 2047, the series told the story of a number of genetically modified "optimen", created with superhuman 'hard' and 'soft' talents, who were essentially biological weapons. The series asked what 'superheroes' would be like if they were far more human than traditional heroes. The series depicted a dystopian future in which Britain had become the 51st state of America and the world is in the grip of fear of genetic engineering and political warmongering.

While in some ways the series could be considered "ahead of its time" (two of the leading male characters were in a gay relationship) in most respects the series was a typical product of its time, heavily derivative of the early 80s work of Alan Moore and Frank Miller.

Publication

• New Statesmen (by John Smith):
  • "Halcyon Days" (with Jim Baikie, in Crisis, #1, 1988)
  • "Perspectives" (with Jim Baikie, in Crisis, #2, 1988)
  • "Behind the light" (with Jim Baikie, in Crisis, #3, 1988)
  • "Shadowdancing" (with Jim Baikie, in Crisis, #4, 1988)
  • "Downtime" (with Sean Phillips, in Crisis, #5, 1988)
  • "Holding the fist" (with Sean Phillips, in Crisis, #6, 1988)
  • "Where the railroad meets the sea" (with Duncan Fegredo, in Crisis #7, 1988)
  • "Memories on Ice" (with Duncan Fegredo, in Crisis #8, 1988)
  • "All doors lead to the Minotaur" (with Jim Baikie, in Crisis, ##9, 1989)
  • "Life during wartime" (with Jim Baikie, in Crisis, ##10, 1989)
  • "Riding the tiger" (with Jim Baikie, in Crisis, ##11, 1989)
  • "The power and the glory" (with Jim Baikie, in Crisis, ##12, 1989)
  • "White Death" (with Sean Phillips, in Crisis, #13-14, 1989)
  • "Epilogue" (with Jim Baikie, in Crisis, ##28, 1989)

Collected editions

It was collected into a trade paperback:

• New Statesmen (240 pages, Fleetway Quality, November 1990, ISBN 1-85386-217-7)

References

• New Statesmen at Barney
• New Statesmen at the International Catalogue of Superheroes
• New Statesmen at the Grand Comics Database
• New Statesmen at the Comic Book DB