Polite Dissent

The adventures of the futuristic swashbuckling rogue Nikolai Dante continue in Nikolai Dante: The Great Game. Just like the first volume, this is wonderful collection of fun comics. Nikolai is a scoundrel, but a good hearted one, and his adventures and misfortunes are fun to read.

This volume takes up where the first one ended. Nikolai Dante, thief extraordinaire and “too cool to kill” has learned that he’s a bastard son of the Romanov family. In the future Russia, the Romanovs are one of two remaining great aristocratic houses, the other being the Makarovs – the Tsar’s family – and the sworn enemy of the Romanovs. Nikolai’s Romanov blood has allowed him to bond with an alien technology known as a Weapon Crest, which gives him heightened abilities. His half-siblings also have these Weapon Crests and enhanced abilities. Unlike Nikolai, they have no conscience and are quite bloodthirsty about getting what they want.

The book starts out with two brief stories to set the tone. The first features Nikolai’s attempt to rescue Captain Arbatov from the firing squad. He’s feeling a little guilty, because he’s the reason Arbatov is facing execution (he charged his stay at the extravagant Hotel Yalta to Arbatov in one of the best stories from volume one). In the second story Nikolai travels to Britain on a diplomatic mission and has to cope with a king who is truly insane.

Next comes the eponymous story “The Great Game,” the heart of the book. A rogue member of the Romanov family has stolen a super-weapon and it is up to Nikolai, with the help of his love/hate interest Jenna Makarov, to recover the weapon. And did I mention that Nikolai’s wife shows up as well?

The last halfof the book has a collection of stories featuring Nikolai and his half-siblings. First, he and Viktor travel to Paris to recover a list of Romanov spies before the Tsar’s men can find it. Next, Nikolai must stop his narcissistic (and homicidal) sister Anastasia from killing a lover who jilted her (and runs into Countessa de Winter, also from the Hotel Yalta, again). After that, he helps his brother Andreas defend the world’s largest brothel from an attack by religious cultists. Konstantin makes sure Nikolai sees the dark side of politics, and his sister Lulu shows him a night he will never forget at the Hellfire Club in Venice. Finally, Nikolai goes on the annual Romanov hunting trip, but all is not as it seems.

If you enjoy light-hearted science-fiction with a little bit of mild R-rated naughtiness, then this is the book is highly recommended. Get it while you can.

I was disappointed to learn that DC will no longer be publishing work from 2000AD (where Nikolai Dante comes from). Reading Johanna’s post (and the comments) over at Cognitive Dissonance I realized that I never saw any promotional push for this book (or any 2000AD or Humanoids book) from DC. I probably did more promotion for the first volume with my Nikolai Dante Contest than DC did with the entire 2000AD Line.

Heidi reports that the 2000AD books will continue, just not under the DC banner. More Nikolai Dante!