The Imposter

Is there another Ivan Brandon “Nemesis” series in the works? Because the wrap-up to this issue feels like the end of Act II, not the full-on conclusion of the story. This is really the eighth issue of Brandon’s Nemesis saga, which began with “Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape,” the most ambitious of the four different series bearing those first three words. But it certainly does feel as if this “Nemesis: The Imposters” series was the second act of a longer story. And if Act I — in “Escape,” which was more than a little bit like “The Prisoner” meets Philip K. Dick — was about disorientation and the shifting lens of reality, and if Act II — in “The Imposters,” which has been “Mulholland Drive”-era David Lynch meets Scorcese meets Philip K. Dick — was about uncertainty and doubling, then what will Act III offer, if we ever see it? Answers, one would hope. And not answers in an info-dump, Wikipedia kind of way. And, yes, the finale of “Lost” comes to mind as a particularly recent example o

With only one issue left, “Nemesis: The Imposters” begins to wrap things up in this issue with the larger plot becoming apparent. Except not really. Things aren’t that simple with Ivan Brandon and Tom Tresser. For every revelation, there are two new questions. Sure, we learn about the function of the fake Joker from the first issue, but that only raises more questions about the men who tried to use that to throw Tresser off his game. Everything in this comic (and the series) comes back to the idea of an imposter. The Joker wasn’t the real Joker. Tom Tresser isn’t really Tom Tresser. Seemingly legitimate, respected businessmen are criminals. No one is who they appear to be save Wonder Woman, who is, at best, an observer, much like the seemingly real Tom Tresser. The actors in this story are all fakes, imposters, cheap con men, while the real people are on the sidelines. If everyone in the story is an imposter, how real is the story? That question isn’t asked in the comic, but ties in