Nemesis the Warlock

Nemesis

Warlocks are a sexually dimorphic species of aliens who are capable of sorcery. Both males and females are horned, fire-breathing and of demonic appearance; females have a centaur-like quadrupedal morphology while males are bipedal but have unusual combination plantigrade / digitigrade leg joints, somewhat resembling satyrs.

Nemesis the Warlock

The main character and antihero of the series, Nemesis ostensibly fights to free the galaxy from tyranny. Mills decided that with a religious fanatic as the arch-villain, it would be fitting to have a demon as the hero.

Chira

White Warlock and first wife of Nemesis, mother of his son Thoth. Assassinated by agents of Termight.

Magna

Black Warlock and second wife of Nemesis. Jealous of Chira, she swallowed Nemesis' familiar Grobbendonk whole as the first phase of her plan to separate him from his allies, and leaked information to Torquemada that allowed him to locate Chira and Thoth. Killed by Nemesis minutes after their wedding, when her telepathic block failed and he discovered her misdeeds.

Thoth

Son of Nemesis and Chira. As a hideous larva-like infant he hypnotizes Sir Hargan, the Terminator who killed his mother, into believing him to be a cute little human baby that he needed to protect. Years later he grows into a powerful rival to Nemesis, as he blames his father for not being there to save his mother.

Great Uncle Baal

Nemesis' eccentric great uncle and former master of Grobbendonk, banished by Nemesis for his controversial experiments on humans.

Tomas de Torquemada

Primary antagonist of the series, a haughty tyrant and fascist human supremacist who rules the Earth with an iron fist and is hellbent on ridding the universe of all alien life. Through Past life regression it is shown that he was many people from Earth's history, including Matthew Hopkins, Colonel John Chivington, Adolf Hitler and the original Torquemada himself. His motto is "Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave!"

Purity Brown

Human aide to Nemesis. Her father was taken away and presumably killed when she was only fourteen (as revealed in Book Five; The Vengeance of Thoth) by thought detectors for having a dream in which he insulted Torquemada.

Candida de Torquemada

Wife of Tomas de Torquemada and mother of two of his children, both of whom are among those slain in a bus crash caused by Nemesis. On several occasions, including a major plot arc for book 5, Tomas is shown to genuinely love Candida to the extent he is willing to consort with aliens in an effort to prevent her from leaving him.

Sister Stern

Insane wife of Tomas de Torquemada and mother of his third child, whom she occasionally considered impure, so tried to commit Filicide, before Tomas ordered her to commit suicide.

Grand Dragon Mazarin

The leader of Termight after Torquemada's death. A reformer, he ended the persecution of aliens. After a Terminator mutiny upon Torquemada's return he was executed by Tomas via torture.

Nostradamus de Torquemada

Insane brother of Tomas de Torquemada. He was horribly disfigured when Tomas abandoned him during an ambush by the Primords, and was later hidden away in a lunatic asylum to conceal Tomas' disgrace. Nostradamus was originally introduced into the series as Tomas' Grandfather, and not shown to be his brother until Book five.

Grobbendonk

The comical little rat/caterpillar-like alien familiar of Nemesis stolen from his Great Uncle Baal. Grobbendonk speaks Gibberish, a Fringe World dialect. Deliberately eaten alive by Magna days before her wedding to Nemesis.

The ABC Warriors

Robot mercenaries and allies of Nemesis.

The World of Termight

In collected form, this book also features the first three Nemesis stories – Terror Tube, Killer Watt and Olric's Great Quest.

Credo – The Alien Resistance

Takes the war to a variety of planets throughout the galaxy and features a plot by Torquemada to destroy the alien resistance.

The World of Nemesis

Features Chira, Nemesis' mate and the birth of Thoth, son of Nemesis. Chira is killed by imperial assassins and Thoth is adopted by Sir Hargan, his mother's killer.

The Gothic Empire

Originally intended to be the first full-length Nemesis story, other stories were written as an introduction to the character and his world(s), ballooning into the preceding three books. Torquemada is killed at the end of this book. Thoth, growing in power, is still in the 'care' of Sir Hargan and his wife.

The Vengeance of Thoth

Starting ten years after the end of Book Four, an earlier version of Torquemada is brought through time by Thoth, so that he can punish his mother's murderer. Nemesis ends up causing the deaths of Barbarossa de Torquemada and Pandora de Torquemada; offspring of Candida & Tomas. Satanus re-appears.

Torquemurder!

The introduction of the Monad. This book also gives the explanation for Torquemada's "grandfather" Nostradamus' words in the previous book about Termight ending in "a sea of fire and blood".

A five-part story not run under the Nemesis banner, in 2000 AD #520–524. Torquemada consolidates his power on Terra, though is affected by a curious malady, which is eventually revealed to be a plot by Thoth to punish Tomas further, by killing his former incarnations.

The Two Torquemadas

Nemesis and Purity go back in time to 15th-century Spain to retrieve Thoth. Torquemada goes back in time to kill Thoth and prevent his degradation. Tomas de Torquemada meets his namesake.

Purity's Story

During an interlude Purity recalls how she first met Nemesis, remembering details that had previously been blocked from her.

The Deathbringer

Tomas escapes the time wastes into 1980s Britain, leaking time radiation as he does so. Subsequent side effects of the radiation leak create upheaval, and Tomas seizes on this to become variously a slum landlord and chief of police.

The Final Conflict

The last series-length Nemesis story, after more than a decade of appearing only in shorter episodes, as well as "The Hammer of Warlocks", an 18-page series intended as a prelude to this book, telling the story so far and Torquemada's intentions of finding this ultimate weapon against the Warlock. The series ends with Nemesis and Torquemada both destroyed, yet occasionally haunting Earth in spectral forms, tied to the Warlock's "Blitzspear". Purity Brown takes over as leader (president) of Termight, renaming it Terra.

The series Deadlock, by Pat Mills and Henry Flint, was a direct sequel to Nemesis. Prog 2000 (20 September 2016) featured a follow-up Nemesis story (written by Mills and once more drawn by O'Neill) 'Tubular Hells' which reversed the destruction of Nemesis but it has to this point not led to further exploration of the character.

Nemesis the Warlock: The Death of Torquemada was released as a game made for the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum. The C64 version of this game was made by Martech in 1987, programmer Michael J. Archer, musician Rob Hubbard

The video for Shriekback's 1985 single "Nemesis" from the album Oil & Gold features Nemesis the Warlock.[2]

Wizkids / NECA have released three figures of Nemesis the Warlock as part of their Heroclix collectable miniatures game (Rookie, Experienced and Veteran versions). These were only released in the United Kingdom, alongside other 2000AD related figures, as part of the "Indy" expansion to the game. This led to something of an outcry from the American fans of both the game and the character, and this style of "regional" figure-release was not continued in later sets of Heroclix.