First Publishing; $4.95

Toward the waning days of First Comics in the early 1990s, the company was still producing a lot of really interesting material. One of their projects was a two-issue, square-bound format mini-series featuring Judah Maccabee from the pages of Nexus, Hammer of God: Sword of Justice. Judah had been featured in a previous mini-series and would go on to be featured in more when Nexus and its related characters moved to Dark Horse.

Aside from the usual bombastic action and terrific science fiction springboards, it was always good to see the character step out of the shadow of Nexus himself, and this issue is no exception. Creator-writer Mike Baron and writer Roger Salick were teamed with artist Steve Epting, who has illustrated the character in his previous mini-series, for this project.

This is Steve Epting before The Avengers and well before Captain America, but you can see he’s already got the chops that would make him a superstar. Between the script and the art, the reader gets taken on a truly fun ride.

Like a lot of comics from that time, it’s not the easiest to find, but it’s also certainly not very pricey. If you’re a Nexus fan or a Steve Epting fan, it’s well worth the hunt.

– J.C. Vaughn