Twisted and gothic, even by the standards of that blood-soaked publication, subtlety was never the strip's strong point. O'Neill's often staggeringly imaginative illustrations are angular and oppressive, Mills' writing is breathlessly hyperbolic ("You've led the human race into a new DARK AGE! But NEMESIS will AVENGE our DEATHS!"), and there is an unhealthy preoccupation with scenes of torture and grusome death. What saves the strip from being the comic book equivalent of a video nasty, however, is the dark wit and savage satirical intent at work.
Written at the height of Margaret Thatcher's grip on the Brtish public, the fiercely left-wing Mills depicts anarchic anti-heroes violently railing against a bullish, intolerant authority. That the authority in question is the human race thousands of years in the future adds a further dimension; a heavy-handed but effective condemnation of human nature.
Nemesis still runs sporadically in the pages of 2000AD, although O'Neill quit the art chores a few years after its inception; he and Mills have since collaborated on the equally gratuitous Marshal Law. Replacment artists include Bryan Talbot (of Luther Arkwright fame) and John Hicklenton. There are a number of collections of the original six-page instalments available.