Nester is a Violent Maniac.
Remember Nester? Probably not. He’s this guy:
Nester, seen here detailing the time he captured the Red October. I know that sounds like a joke caption but it really isn't.
This cocky motherfucker appeared in Nintendo Power until the end of 1993. He was the co-star of Howard & Nester, the epic comic adventures of Howard Phillips, Nintendo spokesectuive. Howard and Nester got into various problems (all of them caused by Nester being an overly self-assured dick) which inevitably led to them somehow being inside of a Nintendo. Then Howard would completely obliterate Nester at something. They were awesome, especially to kids, and they were a big part of making NP feel so personal. Eventually, when the real Howard Phillips left Nintendo (for JVC. Seriously?), the comic became Nester’s Adventures, and Nester went kind of crazy without Howard’s fatherly influence. For the most part, the comic kept its greatness.
However, some of them were completely insane, and that’s saying something for a comic about a 3 foot tall balding teenager with a perfectly circular head and Cloud Strife hair with schizophrenia. Just look at this one from issue 30:
Wouldn’t it be funny if this were the whole comic? I should just leave it out of context.
Here, we have Nester, who is apparently now a spiteful, murderous box car derby driver, destroying other kids’ cars for no particular reason other than that he takes sadistic pleasure in it. Not many kids would be tried as an adult for something they did in a box car derby, but I think this would be enough to convince a judge that the only place Nester is safe is in a cell guarded by 4 of the ass-whompingest guards the state has to offer. I swear, he’s supposed to be the hero of this comic. But look at the expression on his face in that last panel! He clearly takes very sick pleasure in watching these kids’ dreams go out in a storm of fire and shattered soap box.
Here we see the twist to the story, where the referee hits the “F-Zero Virtual Reality” button all homemade wooden cars have, Nester sees himself competing in the F-Zero tournament. Because logically, the best thing to do when you have a kid with violent tendencies is put him in an environment where he sees the cars he’s ramming as evil space aliens to defeat by ramming, with support and bonus tips on murder from a superhero. By the time his car is completely destroyed, the referee finally comes to his senses and realizes that he needs to get Nester into police hands now before he goes on a shooting spree in a shopping mall.
As crazy as this makes him look, Nester was still totally awesome. The comic ended in 1994, but Nester continued to crop up for years, in a couple of one-shot comics in Nintendo Power, disguised as “Lark” for some reason in Pilotwings 64, and even in his own game for the Virtual Boy, Nester’s Funky Bowling. It was, uh, funky.
I’d love to see Nester make a comeback. I know it’ll never happen, because honestly I don’t see any way it would work, but I’d love it if for absolutely no reason the comic began appearing in NP again and Nester started appearing in Chinatown Wars and Madworld. Judging from this comic, he’d be right at home.
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