Who is Proteus Vex?
27th March 2024
He’s a former soldier for the Imperium Ascendant, the winning side of a colossal galactic war. Following the end of the war, he became a secret agent for the Ascendant, working to clean up the mess which the war left behind. But who is Proteus Vex really?
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Created in 2019 by the team of Mike Carroll and Henry Flint and debuting in 2000 AD Prog 2162 – a Christmas Special! – Proteus Vex quickly proved to be a fan-favourite addition to The Galaxy’s Greatest Comic. With Flint drawing the first adventures with the character, the series was quickly joined by new ongoing artist Jake Lynch, who has been responsible for bringing the stories to life ever since.
For fourteen brutal centuries, the Imperium Ascendant and the Obdurate have clashed in an intergalactic war that spanned planets and peoples. Then the war – and the Obdurate – came to a dramatic end. Now, the galaxies are picking up the pieces, and in the midst of this sprawling, dazzling system of galaxies is Proteus Vex, ex-soldier for the Imperium Ascendant turned super-agent. He’s fast, brutal, and he always gets his prey.
But when he is sent to find his former superior officer, Vex finds himself caught up in a deadly conspiracy…
Vex is an otherworldly creation and then some: he may look strange in appearance, but that’s nothing once you find out the truth about him: he’s actually the host of a creature known as a Flesh Pilot. These tiny humanoid creatures have a symbiotic relationship with the creatures they live inside – making their hosts stronger, faster, and better. Because they pose such a significant threat, Flesh Pilots have been outlawed by the Imperium, making Vex’s hosting of one all the more intriguing. Why are the Imperium so scared of the existence of Flesh Pilots, and what might that mean for Vex himself?
As an agent whose job is to clear up the mess left behind by the war, Proteus Vex is far more hard-edged than your typical space agent: he’s just as likely to hold a knife to your back as to your throat. As Carroll describes him: He’s less ‘James Bond in a tuxedo making smug quips’, more ‘stand on your neck until you tell him what he wants to know’.
As the series begins, Vex is in the middle of bringing a prisoner, Midnight Indicating Shame, back to her homeworld. Although apparently quite docile and innocent, there’s a hidden side to his prisoner which seems to come out whenever she gets hungry…
You can read Proteus Vex’s first stories in a collected edition available through the 2000 AD webstore. His first volume collects together the stories “Another Dawn” and “Shadow Chancellor”: both written by Carroll, with Henry Flint on the first tale, joined by Jake Lynch for the second.
The latest Proteus tales are running in 2000 AD from 27th March 2024, with the story “Devious” in Prog 2375 kicking off a new run for the character! Long-missing and presumed dead, rumours start to swirl about Proteus Vex, creating a legend in his absence. But is Proteus Vex actually dead? You’ll have to read to find out more!
And if that wasn’t enough of an insight into his wild world, have a free 10-page preview of Proteus Vex’s first story on us!
