Announced over at CBR, the teased second book from Max Bemis coming out of BOOM! Studios has been revealed: “Evil Empire,” with artist Ransom Getty.
Starring a young rapper named Reese, the book finds a world not yet ravished by evil Big Brother-esque corporations but one on the verge of becoming the next Orwellian nightmare. The series, planned for 16 issues at this time, will find Reese rising up to oppose the titular evil empire. As Bemis says in the interview,
The basic idea is that we’re doing the prequel to every genre movie ever that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, where an evil empire is ruling the world: “The Matrix,” “Star Wars,” even if you want to expand a little bit, there’s “The Walking Dead,” where there’s some kind of supernatural force involved. There’s always something that has taken over the world, some kind of dark leader, and a smarmy rebel has to come and save the world. This is usually where a lot of movies and comic books start. We thought, “How can you tell the story of our modern society evolving into this megalomaniacal, post-apocalyptic, evil empire?”
Unlike with “Polarity” which starred a facsimile of Bemis himself, Reese will be entirely her own, comparing her instead to someone like Lauryn Hill or Kanye West — a politically minded musician with an influential spot but controversial statements. It’s certainly an interesting analogy to make, and one that ostensibly bodes well for the series.
The book launches in March of next year from BOOM! Studios.
