The return of CrossGen has been something that has been teased for month. Heck, back when we were at NYCC, Marvel gave out CrossGen buttons and showed off three pbrand new teasers at the Cup O’ Joe panel. It looks like today the information has finally come out as to what the first new CrossGen titles will be.
So what are they? The first book will be Ruse written by Mark Waid with art by Mirco Pierfederici. The book will bring you the story of “world’s greatest detective, Simon Archard, (who) meets the alluring and enigmatic Emma Bishop, a woman who may well be his match and launches him into the greatest caper of his career.” Waid worked on Ruse back in 2001 with Butch Guice, who will be providing covers for the new book, so fans of that series can certainly rejoice at the return. The second new title will be Sigil, written by Mike Carey with art by Leonard Kirk. This book will be about “a 16-year-old girl from South Carolina who gets swept up in a war beyond her understanding and may possess the power to turn the tide in the form of a mysterious symbol on her chest even she doesn’t understand.”
For those not really aware, CrossGen was a comic company that started in 1998 with a shared universe of storytelling like Marvel or DC, with everyone being linked by Sigils (which is fun to keep note of now, what with one of the two new books being the relaunched SIGIL). The books featured from CrossGen did a great job of blending different genres together with fantasy, horror, adventure, and comedy books, as well as the original Victorian detective series Ruse from Waid and Guice. Unfortunately the company filed for bankruptcy back in 2004, but Disney bought their assets later that year. Now that Disney has Marvel, the merging of the two is pretty much a no-brainer, creating a brand new Imprint for Marvel with assumedly brand new stories for a brand new audience (although if these stories will connect to the previous titles aside from thematically is yet to be seen).
As an additional note, both books will apparently be four-issue mini-series and are both set to debut in March. Look for more of these books in your LCS then, and we’ll give you more news as we get it.
