Via ComicBook.com, Dark Horse Comics have announced “The Alternates,” a “Minor Threats” spin-off that will reteam writers Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum. This time round, they’ll be joined by co-writer Tim Seeley, artists Christopher Mitten (“Hellboy”) and Tess Fowler (“Kid Lobotomy”), colorist Ian Herring, and letterer Nate Piekos.
The four-issue series follows a group of B-list superheroes — Mary the Multi-Monster, the Tripper, Crab Louie, Kid Curious, and Persona — who sacrificed their lives to protect their hometown Twilight City from an interdimensional invasion. Instead of dying, they wound up spending five years in another reality, “where they lived complex lives in a more four-dimensional existence – expanding both their powers and consciousness.”
Now back home, they’re struggling “to reacclimate to their old lives in a traditional two-dimensional superhero world – in withdrawal from the vivid ones they left behind. When elements from this alternate reality turn up as a dangerous new street drug, some of the heroes band together to destroy it, while others succumb to its temptation.”
Seeley revealed he pitched the series to Oswalt and Blum, saying he loved “Minor Threats,” and “couldn’t help but imagine another team of lovable losers in their world – this time, a squad of forgotten superheroes who got rebooted, and now crave their old lives so bad it borders on addiction.” Blum describes the comic as a love letter to “the early Vertigo comics of the ’90s like ‘Doom Patrol,’ ‘Swamp Thing’ and ‘Animal Man,'” with “forgotten goofy heroes [getting] pulled into a suddenly ‘mature’ existence that both humanizes and alienates them. Tim is such a master and historian of comics, we were so thrilled with the new sandbox he built for us all to play in.”
Oswalt says “‘The Alternates’ is our collective mash note of the entire universe of ’90s alt-comics. The fantastic inks by Christopher Mitten and lush paintings by Tess Fowler make an already amazing comic even better!” The comic marks something of a comeback for Fowler, who’s been struggling with cancer for several years, and focused on commissions and covers instead; “Kid Lobotomy” marked her last interior work in 2017. She previously provided a variant cover for the fourth issue of “Minor Threats” itself.
“The Alternates” #1 will be released on September 13, with a main and variant cover by “Minor Threats” artist Scott Hepburn, as well as variants by Seeley, Fabio Moon, and Martin Simmonds. The first “Minor Threats” paperback, “A Quick End To A Long Beginning,” will be released in the meantime on July 12.
