Welcome back to The Rundown, our daily breakdown on comic news stories we missed from the previous day. Have a link to share? Email our team at rundown@multiversitycomics.com.
In case you missed it, “Batman: Fortress” is releasing this May, and Dark Horse announced “Tales From Harrow County: Lost Ones.”
– After retiring from political cartooning last year, The Nib founder Matt Bors is back with the satirical cop procedural “Justice Warriors,” a story of the crimeless Bubble City, where crazed detective Swamp Cop faces the death of a partner and leaves the city’s borders to go inflict unregulated justice on the post-apocalyptic mutants of the Uninhabited Zone. Bors is working alongside cartoonist Ben Clarkson and colorist Felipe Sobreiro on the project, which will be his first ever monthly comic. The six-issue miniseries will be released by AHOY Comics beginning June 8.
– BOOM! Studios is returning to Arrakis with “Dune: The Waters of Kanly,” a four-issue miniseries from Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson and artist Francesco Mortarino, set during the events of Frank Herbert’s original Dune. Readers will follow warmaster Gurney Halleck, one of the champions of House Atreides, who begins living amongst a colony of spice smugglers after their tragic defeat at the hands of the Harkonnens. “In the novel Dune, Gurney Halleck works secretly among the smugglers for two years, building his hatred toward the Harkonnens,” said Brian Herbert. “We loved the opportunity to explore those lost years and tell this story of his plan to avenge what they did to noble House Atreides.” The interquel will feature cover art by Christian Ward, and its first issue hits shelves this May.
– Image is delving further into the horror genre with “The Dark Room” from writer Gerry Duggan, artist Scott Buoncristiano, and colorist Tamra Bonvillain. The original graphic novel chronicles the adventures of Dounia Mahoney, a collector of antiquities who seeks to keep the occult and the dangerous out of ordinary hands, and her quest to acquire a camera containing “an undeveloped photo of the face of true evil” (according to the solicit, which also promises a werewolf, and the “dancing bones” of Times Square with a haunted boom box.) “The Dark Room” releases in hardcover on June 22, and you can check out a four-page preview and a trailer for the book here.
– In further Image Comics news, writer/cartoonist Skottie Young and artist Kyle Strahm are collaborating on the coming-of-age fantasy miniseries “Twig.” The solicit cites both “Bone” and The Dark Crystal as major touch-points for the book, which follows the titular creature on the first day of his new job saving the world. “Kyle and I both grew up in the age of fantasy movies filled with all kinds of critters, creatures, and unlikely heroes on epic quests,” said Young. “This is our love letter to that time, which we’ve never really left!” Strahm elaborated on this, adding “Skottie and I have built a world where sunny landscapes hide creepy dark corners. Every environment Twig travels is a character all its own. And each strange new friend may not be so friendly!” The first of five issues releases May 4 with a cover by Strahm and variants by Young and Peach Momoko.
– Top Cow have announced the dystopian robot boxing comic “Metal Society” from writer Zack Kaplan, artist Guilherme Balbi and colorist Marco Lesko. The five-issue miniseries follows a woman frustrated with her machine-run society, and who challenges influential robots to public one-on-one combat in order to win back the freedom of mankind. The comic comes after two previous speculative sci-fi series from Kaplan, “Eclipse” and “Port of Earth.” Issue #1 releases May 5 with a cover by Balbi.
– Marvel made several assorted announcements, including a new volume of “Marvel’s Voices: Identity,” featuring more stories of the company’s Asian superheroes by Asian creators; a new four-part arc of the Infinity series “X-Men Unlimited” starring Wolverine and Strong Guy by writer/artist Declan Shalvey, kicking off in this week’s issue #22; and a new title for March’s Eternals one-shot, “Eternals: The Undying,” now called “Eternals: The Heretic.” It was also disclosed Academy Award-winning actor F. Murray Abraham is voicing Khonshu on Disney+’s Moon Knight.
Continued below– Ablaze Publishing is chronicling the life of rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix in the graphic biography “Hendrix: Electric Requiem” by writer Mattia Colombara and artist Gianluca Maconi. The comic biography was originally released in Italy, and uses a ’60s psychedelic style to recount the struggles and successes of the rock star. It releases May 18 for US$24.99.
– At an investors’ event, the newly rebranded ViacomCBS (now simply Paramount) announced various new projects, including a series of animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies exclusive to Paramount+, showcasing the villains of the franchise. They will follow Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s upcoming reboot, due out in 2023. They also revealed Nickelodeon’s upcoming animated series Transformers: Earthspark, coming this fall, which Nick Roche subsequently disclosed he worked as a character designer on. Lastly, it was confirmed next year’s Star Trek movie, directed by Matt Shakman, will see the return of Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, and the other members of J.J. Abrams’s version of the original crew.
– The Batman director Matt Reeves spoke to Syfy yesterday, laying out his hopes for the future of this interpretation of the Dark Knight, and confirming plans for a Catwoman spin-off for the first time. He spoke about wanting to incorporate more superhuman villains and other Bat-family vigilantes in later films. “Even the idea of something like Mr. Freeze, that’s such a great story, right? I think there’s actually a grounded version of that story, which could be really powerful,” he said. “I love the fantastical side of Batman, but this iteration … I think it is very comics faithful, but I don’t think that this one doesn’t lean as hard into the fantastical, I guess. But I think, to me, what would be interesting would be to try and unwind the fantastical and see, ‘Well how could that make sense here?’” The Batman releases March 4, and has two planned spin-offs in the works for HBO Max: a Gotham PD prequel series starring Jeffrey Wright’s Commissioner Gordon, and a Penguin series starring Colin Farrell.
– Finally, Fox is developing a “Bloom County” animated TV series, with original creator and Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berkeley Breathed serving as co-writer and executive producer on the project. The series is a surreal piece of comic satire that began as a strip in the 1970s, continuing through to the 2010s. It follows the titular small town and its allegorical politics alongside the antics of Steve Dallas, Bill the Cat and Opus the Penguin. “At the end of Alien, we watched cuddly Sigourney Weaver go down for a long peaceful snooze in cryogenic hyper-sleep after getting chased around by a saliva-spewing maniac, only to be wakened decades later into a world STUFFED with far worse,” said Breathed. “Fox and I have done the identical thing to Opus and the rest of the Bloom County gang, may they forgive us.” The series is currently in development, with an announcement on whether or not the project has been greenlit coming in the future.
