illogical extreme: thedeadairchannel029
Felt remarkably pleased with myself that I managed to get a script done the week of New York Comic Con, therefore not falling behind on anything.
I then promptly caught the flu and lost a solid week. It then turned out to be a flu with a long tail, and I only now feel like I'm only just getting back up to normal speed. Thus, I ended up behind on everything.
However, this is a big release week for me, with two #1s in comic stores tomorrow:
SPIDER-WOMAN #1
This is my first proper work for Marvel since I wrote Loki: The Liar back in 2023/4. It's been a real passion project for myself and editor Kaeden McGahey.
Andrea Broccardo is a wonderful artistic collaborator, and he's been bringing so much flare to the book. I have issue 4 pages in my inbox featuring a major guest character, that are absolutely next level.
Jessica Drew is burdened with the Carnage symbiote at the beginning of our story, but this is not really a symbiote book- it's far more street level, with short story arcs that bring Jess face to face with the terrible things that lurk in the shadows of New York- a city where histories are stacked on top of each other, and the hungry and desperate have clawed against each other for centuries. It's a book about the sins of cities.
From a certain angle, it's the most Dark Patterns-esque thing I've written since Dark Patterns. I hope you enjoy it.
MAD SCIENCE DIVISION #1
Oh how I love this bonkers thing.
Mad Science Division is the only creator owned project I'm releasing this year, with my dear friend Brian Level. It's very much a melding of minds between the two of us, it's gross and violent and people tell us that it's funny.
I suspect that if Zach Cregger's Resident Evil made you laugh as hard as it did me this summer, you will find this book to be a good time.
M.A.S.K. #6
The end of our first arc is here already. And it's an extremely explosive one- this is where we really smash the action figures together, and really get to see what Matt Trakker's capable of when the things he cares about are at stake.
Other things have been announced, because that happens at cons like New York:
GREEN LANTERN: DOOMED COSMOS
It's Hal Jordan's turn to face The Horrors. This was previously referred to as Project Bolt in this newsletter. Because I wrote it while religiously listening to Bolt Thrower. An audacious, over the top and tongue-in-cheek take on the source material, but actually proved an interesting challenge to write. I've never written war stories on a grand scale before, where military tactics and regulations come into play. And Kyle Hotz is bloody drawing it, which I still can't quite believe.
I often get asked when I'll write more Azrael, and this is it, at least for the time being- as this is an elseworlds in which his Order of St Dumas conquered the planet and most of the universe to boot. Taking his 90s extremeness to its illogical extreme. (Ness.) People online seem excited for this one, and I am too. Let's have some fun.
THE PURGE
With IDW. Previously Project Expel. My hope here is that, with Juan Jose Rip on board, we can make a comic that'll actually be more gross and visceral than any of the films so far. If you hire me to write a horror comic, you're going to get a horror comic. I handed in the first script recently, and really didn't hold anything back. It was met with enthusiasm, so it feels like we're on the right track.
TERMINATOR: VALENTINE'S DAY SPECIAL
Couldn't say no to this when Dynamite asked me about it. I love the first Terminator film with a vengeance, and I was tasked to write something set right after that movie. The year of Terminator was also the year of the Challenger disaster. The American approach to space flight and to satellite launch changed forever. This is a comic about that. There's a love story in there too, natch. And machine guns. There are so many stories to tell in that universe that have a tendency to be swallowed whole by preoccupation the Connor family and their prophetic troubles, which is not the interesting part of the original film at all.
Look at these wonderful, mad covers:
This was Project Spark, by the way. At this rate I'm almost out of project codenames. Just Sledgehammer and Pig still to be revealed, I think, and those are a while out.
It is funny how schedules shake out. I've seen people bestowing me with the dubious and much-passed-around honour of "busiest person in comics". But Doomed Cosmos is already wholly written, as is Terminator, as is Mad Science Division. The Purge slots into place where Shredder sat in my writing schedule.
That said, I have to hand in the final issue of Shredder this week, around a bunch of script notes that need addressed for various things, and a couple of outlines that need delivered rather pressingly. It's going to be a bit of a manic one.
Nightwing 143 came out since I last wrote, and people seemed to really enjoy seeing Nightwing and Robin as a team again. I think it's a fun issue, and definitely a turning point for Nightwing's character arc after everything we've put him through after the last year. This month, we return to Bludhaven for a showdown that's been a long time coming, as we put Nightwing and Mayor Bisogni in the same room together at last.
We had a friend visit for the first time last week, who asked how long it had taken to put up our Halloween decor. We had to tell him our apartment looks like that year round. Over the season I thoroughly enjoyed Fangoria's examination of the truly bonkers Texas Chainsaw Massacre 4, and why some of us like this sort of broken, janky movie. Shlock and jank can sometimes be a direct line to where heads and cultures were at in the time a piece of art was made. Like tics one can't avoid, they reveal more than they mean to.
On the 31st we watched the Exorcist in the cinema. If you ever get the chance to see that film on a big screen with an audience, go. It is always an excellent- essentially perfect- film, but I find that in the theatre it's transformed. It all but vibrates with the weight of its subject matter, and you'll hear gasps every time a subliminal Pazuzu face flashes onto the screen.
We had one person openly praying in our screening. Which wasn't ideal, but at least she wasn't on her fucking phone.
I've been rereading Le Carré of late, particularly the George Smiley books. British spy-thriller comfort food that only makes me slightly very homesick. It's interesting in revisiting the early books that they're more spy-adjacent than they are outright spy novels. Yes, the homicidal culprits are generally practicing tradecraft of some kind or another, but the crimes and how they're deducted in Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality wouldn't be out of place in Conan Doyle or Christie stories. This is not the case in the later, longer books, Smiley's People et al, where we really do see the template for things like Slow Horses.
Next I'm eyeing China Mievelle's The Rouse, which looks and sounds wonderful. But it's also 1200 bloody pages, and I don't know when I'll have time to properly sit and chew on it in a way that will do it justice. The monthly comic book release schedule waits for no writer...
This has been thedeadairchannel. A cursed sound from the once-buried old tin whistle of Dan Watters. Please do subscribe.
Upcoming releases:
Nov 4th: M.A.S.K. #6
Nov 4th: Mad Science Division #1
Nov 4th: Spider-Woman #1
Nov 18th: Nightwing #144
Nov 25th: Shredder #14
