The Warhammer tabletop miniature wargame is returning to comics, this time at Marvel. The company has announced that writer Kieron Gillen and artist Jacen Burrows will serve as the creative team for Warhammer 40,000: Marneus Calgar, which debuts in October.
“I am venerable enough to have bought Rogue Trader in 1987,” Gillen told Marvel.com. “Since then, I like to think every hastily dry-brushed Necron, every badly edge-highlighted Marine, every ignored Harlequin (as painting Motley petrified me) has prepared me for writing the first Warhammer comics for Marvel. If I said, ‘Getting to explore the roots of Marneus Calgar and setting the stage for Marvel’s Warhammer comics is a dream come true,’ I would be betraying everything this grim future should be since ‘dream’ implies the possibility of hope. But getting to do this is the sort of thing Slaanesh would wave in my direction if she wanted me coming over to the tentacle-y side.“
Marvel.com says that the story will focus on the “legendary Space Marine Chapter Master of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Marneus Calgar,” who “leads his elite Ultramarines against humanity’s greatest threats and has had his dark past shrouded in mystery…until now.”
“When we first started working with Marvel on comics, we knew it was going to lead to something exceptional, and it really has,” said Jon Gillard, Games Workshop’s Global Head of Licensing. “We were both keen to focus on one of the most central Warhammer characters there is and tell their origin story, something that Marvel does oh so brilliantly. Kieron’s depth of Warhammer knowledge mixed with his extraordinary comic writing skill has delivered a unique series that further expands upon the already massive 40K lore. As huge comic fans ourselves we couldn’t be more excited about this first expression of our partnership with Marvel.”
Warhammer has a long history in comics and other media. Games Workshop’s sister company, Black Library, used to publish Warhammer comics back in the late 1990s. BOOM! Studios picked up the license circa 2006-2009, while Titan Comics has been the most recent licensee.
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