AfterShock Comics has announced that writer Cullen Bunn and artist Mark Torres, the team behind Cold Spots, will reunite for a new miniseries titled Phantom of the Scan.
The story is set 20 after a comet fell to Earth and gave people psychic powers, but they come with a price — every time you use your powers, you lose part of your life force. The story will feature a group of six psychics who come together to bring an end to their gift.
“You’ll see a lot of different psychic powers in the book — you might be familiar with some, others might be a little new to you,” Bunn said. “The ways different characters use their gifts will show some new angles to those ideas you’re familiar with. Our lead character, Matt, is perhaps the most unique: Matt is an omnipath — he possesses many, many psychic powers. All of his powers manifest through ‘a little dead boy’ — a ghost-like figure that accompanies him, invisibly, everywhere he goes. This ghost, Dorian, is decaying. Every time Matt uses a power, Dorian rots more and more, a symbol of how the powers are killing the user.”
Bunn said he was partially influenced by his father’s career for this story.
“My father was a professional hypnotist, and he had a deep fascination with the powers of the mind that he imparted to me,” Bunn said. “But… let’s be honest… at the age of 11 or 12 I somehow saw Cronenberg’s masterpiece Scanners. I’m not sure how I managed to see it. But that head-exploding story of psychic powers stuck with me ever since. So, yes, it’s a big influence. I have been inspired by the potentially deadly nature of mental powers… deadly to the people that possess them… as a horror theme for some time.”
Check out some preview pages below; the series kicks off in April.
