AfterShock Comics has announced a new project featuring souls escaping from Hell, and the powers that be sending the worst of the worst after them — The Heathens, led by pirate queen Ching Shih.
Co-writers Cullen Bunn and Heath Amodio, who together founded Hustle & Heart Films, are working with artist Sami Kivelä, colorist Jason Wordie and letterer Simon Bowland on the series. Shih’s team will include several other notorious historical figures helping her on her mission, including Wild West outlaw Billy the Kid, gangster Lucky Luciano and Russian con artist Sofia the Golden Hand.
“Anyone who is familiar with me as a creator knows I love historical figures and time periods,” Bunn said in his email newsletter. “They also know I love infusing stories featuring those characters and time periods with a healthy dose of the supernatural. Heath brought the seed of this idea to me, and I loved it from the jump. It has history, villains, even worse villains, supernatural worlds and redemption — everything that I could hope for in a book!”
Here’s the description from AfterShock: When evil men and women escape from the depths of the eternal abyss, the Pirate Queen Lady Shih is sent to retrieve them. But when one of history’s most notorious killers breaks free, even she needs help. Enter the Heathens: Shih, Lucky Luciano, Bumpy Johnson, Sofia the Golden Hand and Billy the Kid. From Hell they came to mete out a justice as dark as their own tormented souls.
“Cullen really focuses my writing,” Amodio said. “I tend to just start writing and whatever’s uncovered is where I go with the story. Cullen is more structured than I am, and that really helps when going back and forth with a story like this. He’s a great writer, so working with him the past couple of years has undoubtedly elevated my own storytelling.”
Check out the variant cover by Andrea Mutti and some interior previews from Kivelä below:
The first issue arrives Nov. 3.