Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum, the showrunners behind the unjustly canceled Hulu series Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K., will co-write a new series for Dark Horse — Minor Threats, “a genre-bending crime drama about superheroes and villains and the last gasp of the colorful innocent days of the silver and bronze era of comics before they are dragged into the grit-soaked modern times.”
They’re joined by artist Scott Hepburn, with colors by Ian Herring and letters by Nate Piekos, on this four-issue series.
“Every comic book fan dreams of creating their own universe,” said Oswalt. “This one is mine and Jordan’s. There is fun and danger and violence and sadness just like in real life, but with WAY brighter colors. I can’t wait to see you guys experience it.”
The description of the project reads: It’s hard out there for a supervillain. Not the world conquerors, chaos engines, or arch-nemeses… but the little guys, the career criminals. The ones who put on uniforms, knock over jewelry stores, and get tied to telephone poles before the hero swings off to face the actual big bad. Times are tough for costumed crooks… and they’re about to get much worse. The psychotic Stickman has done the unthinkable and murdered Kid Dusk, sidekick to Twilight City’s premier crime-fighter, The Insomniac. The Insomniac’s teammates, The Continuum, are tearing Twilight apart, turning it into a terrifying police state–desperate to capture the Stickman and stop the Insomniac from “crossing that final line” in which he may never come back from. Caught in the middle are the small-time c-list villains, finding it impossible to pull jobs or even walk down the street without being harassed by these heroes. With a bounty on the Stickman’s head, former villain Playtime decides to put together a ragtag team of equally disgruntled supervillains to take down the Stickman and kill him themselves. Leading her on a dark journey into the criminal underbelly she’s tried so hard to escape.
“This is our love letter to superhero comics and crime fiction,” Blum said. “An underdog story of inept costumed criminals in over their heads, trying to survive an unforgiving city filled with caped gods, fallen kaiju, and traffic causing time vortexes. Everyday crooks in a fantastical world trying to get theirs.”
In addition to M.O.D.O.K., Blum also worked on TV’s American Dad and Community. Oswalt, meanwhile, has been featured in several TV shows, including Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Justified and The Goldbergs. Hepburn worked with both of them on the Marvel miniseries M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games, and has also drawn Cosmic Ghost Rider, Drax and many more.
“Work like this is why I’ve always wanted to be a comic book artist,” Hepburn said. “Patton, Jordan, and myself are in a three-way battle of one-ups-manship to prove who loves this book more.”
Look for the first issue on Aug. 24.
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