John Ridley and Stefano Raffaele, the team behind DC’s GCPD: The Blue Wall, will re-team for a conspiracy-laden action series from IDW. The Ministry of Compliance will feature a secret cabal of aliens who are running the world who believe they’re doing the right thing for humanity — but what happens when they start fighting amongst themselves?
They’re joined by colorist Brad Anderson on the IDW Originals series.
“I’ve been real fortunate to have had many ‘phases’ in my career, from starting out writing on The Martin Show all the way up to 12 Years A Slave and everything that flowed from it. But there’s always going to be part of me which is the kid who fell in love with storytelling by way of comic books. And to be real this is the craft that brings me the most joy. The trio of Avigail, Quinn and Kingsley are easily my three favorite characters in thirty-plus years of creating,” Ridley said.
Here are the details from IDW:
For 37 years, humanity has been manipulated by an extraterrestrial organization called the Devolution. Utilizing 13 ministries, these cunning alien agents have infiltrated every aspect of humanity’s culture, weakening civilization by strategically destabilizing it and flooding the planet with misinformation to accelerate chaos and division among mankind. This has all been in an effort to take over and reshape the planet, and these secretive saboteurs truly believe they are helping humanity in the long run. But what happens when the interstellar operatives begin to turn on each other, and humanity is caught in the middle of the cosmic conflict?
“And, yeah, in the series there’s a lot of literal and figurative backstabbing and heads rolling as the three quietly lead the charge to take over all of Earth, which is quite the chore… The Ministry of Compliance, however, is really about these three trying to figure out who they are, and what they mean to each other which are the basics of human nature. Sometimes it takes ‘aliens’ to show us a little something about ourselves,” Ridley said.
Here’s a (fairly graphic) preview of the first issue:
“When I did read the script I fell in love with the story right away. It was just perfect. The drama, the action, the social and political outcry, and a lot of sword fights, and deeply built characters. It was just perfect,” Raffaele said.
Look for the first issue on Nov. 15.