Two veteran superhero writers will return to the genre with a fun concept. Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza — who, between them, have written X-Men, Justice League, Avengers, Superman, X-Force, Astro City, New Warriors and countless other superheroes — are teaming up with artist Stephen Mooney, colorist Triona Tree Farrell and letterer Tyler Smith for Free Agents.
“It’s a superhero series with a twist,” Busiek said. “The Agents were done. They were retired, and had started building new lives, going to college, making themselves a place here on Earth. And then it all starts coming back.”
Image Comics shared more details on the title:
Free Agents introduces readers to a team of young veterans, survivors of a massive interdimensional war: Salvo, Pike, Katari, Shakti, Ridge, Maraud, and Chalice. They’ve fought every day of their existence and won a terrible victory. Now they’re stranded on Earth, free agents for the first time.
But when relics from their long war appear, threatening their chance at better lives, their greatest battle begins. They’ve fought for a million planets. Can they fight to save their own souls?
Here’s a look inside the first issue:
“It took me all of five seconds to jump aboard Free Agents when Kurt got in touch and asked if I’d like to work on a creator-owned book with him,” Mooney said. “Learning that Fabian would also be involved was a massive bonus. I grew up (sorry guys) reading so many legendary superhero runs by these two; getting to create my own with them was an opportunity too tempting to pass up.”
The first issue will also come with variant covers by Kevin Maguire, Erik Larsen and Pete Woods:
“This was an idea that just wouldn’t let itself be ignored,” Busiek said. “It first came up in plans for a crossover project Image Publisher Eric Stephenson and I talked about years ago. The crossover idea died, but the Free Agents wouldn’t. The thought of their series kept resurfacing, saying, ‘Hey, we don’t need any stupid crossover! That’s all backstory! Let us out! Let us exist!’ The thing was, the more I thought about them, the more they felt to me like a series that, much as I liked it, was a very Fabian Nicieza kind of book. So I figured ‘Why not?’ and gave him a call. Besides, this way I can get Fabian to do all the heavy lifting.”
“Whenever Kurt calls and says, ‘Wanna work on something together?’ my answer is always a really fast, ‘yes!’” said Nicieza. “Making Free Agents even more fun is that I’m really proud to produce creator-owned work under the Image banner for the first time.”
The first issue to debut on July 3.