Tom Morello, the Grammy-winning guitarist and co-founder of Rage Against the Machine, is returning to comics this summer with Leviathan Freedom, a sci-fi miniseries co-created with writer Marc Guggenheim and artist Szymon Kudrański. The five-issue series will be published digitally through Amazon’s ComiXology Originals.
The series is a science fiction reimagining of the story of Robert Smalls, a former slave turned politician who, in 1862, commandeered a Confederate warship and sailed himself, his family and others to freedom.
“For as long as I can remember, I’ve been on a mission to unearth the stories of revolutionaries—the fighters, the visionaries, the ones history either buries or sanitizes beyond recognition,” Morello said. “Their courage, defiance, and unwavering pursuit of justice, often in the face of seemingly impossible odds, have shaped the world, even if their names are too often left out of the narrative. Robert Smalls is one of those heroes. The idea of taking his revolutionary spirit and launching it into the cosmos feels like a perfect extension of his fight.”
In Leviathan Freedom, that story moves to a galaxy divided by civil war, where the Doldrums, a laborer caste essential to the war machine, bear the human cost of the conflict until one man decides to stand against it.
“Leviathan Freedom comes as a reminder that true freedom is rarely given and very often must be taken,” Guggenheim said.
Morello made his comics debut with the Dark Horse series Orchid in 2011. Guggenheim’s comics credits include extensive runs at both Marvel and DC as well as the ComiXology Originals series The Whisper War. He also created the greatest musical/legal drama of all time, Eli Stone. Kudrański is the creator of No Man’s Land and Something Epic, with the latter returning for a new story arc in July.
Leviathan Freedom will feature covers by Kudrański and debuts this summer on ComiXology Originals.