Rick Remender and Steve Epting are teaming up on Hammerfist, an ongoing series from Image Comics and Remender’s Giant Generator imprint that will launch in August.
The series is about Mike Denton, a hitman/absentee father who must awaken a supernatural weapon powered by love to save his daughter from an ancient darkness called Black Noon.
“Hammerfist is for people who grew up on those unhinged genre films of the VHS era, over-the-top, hard-R, wildly original, but never forgetting to be fun,” Remender told IGN. “A hardboiled crime story that mutates into an ultra-violent, Raimi-style horror story following a low-rent killer who becomes the only thing standing between us and eternal darkness. Getting to see it come to life in the hands of a master like Steve Epting is a dream come true. I’ve wanted to collaborate with him for years, and the pages speak for themselves, cinematic, brutal, and emotional. Paired with Matt Hollingsworth’s color there just isn’t a better art team.”
Here’s the full description from the release:
In Hammerfist, readers meet Mike Denton: a dirtbag hitman, junkie, and absentee father. He’s spent his life chasing the easy fix—drugs, cheap sex, and murder for money—all while failing the one person who still believes he can be better: his daughter.
Now, on the eve of Black Noon—an ancient darkness that erases the light in all things—Mike has to drag himself out of the gutter, awaken a supernatural weapon powered only by love, and fight his way through the living embodiment of evil to save her. This is the story of an unredeemable killer forced to do the one thing he’s avoided his entire life: stand for something other than himself.
“Collaborating with Rick on Hammerfist has been incredible,” Epting said. “The book is unpredictable, gritty and funny. A hardboiled crime story that mutates into fever-dream horror without ever losing the heart underneath. There’s real emotion under all the blood and chaos; we just take the most violent road possible to get there. I can’t wait for readers to see what we’ve been building.”
Here’s a look inside:
Epting, whose credits include everything from Velvet to Captain America, is joined by colorist Matt Hollingsworth. Variant covers are by Jerome Opeña, Nic Klein, Dan Panosian, Daniel Acuña and Andrew Robinson, with a foil variant of Robinson’s cover:
The first issue will arrive Aug. 26.