In an interview with Borys Kit of The Hollywood Reporter, Joe Madureira revealed that he’ll be returning Battle Chasers, the smash hit fantasy series he walked away from 20 years ago.
Back in the late ’90s, Battle Chasers was beloved by critics and readers alike, both for Madureira’s captivating storytelling and kinetically gorgeous art. The series also experienced multiple delays, resulting in only nine issues being released over three years.
After leaving Battle Chasers in 2001, Madureira went on to become an acclaimed video game developer. He’s still did a few odd (and awesome) projects for Marvel over the years, but fans of his signature series still held out hope that it would return. In 2017, a Kickstarter campaign for a Battle Chasers video game (Battle Chasers: Nightwar) offered new issues as a reward, but it still didn’t come to pass.
But after two decades, the creator owned series finally returns to Image Comics, with issue #10 picking up right where the last one left off. The new issue will be 32 ad-free pages and is expected to come out near the end of the year. That will be followed by #11 and #12 to complete the first story arc.
Joe Mad fans may be disappointed to learn that he won’t be drawing the series for this revival. Thankfully, he’s enlisted Ludo Lullabi, whose artwork is both exceptional and has a very similar style to the rest of the series. If the unlettered pages provided to The Hollywood Reporter (pictured below) are any indication, Battle Chasers will still be one of the best looking comics on the stands. Madureira will also produce some variant covers for the new issues.
Battle Chasers‘ story begins with a nine year-old girl named Gully searching for her father after he mysteriously vanishes. She enlists the help of a wizard and a war golem to find him. Gully is also being sought after by a disgraced swordsman who was friends with her father. As you might imagine, they encounter all sorts of fantastic and horrible characters along the way.
I’m really not doing the plot justice with that description, though. If you want to catch up on the series before the new issues hit, you can purchase the collected edition here.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login