In 2026, Dynamite Entertainment teams with Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products to finally do what somehow never happened in the ’80s: bring Thundarr the Barbarian to comics. Writer Jason Aaron — whose mythic resume runs from Thor to Conan the Barbarian — isn’t just excited; he’s protective.
“Thundarr the Barbarian was absolutely my favorite Saturday morning cartoon,” he told me on a gray day back in November 2025. “I was such a Saturday morning kid… Thundarr kind of blew me away when I first discovered it, and it’s stuck with me since.”
That lifelong imprint is the north star for a debut series that reunites Thundarr, Princess Ariel, and Ookla the Mok against classic wizards and mutant horrors. Plus, for the first time ever, the series will reveal Thundarr’s origin (including his first encounters with Ariel, Ookla, and the Sunsword). Artist Kewber Baal (Vampirella, James Bond) leads the visuals, with Dynamite assembling a murderers’ row of variant covers from the likes of Rob Liefeld, Dan Panosian, Francesco Mattina, Michael Cho, Joseph Michael Linsner, and Björn Barends, among others.
Main cover by Michael Cho. Courtesy of Dynamite.
Saturday Morning DNA
Aaron laughs at how obvious this pairing might seem in hindsight.
“Even if you don’t know me, if you’ve read my work, you could probably extrapolate I’m a huge Thundarr fan,” Aaron said. “That show, those characters, and that setting helped shape and distill a lot of what I was into as a kid — you can trace direct threads from that time in my life to what I’ve spent the last 20 years doing.”
Part of the fascination is Thundarr’s genre smoothie: It’s barbarian fantasy smashed into post-apocalyptic sci-fi.
“It was my chocolate and peanut butter,” Aaron said. “A landscape scattered with ruined cars and battleships, wild wizards running around — Road Warrior meets Robert E. Howard. Thundarr is those two things smashed together into the most delicious thing imaginable.”
Gerber, Toth, Kirby — And Not Breaking The Toys
Despite a creative pedigree that includes Steve Gerber (series co-creator), Alex Toth, and Jack Kirby, the hero never had a comic. That history weighed on Aaron when he opened a blank script page.
“I realized I felt more precious about Thundarr than anything else I’ve written,” Aaron said. “I didn’t want to do a wild, dark take. My first issue script is full of references and images pulled from episodes — the first scene has characters from five or six different episodes all in one place. Even when a crate of ‘guns’ shows up, they’re those Saturday-morning laser rods from the cartoon.”
That fidelity extends to action logic.
“On the show, Thundarr could slice a tree that falls on rat-guys, but he couldn’t slice them,” Aaron said. “I found myself not wanting to go too far left of the field — at least initially.”
Not final art. Courtesy of Dynamite.
“Not an Average Tuesday”
Reverence doesn’t mean small stakes; Aaron wanted this book to feel essential.
“Same way I approached Star Wars: [It’s] not a story that happens on an average Tuesday,” Aaron said. “If you don’t read this, you’re missing part of the saga.”
His pitch crystallized as “the biggest episode of Thundarr we’ve ever seen.” Expect a Council of Wizards moment — Aaron nods to how the cartoon teased it — where multiple big bads combine forces.
“We bring back a lot of those wizards,” Aaron said. “They come together to do one incredibly powerful spell to rid themselves of meddlesome humans once and for all.”
And, yes, the book will travel back to 1994, the catastrophe from the opening credits when a comet rips between Earth and the Moon.
“We go to that day and to the 2,000-years-later wasteland—while bringing deeper emotional weight than you could do on Saturday mornings,” Aaron said.
Not final art. Courtesy of Dynamite.
Same Great Hits, Louder Volume
Fans will also see familiar faces, including Gemini and Mindok, now united in revenge.
“All my favorite pieces and characters are woven in there,” Aaron said. “You get references to six or seven episodes within the first five pages of issue #1. We’re playing the hits — but we’re also pushing into places the show only hinted at, like the leads’ origin.”
And there’s still a little elbow room to get a little bit gnarlier, too.
“Gerber complained many times about pushback on violence,” Aaron said. “We push it a little further. It still feels like Thundarr, but we’re doing what you couldn’t in 1980.”
Kewber Baal’s Apocalypse
Aaron praises Baal for nailing the show’s look without pastiche.
“He’s absolutely killed it in terms of the setting,” Aaron said. “Even though it’s 2,000 years later, the buildings should look like they toppled over yesterday. Scattered husks of cars, a bit of Planet of the Apes energy — he pours in lush detail and then nails the action. This is an action-adventure book, just like the show.”
The Sunsword, naturally, matters to the larger narrative. Aaron even teases its rules: “Other people have held that sword, and not everybody can just trigger it. It’s not a lightsaber where anybody presses a button.”
So, what would he do with said magical sword if he had it for a day? Aaron just grinned.
“I’d probably just put it on a pedestal and show it off,” Aaron said. “Then maybe I’d take it to wherever YouTube TV and Disney are meeting and help settle that debate so I can get my sports channels back.”
The First Comic Adventure at Last
For a property born from comics titans yet never granted its own comic, the wait’s been long. Aaron’s goal is to welcome newcomers while giving lifers goosebumps.
“I want people who watched it religiously, like I did, to feel like this is the same thing,” Aaron said. “It’s a direct extension of the show — and also the most epic adventure yet.”
Strap in: suns up, swords out.
Thundarr the Barbarian #1 drops next week (January 21) via Dynamite.
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