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I had the honor, nay the pleasure, to attend C2E2 this year thanks to the generous folks from Reed Pop. Was it my fantastic video content? Maybe. Was it my almost award winning comic book reviews? Possibly. Or perhaps it’s just my devilishly good looks… whatever the case may be, I was there and was excited to get a front row seat to the Massive-verse panel.
When I say this panel was stacked with talent, I’m not over exaggerating: Kyle Higgins, Marcelo Costa, Rod Reis, Stefano Simeone, Alec Siegel, and Joe Clark all sat down to talk about their love for the world they’ve created and the future of the brand!
Radiant Black Returns in Issues #29 and #29.5
Radiant Black returns with issues 29 and 29.5 as The Catalyst War continues:
Kyle Higgins: “So in the aftermath of issue 28, Marshall’s gambit during the third trial hasn’t exactly gone according to plan. And there’s a whole lot of people in Chicago that have died. And what you’re seeing here is Premiere, Um, the apocalypse to the Radiance, Four Horsemen coming down to usher in the final protocol.”
Radiant Black Hardcover!
Radiant Black finally has a hard cover collection full of extras including early concept art and a MASSIVE amount of lore and information of your favorite characters!
Kyle Higgins: “Michael (Busuttil) loves a good omnibus. The thing about omnibus editions, especially on creator owner books, is that the only way to do them is if the trade paperbacks sell enough, And fortunately, I can tell you all today that that has been the case.”
Kyle Higgins: “…there’s more than 30 pages of brand new exclusive back matter. We’ve gone in and remastered, some pages, an entire issue in one case, from a coloring standpoint. This is the version that we are really excited to be able to bring out and like I said, we don’t have a firm date yet, but it’s going to be fall of this year.”
Rogue Sun
Some exciting new things are coming for Rogue Sun: Innovative storytelling as well as two new villains: Mad Melody and Divinity. Most notably though is some beautiful new art from Stefano Simeone, best known for Midlife and Megan Man!
Kyle Higgins: “…you might, you might look at this cover and say, well, Kelly (McMahon) did two different covers. Um, You’d be sort of right. This cover is actually published twice on the book but it’s not because there’s two books, it’s because issue 19 of Rogue Sun is actually a flip book”
Kyle Higgins: “…and they’re all narrated from two different perspectives. So, depending on which order you read, it changes the nature of the story. One side is narrated by that shitty dead dad Marcus. And the other is narrated by Dylan as they’re going through the same events.”
Inferno Girl Red
Kyle Higgins: “We have an early look for you here at C2E2 of some killer pages from Erica D’uraso. These are the inks featuring the introduction of two antagonists to book two who are colloquially called the twins.”
No/One
Kyle Higgins: “So we’re racing to the finale here. We’re a little behind on this one as well, issue nine is getting ready to go to the printer. That’s our penultimate issue before our finale and No/One issue 10. I don’t have the firm dates in front of me here, but I will tell you that issue, 10 of no one will be out before San Diego Comic Con in July…part of the backdrop to all of this part of the, I shouldn’t say the backdrop part of the approach to this really contemporary Urban vigilante story is looking at the response that the world has to this character and the different things that are happening because of what they are trying to do with regards to holding very corrupt people accountable. What has happened as a little bit of a butterfly effect is legislation that is being put forward, called proposition 87. That is the preemptive self-defense act and that preemptive self-defense act basically means that if you feel threatened digitally in person in any way, shape, or form, You can go kill that person that you think was a threat to you and you will be found not guilty in court of law. Heading into issue number nine, that legislation passes. Issue number nine is a look at the chaos in Pittsburgh, that results.”
Supermassive 2024!
Supermassive returns with some big events and crazy story threads that will keep us all on our toes! Beautiful variant covers and more breathtaking art from Stefano Simeone will put Supermassive on the minds of comic readers everywhere!
Kyle Higgins: “Supermassive 2024 takes place during the Catalyst war and it features all the repercussions that happen to the characters in this world, as a result of the Catalyst Empire coming to Earth. It’s also being drawn by the incredible Stefano Simeoni.”
C.O.W.L. Returns!
Kyle Higgins: “So C.O.W.L. is something that really we don’t have the Massive-Verse without it for a lot of different reasons. It was the very first creator owned book that I ever did at Image Comics. I did it with the incredible Alec Siegel and Rod Reese right here. It’s about the superhero labor union of 1960, Chicago. It’s also based on a short film that Alec and I made it was my college thesis development at Chapman University called The League and that’s the movie that started my career. Joe Quesada at Marvel saw it he was the Editor in Chief at the time and reached out to me and I started pitching to Marvel. And many years later, we then went and adapted it further. And it became C.O.W.L.”
Alec Siegel: “Yeah, so the first arc of the comic is five issues. And then issue six is it’s the origin story of Grey Raven who was the premier superhero in Chicago in the 30s and 40s…and the sixth issue is a comic book. That’s basically his origin. But it’s done as if they made the comic as if you know, a Marvel type company came to him and said, let’s do your origin story in that kind of ’60s comic book style, so it’s already, we’re playing with like…just kind of doing this fun art style. It was like we wanted to do it in a way where it’s like some kid that’s on the street in the comic book could be holding that book reading that very thing and it also plays with the idea of…the material in the book is very grounded, it’s very, you’re exploring, you know, this institution in Chicago fighting superheroes, what happens when an institution like that succeeds in its mandate like we’ve defeated all the villains, what do we do? We go off into the sunset, how do we perpetuate ourselves? So you’re dealing with those questions and you’re seeing the reality on the ground of how these characters are animating that and then you have the bright shining you know, kind of glossy corporate kind of idea about like what this character’s origin is juxtaposed against what we just believe in.”
Kyle Higgins: “We thought it would be a really cool opportunity and would make a lot of sense to do a new printing of the complete C.O.W.L. collecting that issue six for the first time that’s never been in any of the trade paperbacks before. We also went back and Rod went in to remastered, a whole bunch of pages. Issue four of the original Carl had some fill-in pages Rod went back and drew those all himself brand new. So the entire book has been Illustrated and painted gorgeously by Rod Reis…we’re doing more C.O.W.L.! So we’re putting the band back together for a three issue limit mini series, this is going to complete the 1963 1964 storyline that Alec, Rod, and I started over 10 years ago or exactly 10 years ago at this point. This is going to start coming out in August of this year.”
Rod Reis: “I got so much better doing. I’m so proud of myself when I see this now, and it’s rare for me to come back and see my old work, which I hate, but I see the value and the importance because as Kyle said it’s the book that started everything, including my career as a comic book artist, because previously I I had 15 years as a color artist at DC Comics. And Kyle saw something in me and took me out of this career to start another career from the scratch and I said, okay, okay let’s see what’s going to happen and then I was successful my whole life, just your so so much. Now, it’s different so much happened, since we started with C.O.W.L.”
Radiant Black Audio Book!
Kyle Higgins: “About the audio book, the release date which is coming later this year. Some behind the scenes on it as we put it together. This has been so, so, so much fun to build and to plan for all this time, um, Alex Siegel who cuts, all of our amazing trailers in addition, to Cowell, with Rod, and myself, Alec is going to be continuing his role as sound editor from the No/One audio series, The radiant black audio book, and we have a murderers row of a cast for this thing. I’m not ready to tell you who it is. Who else besides Will and Ryder. But, again stay tuned. Sign up for the Black Market Narrative newsletter. That’s where you’re going to hear all the cast reveals.”
2024 and 2025 are going MASSIVE!
So there we have it! So many exiting updates and expansions, and goodies are coming to the Massive-Verse over the next couple of years! Audience members asked other questions pertaining to The Dead Lucky and The Post Office. Everyone in the room was passionate about this journey, this shared universe in a fantastic world built by some wonderful creators. Myself and Nerd Initiative will continue to keep you updated on Massive-Verse news and and be sure to check out our reviews for previous books and those yet to come!
