Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, dc comics, HRL, ryan sook, steve orlando, the new age of dc heroes, the unexpected

New Details, Artwork from Steve Orlando and Ryan Sook's New Age of DC Heroes Book 'The Unexpected'

DC Comics has revealed new details, character profiles, and artwork for the upcoming comic book The Unexpected from Steve Orlando and Ryan Sook. We're just gonna get this out of the way right off the bat, because surely you see the same thing we see…

That's right. The Macho Man Randy Savage! Consider that one unconfirmed for now. But here's some more solid info from a DC Comics website interview with Orlando:

The villain of this book, Alden Quench, is really a citizen of the Multiverse, the same way that [The Dark Tower's] Randall Flagg was. This is a book that is instantly in play with the events of Metal and the Dark Multiverse, the pre-existing Multiverse, and maybe things that you didn't even know were happening in the fabric of the DCU—realities that have been destroyed as far back as CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS or INFINITE CRISIS.

As someone who has walked between the multiversal raindrops, Quench is someone who immediately brings that level of scale to The Unexpected. And then there's the other side—the narrative side. We're pulling together a lot of different stories, we're not just picking up on Metal, we're picking up on the massive architecture of things like FINAL CRISIS. You'll see as the book goes on that some of the biggest events in the DC Universe are woven together here, through Quench and through his opposite: Neon the Unknown.

And Sook:

What I was really hoping to do was give the characters a lasting visual impact, something that will look new and unique but at the same time have the familiar characteristics that you'll be drawn to in a superhero team comic.

Orlando shared some details on the character Firebrand:

So, every day, she has that sacrifice and that tension that the best heroes have. She's got this pull between her good and bad angels, the conflict between the desires and her needs. As you open up the book, word is getting around about her. The DC Universe is starting to notice that there's this woman whose skin is like flint and if you hit her, you spark, and we've heard that she has to get into a fight every 24 hours, and we've also heard that she's never lost. So, as you open up the book, you'll see that now she's becoming a thing. It's the age of YouTube and the age of camera phones and the tough guys of the DC Universe are coming for Firebrand, because they want a shot at the title.

While Sook talked about Viking Judge:

It's all rolled up into this character who has a really unique and beautiful style. Designing her street clothes was actually the easy part. The hard part was trying to make her into Thor (laughs), because when you take a normal, sort of glam girl from New York City and turn her into this Viking terror, you want to bridge the gap. You have to design that character in both iterations, so she's a Viking Judge, but her Viking gear has some of that fashion glam to it as well.

Read the full interview at DC Comics' website. The Unexpected hits stores in June.

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