News roundup: ‘Wonder Woman Earth One’ finale, Pepose lands at AfterShock, NFL vet launches Kickstarter

Wonder Woman Earth One Vol. 3

Cover by Yanick Paquette and Nathan Fairbairn

DC on Monday announced a third a final volume of writer Grant Morrison and artist Yanick Paquette’s Wonder Woman: Earth One graphic novel trilogy, to debut in March of next year.

The plot, per DC: Diana, now queen of the Amazons, must assemble the disparate Amazonian tribes for the first time in a millennium. Max Lord’s assault on Paradise Island with his destructive A.R.E.S. armors is on the horizon, and in order to weather the war that is coming, Wonder Woman will need the full might of her sisters by her side! Can Diana finally bring her message of peace to Man’s World, or will Max Lord’s war burn the world and the Amazons to ashes?

DC’s Earth One series is effectively an Ultimate Universe take on its core superheroes, in graphic novel form. It also includes two volumes of Green Lantern by Gabriel Hardman and Corinna Bechko, Batman by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank, and Superman by J. Michael Straczynski and Shane Davis.

Wonder Woman: Earth One Vol. 3 is scheduled to publish March 9.

Scout’s Honor

Cover by Andy Clarke and Jose Villarrubia

AfterShock Comics on Tuesday announced Scout’s Honor, a new series by writer David Pepose (Spencer & Locke, Going to the Chapel), artist Luca Casalanguida, colorist Matt Milla and letterer Carlos Mangual, due to launch in January.

The plot, per AfterShock: Years after a nuclear apocalypse, a new society has risen from the ashes…and their bible is an old Ranger Scout manual. A young Ranger Scout named Kit has endured the harsh survivalist upbringing needed to conquer the irradiated Colorado Badlands. But after discovering a terrible secret once lost to history, Kit must risk everything on a dangerous quest to uncover the truth behind the Ranger Scouts’ doctrine. 

“From their uniforms to their manuals to their bylaws, the Boy Scouts as an organization has this kind of pageantry and regulations that can often feel religious,” Pepose said in a news release. “The idea of history being like a game of telephone felt like some exciting narrative territory to explore, and the idea of the Boy Scout ethos mutating into this hypermasculine survivalist cult felt eerily plausible given the state of the world today. Whether it takes weeks or hundreds of years, eventually the truth will come out — and having to reorient yourself in the face of these startling revelations can be challenging and painful.”

Issue #1 is due out Jan. 6.

The Trap

Former Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs, writer Kyle Higgins (Ultraman, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers), artist Danilo Beyruth, colorist Tamra Bonvillain, letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou and designer Sasha E. Head are creating The Trap, a 120-page sci-fi graphic novel, now funding on Kickstarter

The plot, per a news release: Jaylen Robinson is a rising sports star from a not-so-great part of the galaxy: Earth. He’s worked hard his whole life. Everyone’s saying that Jaylen is the Next Big Thing for the interstellar sport of the future: surfriding. The future is his. This is his chance. Until it’s not.

Days before a big race, everything changes. Jaylen’s surfrider board needs to be repaired, but he doesn’t have the money and he doesn’t have very many options. He’s desperate —  desperate enough to agree to boost the ship belonging to one of Earth’s Interstellar Senators. But when the job goes wrong and Jaylen accidentally shoots the senator, his once-promising sports career threatens to succumb to The Trap.

“Before I played professional football, my life was very different,” said Briggs, a seven-time Pro Bowl linebacker. “I grew up in Sacramento, California, during the 1980s and 1990s, with my mother and two older sisters. But while many people hear ‘Sacramento’ and associate it with a place of power and decision making in the state of California, the reality— for many of its residents— is anything but. Our family struggled no differently than most in the south area. There were times when the pantry was bare and the fridge was empty. Days or weeks without power. Waking up to cold showers before school. For those of us who came of age in an environment like this, we have a simple name for it: The Trap. Put simply, the name translates to a community that has been failed by its governing bodies. The Trap is both a neighborhood and a resulting way of life— a system designed to keep you from succeeding.”

To support the campaign, visit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/457252441/467010265?ref=cy9014&token=dc248aab.

Dan Grote is the editor-in-chief of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts WMQ&A: The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Winston Wisdom.