Writer/artist Sean Gordon Murphy is taking a break from the Batman: White Knight universe to reinvent another iconic hero. Murphy is turning his attention to Zorro for a new limited series called Zorro: Man of the Dead.
Man of the Dead overhauls the classic Zorro mythos, placing the masked vigilante in a contemporary Mexican setting and pitting him against a ruthless drug cartel. Zorro himself is depicted as a man who suffered a psychotic break and now believes himself to be the literary character in the flesh. Murphy describes the series as "Don Quixote meets Narcos," which is certainly a unique spin on a 100-year-old franchise.
Check out the slideshow gallery below for an exclusive first look inside Zorro: Man of the Dead #1:
“The idea for this book is Don Quixote meets Narcos, told in a contemporary setting,” said Murphy in a press release. “Diego is a young man who’s convinced that he’s Zorro—as a child, he had a psychotic break after witnessing the murder of his parents by the drug cartel in his village. To cope with the trauma, he embraces the 200-year-old legend of Zorro by putting on the mask, training with the sword, and waging a war against the Narcos to free his people.”
Man of the Dead is published by Massive Publishing and is being released simultaneously through a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter and in comic shops. Kickstarter backers will be able to preorder the series in several different formats, including an oversized "Artist Edition" hardcover. The Kickstarter editions will also feature variant covers from artists like Joe Quesada, Humberto Ramos, Adam Hughes, Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, Walt Simonson and Dan Panosian. The retail release, meanwhile, will feature variant covers by Murphy, Dustin Nguyen, Matteo Scalera and Tony S. Daniel.
"As a Hispanic comic writer and artist, Zorro is such an important character,” said Massive CEO Michael Calero. “He was one of the first and only representations of a Hispanic hero. Not to mention the archetype for so many other great characters. I'm especially honored to have legendary Hispanic creators like Humberto Ramos and Joe Quesada lending such beautiful contributions to the project."
Zorro: Man of the Dead #1 is slated to be released in comic shops and digitally to Kickstarter backers in January 2024.
Elsewhere in the world of comics, Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a new comic book spinoff, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is starting the countdown to issue #150.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
