There was a time when, if you'd asked me if I were game for a third Bill & Ted movie, I would have screamed the words "Wyld Stallyns" in your face and then promptly busted out my air guitar in anticipatory celebration. However, now that it's been several years since the rumors of Bill & Ted gearing up for a third adventure have passed, I find myself reluctantly losing faith in the hope that Keanu Reeves' wavering intentions to make a third film in the series will ever become a reality.
Thankfully, the indie comic book publisher BOOM! Studios has plans to continue their line of Bill & Ted shenanigans with a brand-new series launching in June of this year called BILL & TED SAVE THE UNIVERSE! From writer Brain Joines (IMAGINE AGENTS) and artist Bachan with covers by Derek Charm, in the comic best buds Bill and Ted will find that strange things are afoot in the cosmos, and, as a result, the Wyld Stallyns are pulled into an intergalactic conflict between a group of fans looking to spread the word of their music and a rigid alien law-enforcement officer who thinks their music does more harm than good.
In speaking about the project, Joines told Comicbook.com that, "In Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the duo was tasked with creating a song to save the universe. While they never got around to that, fast forward a couple centuries, and their music is now something galaxies fight over. In Bill & Ted Save the Universe, Bill & Ted's music is supposed to bring peace to the cosmos, but peace doesn't just happen overnight — there's always resistance to anything that rattles the status quo. It's such a broad, fun, goofy tale that as long as you maintain those levels, there's really nothing that's off the table in terms of where you take the story and the characters. They've already time-traveled and visited the afterlife — why NOT send them on some big intergalactic adventure next?”
Hmmm … this sounds a tad familiar, no? After all, it wasn't long ago when Keanu Reeves himself came forward about plans for a third film and stated the following, “There’s a cool story. Basically, they’re supposed to write a song to save the world and they haven’t done that yet. So the pressure of having to save the world — their marriages are falling apart, their kids are kind of mad at them. But then someone comes from the future and tells them if they don’t write the song it’s just not the world, it’s the universe. So they have to save the universe because time is breaking apart.”
Personally, I've been keeping count, and this will mark Joines and Bachan's fourth project together for BOOM! Studios. Their first collaborative effort, IMAGINE AGENTS, I'd found to be positively delightful. In fact, that book was once rumored to be turned into a film with none other than Michael Keaton attached to produce and star in the picture. Honestly, I really hope that project isn't dead, because I loved IMAGINE AGENTS, and would very much like to see it adapted for the big screen. Furthermore, Joines and Bachan also joined forces on the BOOM! Studios comic book releases of BILL & TED'S MOST TRIUMPHANT RETURN and BILL & TED GO TO HELL. I've read both of those as well, and they were everything I could have wanted them to be. Joines really has a knack for writing the characters while Bachan's artwork is both playful and (at times) totally metal.
In talking about his excitement to return to the franshie and its dim-witted but lovable characters, Bachan offered this comment, “I'm excited to be paired with [Bachan] again and to see what he does! He did such a great job with the characters for Bill & Ted Go to Hell and now he gets to combine that with the same ‘freak-flag’ design style he used for Imagine Agents, only now with alien races.”
While some of us hope and pray for there to one day be a third installment of the BILL & TED film series, it's nice to know that their madcap adventures live on courtesy of the comic book page, and that such a capable team are the ones helping them to spread the word that all of us should "be excellent to each other".
BILL & TED SAVE THE UNIVERSE will hit comic book stands beginning with issue #1 in the Summer of 2017.