Last year, Skybound Entertainment, the company founded by David Alpert and The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, teamed up with Universal Pictures not only to bring us the Dracula comedy Renfield, but also the four-issue comic book limited series Universal Monsters: Dracula. Now The Hollywood Reporter has broken the news that there’s another Universal Monsters comic book series coming out of this Skybound and Universal partnership: Universal Monsters: Creature from the Black Lagoon Lives! Like the Dracula series, the Creature from the Black Lagoon series will consist of four issues, but while the Dracula comic was an adaptation of the classic Universal film, this Creature from the Black Lagoon series tells “a brand-new story featuring beloved Gill-Man.”
Written by Dan Watters (Lucifer) and Ram V (The Many Deaths of Laila Starr), with Matthew Roberts, the co-creator of Manifest Destiny, providing the artwork and Dave Stewart acting as colorist, Creature from the Black Lagoon Lives is a modern day-set tale of suspense, intrigue, and terror that connects to the original movie. The limited series introduces new characters such as journalist Kate Marsden and serial killer Darwin Collier while also bringing back Dr. Edwin Thompson, the scientist whose face got mangled by the Gill-Man and was later covered in bandages. The story sees journalist Marsden hunt a notorious serial killer in the heart of the Amazon. Hot on the trail of this madman, she soon encounters an unexpected new threat – the Creature from the Black Lagoon – and must determine if he is friend or foe.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Universal Monsters comics line is “intended to pair bold-faced comic industry names with the studio’s stable of iconic horror creatures.” Skybound editorial director Alex Antone told them “each book in the Universal Monsters line will feel different from the last, with each creative team bringing their own unique flavor to the iconic horror characters.”
Creature from the Black Lagoon is my favorite of the Universal Monsters franchises and nearly seventy years have gone by since the Creature‘s trilogy came to an end. (Thankfully, we got the unofficial entry The Monster Squad along the way.) So I’m excited to hear that we’re finally going to have a new Gill-Man story to experience soon.
The first issue of Universal Monsters: Creature from the Black Lagoon Lives is scheduled to reach store shelves on April 24th. Will you be picking up a copy? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
A preview of the first five pages of issue #1 can be seen at the Hollywood Reporter link, along with a look at the various covers.