Smallville creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar are leaving superheroes behind in favor of a martial-arts drama called Badlands.

AMC has ordered a six-episode first season that will feature a warrior traveling with a young boy “across a dangerous land to find enlightenment.”

The new series is based in part on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. In that 16th-century work, a Buddhist monk travels to India to obtain sacred texts. The book has inspired everything from direct adaptations and Shaw Brothers films to the original Dragon Ball manga.

Gough and Millar are also writing and executive producing an adaptation of Terry Brooks' fantasy epic Shanarra, which was given a green light by MTV.

(via TVLine)