Writer Kieron Gillen (The Wicked + the Divine) and artist Caspar Wijngaard (Doctor Aphra) are set to revive Peter Cannon in Dynamite Entertainment's Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt. CBR has now obtained inked pages and a statement from Gillen on the upcoming comic.
"Peter Cannon is an interesting guy," Gillen tells CBR. "Partially because the (ahem) Canon is so relatively small - the sixties issues, the attempted DC integration, the Dynamite mini and that's about it. At the same time, he's a character whose impact has been huge. To state the obvious, you remove Peter Cannon, and you remove Watchmen. So I've looked at all the threads of the characters and tried to find a through-line as directed as a bullet. Plus everything I've ever loved in the genre. High adventure, big ideals, epic destruction, heroism, despair, and nine-panel grids."
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"On a personal level? I've been away from the genre for a few years," he continued. "This is me refreshed, grinning and more than a little bit angry. I want to try things. I want to have fun. Hell, we've created a whole new supporting cast of heroes for this series because we wanted to. I wanted to do a state of the art, state of the superheroic nation, and Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt is it."
"I tend to come across as a Labrador of a human, but scratch that surface and I'm as misanthropic as the next writer," Gillen elaborated. "The push and pull between my hopes and fears for the species is always there. And Peter Cannon? He's got a lot of that. Hell, Peter Cannon was raised in a far more enlightened society than ours, and now is off in our world. Basically, every episode of the original sixties episode was based around Peter Cannon having his arm twisted by his best mate until he got around to saving the day. 'This entire human civilization is awful and dumb. Why on earth is it worth saving?' is the beat that hit, time and time over. That's really unusual for a hero figure."
"I play him a little like Sherlock Holmes with a splash of Bond," Gillen finished. "He's very clearly aware he's the smartest man in the room. And he hates being in the room."
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Dynamite Entertainment also offered a plot synopsis for Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt.
His level of genius is matched only by his heroics, and in humanity’s darkest hour, he’s the hero they need the most—alas, poor humanity. Peter Cannon—the man known as Thunderbolt—is only too happy to leave civilization to face its end. Kieron Gillen (The Wicked + the Divine) teams up with powerhouse artist Caspar Wijngaard (Doctor Aphra) as he returns to the superhero genre with a dark, humorous and relentless love song to the genre.
Well, "Love Song" in a Leonard Cohen Love Song kind of way. Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt: saving a world he hates.
Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt #1 hits shelves in January 2019.