“…He stands in imminent peril of becoming the eternal pawn of THE INFERNAL ONE.”
I have an odd fascination with the unpublished Redeemer series written and drawn by Joe Kubert, and originally intended for release in the mid-1980s from DC Comics. It may be because it was one of my early encounters with the comic book version of “vaporware” – an advertised and hyped product (prominently featured in a favorite comics ‘zine at the time, Amazing Heroes, containing several completed pages of the first issue) that ended up never appearing.
At the shop, we newly uncovered another old box or two of promotional comics material, including a handful of DC’s “Coming Attractions” flyers listing forthcoming funnybook releases, dated October 1983 through January 1984. The front page feature of the October flyer was Redeemer:
And here is the specific information for the first issue, including what I’m assuming is the cover, though I suspect some kind of, um, Speedos or something would have been colored onto the final product:
And over the next thee installments of “Coming Attractions,” we get the info for issues #2-#4:
No idea if it got any farther than that before folks realized this series wasn’t going to happen and, hey, we should probably stop telling people about it. But reading those descriptions…just picture Kubert drawing all that. This would have been one crazy and beautiful-looking series.
Bob Rozakis writes briefly about the series’ demise, citing, among other reasons, complaints regarding the religious connotations of the title. (Wonder how those people reacted to Preacher?)
This interview indicates that the completed Redeemer stories may yet appear in a forthcoming Kubert anthology series. Can’t wait to see ’em. (Also, Kubert is doing a new Hawkman story for this anthology series, and I know you folks want to see that!)
An interesting article,Mike but I have to ask something. Is your shop backroom similar to the Raiders of The Lost Ark warehouse? There seems to be an endless supply of boxes…
The CAPS, they’re KILLING me!
Kubert did a pretty good mid-’80s Christoper Walken, you gotta admit.
Admittedly, I’m not a dude, but I probably would’ve guessed that my life was not entirely normal the first time I realized that I had a giant toothed serpent for a Little Redeemer.
It’s the super-sincere Courier font that really does it for the summaries.
No, Sarah they all look like that.
…
Don’t they?
Was it called “Courier” back then? That looks like good ol’ IBM Selectric to me.
It’s been quite a wait, and Joe has now passed on, but we finally get to see The Redeemer in JOE KUBERT PRESENTS issues 2 & (presumably) 3. Bittersweet.