There’s a new kind of crisis threatening the heroes of the DC Universe, ripped from real-world headlines by New York Times bestselling author Tom King: How does a superhero handle PTSD? How do DC’s Trinity – Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman – handle massacres and mass shootings? This September, King explores these themes in HEROES IN CRISIS with artists Clay Mann (BATMAN) and Mitch Gerads (MISTER MIRACLE).
“I want to speak about, and to, this New War generation, the millions of people who have fought bravely overseas and have come home to try to return to their normal lives,” said King at an intimate press conference this morning at San Diego Comic-Con. “I want to talk about their hopes, their pains, their triumphs; I want to use DC’s heroes to tell their stories.”
At the core of HEROES IN CRISIS is Sanctuary, an ultra-secret space to help superheroes who’ve been traumatized by crime-fighting and cosmic combat. King described the heroes walking the halls of Sanctuary — heroes like Aquaman, Superman, Lagoon Boy, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Arsenal, Batman, and more — as anonymous, wearing robes and gold masks to hide their identities from each other. In the debut issue, something goes inexplicably wrong and heroes wind up dead, with two well-known operators as the prime suspects.
“But this book isn’t actually about Sanctuary,” said King. “It’s about the failures of Sanctuary. In that way, I’m writing about this moment in our history. We felt safe. We had security. Then something went horribly wrong. Is it possible to repair that? To fight that?”
King served overseas as a CIA counterterrorism operations officer post-911 before changing careers to write critically acclaimed comics populated with themes of war and violence, notably THE OMEGA MEN, THE SHERIFF OF BABYLON and MISTER MIRACLE. King, Mann and Gerads will continue these themes in HEROES IN CRISIS. While Mann will draw the main issues of the limited series, Gerads will draw standalone issues strategically placed to give a deeper look into the overall story.
“HEROES IN CRISIS is about heroes who have to live through violence to save the world, and what that violence does to them,” concluded King. “They make a sacrifice every time they go out to fight the bad guys. That sacrifice is at the heart of the series.”
HEROES IN CRISIS #1 arrives on September 26, 2018.
