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Apparently, Marvel Entertainment is engaging in a stealth attempt to revive the 1990s “Bad Girls” fad. Less than a month after reviving Neil Gaiman‘s Angela in the final issue of its Age of Ultron event comic, the company has announced that it is also bringing back another cheesecake-with-attitude character, Painkiller Jane in a new comic written by character co-creator Jimmy Palmiotti
Clearly in transmedia pitch mode, Palmiotti described the character as “part Dirty Harry, part Wolverine, part sexual dynamo… a Lethal Weapon for her best friend and old police academy roommate Maureen Fernandez, sent out to do the dirty work that Detective Fernandez can’t,” going on to say that the revived version of the character will feature “a mix of action, humor and adventure aimed at a mature audience.”
Jane first appeared in the 1996 mini-series 22 Brides by Palmiotti and Joe Quesada – currently Marvel’s Chief Creative Officer – before going on to star in three different series from two separate independent publishers, in addition to appearances in stories with characters ranging from Hellboy and the Terminator to Marvel’s own Punisher. The character also had her own short-lived television series on Syfy in 2007, which only made it through one season before cancellation.
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This time around, the character will appear in a multiple limited-run series under Marvel’s creator-owned Icon imprint, with Palmiotti explaining that “The books will be a series of four-part limited series with some extras along the way,” and adding that “the audience will be in charge of how long the book will run.”
The news is a good sign for fans of the Icon line, an already small imprint that has lost numerous creators to independent publisher Image Comics over recent months; of the writers who have published work through the imprint to this point, only one – Brian Michael Bendis – have not announced new work from Image in the last year, choosing instead to continue to publish through Icon.
The relaunched Painkiller Jane launches in November.
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