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Having helped invent the style of superhero comic known as “widescreen comics” more than a decade ago — not to mention being the man responsible for coming up with the idea of Samuel L. Jackson playing SHIELD boss Nick Fury thanks to his art in The Ultimates — Bryan Hitch continues to blur lines between cinema and comic books with his newly announced 2014 series, Real Heroes.
Describing the plot of his Image Comics series as “What if the cast of Avengers got asked to save the world for real?” Hitch told Comic Book Resources that his new series takes “Hollywood superstars who play the world’s greatest heroes and take[s] them to a place where they are asked to do it for real [and] take the responsibility for saving six billion lives.”
STORY: Image Comics Announces Third Expo for Jan. 2014
Hitch admits some similarity to the movie Galaxy Quest in terms of concept, but said that his series is “a drama, to be sure,” adding, “For me, it’s a fresh way of coming at the familiar. We are familiar with superheroes, and by making [the main characters] actors in superhero roles, it makes them likewise familiar with the same stuff, without coming at the material from the clichéd fan or geek perspective.”
Unlike his use of Jackson as “inspiration” for Ultimates‘ Nick Fury, Hitch said that the heroes of Real Heroes won’t be based on any particular celebrity. “Initially, as I drew it, I was thinking heavily of two or three guys, and the likenesses came through in some pages,” he admitted. “[However] after a few pages, I’d found the real characters, and they didn’t really look like known actors, so I went back and redrew those likenesses.”
Real Heroes debuts in March. Come for the chance to work out the real-life inspirations behind the characters, and stay for the superhero movie deconstruction.
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