This year marks the 25th anniversary of Vertigo Comics, the DC Entertainment imprint that brought us Sandman, Preacher, The Invisibles, and Y: The Last Man. Today, DC announced that it will be relaunching the line this fall with seven new comics from a diverse array of creators that focus on “modern, socially relevant, high-concept, inventive” stories.
Many of the creators come from outside of the comics mainstream, including game developer Zoe Quinn, sex-education podcaster Tina Horn, and Nine Inch Nails art director Rob Sheridan. The stories touch on hot-button issues like white supremacy, xenophobia, state surveillance, and government repression of sexuality.
Goddess Mode, which will be written by Quinn and illustrated by Robbi Rodriguez, takes place “in a near future where all of humanity’s needs are administered by a godlike A.I.” The story, which Quinn describes as a “magical girl cyberpunk comic,” follows a young woman named Cassandra whose tech support job leads her into a dark digital world where superheroines battle monsters for “the cheat codes to reality.”
Other comics in the relaunch include American Carnage by Bryan Hill and Leandro Fernandez, about a biracial FBI agent who infiltrates a white supremacist group; Border Town by Eric M. Esquivel and Ramon Villalobos, about monsters from Mexican folklore set loose in a xenophobic Arizona town; Hex Wives by Ben Blacker and Mirka Andolfo, about a coven of witches brainwashed into becoming Stepford Wives; High Level by Sheridan and Barnaby Bagenda, about a smuggler searching for a mythical city in a society rebuilt after an apocalypse; Safe Sex by Horn and Mike Dowling, about freedom fighters in a police state where sex is surveilled and regulated; and Second Coming by Mark Russell and Richard Pace, about Jesus returning to Earth to learn from a superhero named Sun-Man.
Four of the series will launch this fall and winter, though which titles is still unspecified, and the remaining titles will be released in early 2019.