GHOST Agents in Metropolis

While not the first time Metropolis has appeared in comics, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis makes its comics debut next year. Confused? The original 1927 masterpiece entered the public domain this year, and Rocko Jerome of Cosmic Lion Productions boldly applied his artistic vision to formally adapt it to the comics medium. He’s also using it as an expansion/addition to his Ghost Agents world, a project that has seen two previous graphic albums.

Fritz Lang’s silent film has been a major influence since its release. In addition to making an indelible imprint on German Expressionism, the film introduced the archetype of the modern robot. The most famous echo of Brigitte Helm’s Maria is of course C-3PO. As the machine also goes wild and whips rich and poor alike into a frenzy, the film speaks to 2023 in its caution about AI. (Depending on the English translation you encounter, “Maria” may or may not have slipped free of her original programming.)

Writing for DC, Roy Thomas has twice melded Lang’s film into comics. First he made Maria into a time-traveling villain in All-Star Squadron, compressing the film’s events into a one-page flashback without naming names. Collaborating with Randy Lofficier and Ted McKeever, Thomas also co-created the Elseworlds book Superman’s Metropolis. Manga legend Osamu Tezuka also transposed Lang and screenwriter Thea Von Harbou’s vision into a graphic novel in 1949.

This version looks to be the most straightforward adaptation. Ironically, the public domain has inspired the most fealty. Cosmic Lion Productions launched the project on Kickstarter last week, which includes an option to back the first GHOST Agents action figure, Max Almond. They look to publish in the first quarter of 2024.

From Cosmic Lion Productions:

On the back of six wildly successful Kickstarter campaigns to publish their first two volumes, the ongoing GHOST Agents project takes things to the next level with a brand new treasury-sized flipbook entitled GHOST Agents/Metropolis.

Hot on the heels of the news that Fritz Lang’s futuristic art-deco masterpiece, Metropolis, has entered the public domain, Rocko Jerome and his team have found a clever way to adapt the cult classic to the comic book page while sowing potential links to the expansive GHOST Agents universe at the same time.

“I’ve always been a fan of Fritz Lang’s visionary work,” says writer, creator and producer, Rocko Jerome, “and the subject matter feels eerily prescient at a time when ‘artificial intelligence’ poses a real threat to our world as we know it. Being able to draw on that inspiration and share its influential themes with a new generation of readers, as we weave it into the wider tapestry of GHOST Agents, is an absolute dream come true.”

Published by Cosmic Lion Productions, GHOST Agents is an art-forward anthology series made up of short, self-contained pieces; where every story exists in the same world, and characters reoccur throughout the centuries spanning narrative. If you read it all, a rich overarching storyline will emerge, but you aren’t required to do that, and readers are encouraged to dip in as they please.

As with previous releases, this latest volume comes in the iconic treasury-sized format on newsprint paper – measuring a whopping 8.7 x 13.3 inches! Fans who are new to the series can pick up the earlier volumes (Apocalyptico and Crimson Reckoning) as add-ons to the campaign, in addition to exploring a whole host of new tiers and unique offerings that will suit all tastes and budgets.

“One of the most exciting things about this new campaign – other than the introduction of Metropolis – is the debut of our very first GHOST Agents action figure in collaboration with Super Joe,” adds Jerome. “This 9-inch depiction of Max Almond: Agent X-44 explodes onto the scene with wild, fully poseable energy. Will he battle your other toys… or seduce them? YOU DECIDE!”

At no extra cost, this campaign also contains two additional pieces of lore from the GHOST Agents archive: the previously out-of-print original versions of Lost In The Nowhere Zone, the Barry Tan story that first introduced May Zero and Jack Infinity; and Acid Reign, where Ben Perkins went full maximalistic.

An ever-constant place to find up-and-coming artists, this instalment of GHOST Agents also features Mark Maddox, Harry Hickle, Sean Luke, Caspar Schumans, Miguel Galindo, Sam J. Royale, Chris Anderson, Adam Lemnah, Jerome Cabanatan, Robert Norton, Eli Schwab, Renel Roque, Michael Fitzgerald Troy, Jamie H Lee, Dave Praetorius, Ben Perkins, Dave Howlett, Raymar Brunson, Chris Fason, Danny Nicholas, Sean McMillan, Groucho P. Trout, Timothy Aymar, Edmund Kearsley,Gilbert Leiker, Christopher Nolen, Anton William Blake, Rick Lopez, and Craig CK, all from stories by Rocko Jerome.

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