Remember Battle Chasers? It Was Real And It Was Spectacular.

Like these.

Back in 1998, Joe Madureira was one of the biggest names in the comic industry.  Coming off a hugely successful run on Uncanny X-Men, that included the Age of Apocalypse story arc, Madureira did what all comic creators have done since McFarlane, Lee, et al formed Image…he left and created his own book.  And it looked awesome:

Wikipedia gives us this overview:

The story takes place in an arcanepunk setting. The story stars a quintet of main characters, including a nine-year-old girl named Gully, whose father mysteriously vanishes, leaving behind a pair of magical gloves. A pulchritudinous warrior named Red Monika tries to enlist Garrison, a swordsman haunted by the death of his wife, to assist in freeing a prisoner, which Garrison turns down. Red Monika accidentally releases four extremely powerful villains during the breakout. Garrison overcomes his grief and joins Gully, the wizard Knolan, and the towering war golem Calibretto to stop the villains’ rampage.

Remember, this was pre-Lord of the Rings movies (though buzz was building for them as they were only about 3 years off).  It had everything.  Big swords, big “robots” and big…uh…tracts o’ land.

The problem was, between April 1998 and September 2001, Madureira only managed to write and pencil nine issues.  Yet his popularity never waned.  Issue #10 was solicited, and though it was never released had pre-orders that placed it in the top 20 on the Top 300 comics list.

And then Madureira seemed to drop off the face of the Earth.  Though really he had left the comics world behind to work on his other passion, video games.

He still has his fans.  As does Battle Chasers.  Whenever his name comes up as returning to comics, “Is it Battle Chasers?” is always the first question.  Unfortunately, the answer for 14 years has always been “no”.  But maybe that is about to change.

In an interview with Polygon, Madureira revealed that his company Airship Syndicate is working on a Battle Chasers game and comic. While details are currently sketchy on both (they are still looking for funding), here is what they had to say about the comic:

For the comic, Madureira doesn’t have a publisher or a release date to announce, and says part of the appeal for him at this point is seeing the franchise evolve as his tastes have evolved. “I partially just want to update it,” he says. “I think it’s going to get a visual overhaul too. My art style and storytelling style, everything’s sort of changed and evolved over the years.”

Madureira says he’s thinking of the new comic run in three-issue arcs. The first of those will wrap up the story he left dangling in 2001 — “so people can finally stop asking,” he jokes — and tie into the game. After that, he says he’d like to do further three-issue arcs but he’s waiting to see how everything shakes out before committing to more.

It’s been a very long road, and if this ever comes to light I’ll be digging into my long boxes for my copies of Battle Chasers #1-9 to brush up.  The Impossible memory ain’t what it used to be.

For Watson and Jenny to discuss…for very different reasons…