On August 28th, 2017, comics legend Jack Kirby would’ve turned 100—and as part of a year celebrating his contribution to the comics industry, DC has lined up a huge roster of writers and artists for a bizarre new “challenge” series, based on one of Kirby’s more out there creations: Kamandi, the last boy on Earth.
Star of his self-titled series between 1972 and 1978, Kamandi was a post-apocalyptic survivor of an Earth—referred to as “Earth A.D.”—ravaged by an event that turned what remained of the human race into a pre-technology civilization, while intelligent animals became the dominant species. Kirby wrote and drew the vast majority of the series’ first 40 issues before he left DC.
Now, though, a veritable who’s who of the comics industry is teaming up for a new 12-part miniseries featuring the character, dubbed “The Kamandi Challenge”: 12 writer-artist teams, randomly assigned to each other, were tasked with writing one issue each of the series, with the stipulation that they each take place in a different section of Kirby’s Earth A.D., also randomly assigned to them.
Without knowing what prior teams had written, the creative duos had to come up with their own single-issue Kamandi tale, starting wherever the last issue had taken place and ending in a new area the next team had to pick up from. Here are the teams working on each issue:
Issue #1 by Dan Abnett/Dale Eaglesham
Issue #2 by Peter J. Tomasi/Neal Adams
Issue #3 by Jimmy Palmiotti/Amanda Conner
Issue #4 by James Tynion/Carlos D’Anda
Issue #5 by Bill Willingham/Ivan Reis
Issue #6 by Steve Orlando/Philip Tan
Issue #7 by Marguerite Bennett/Dan Jurgens
Issue #8 by Keith Giffen/Steve Rude
Issue #9 by Tom King/Kevin Eastman
Issue #10 by Greg Pak/Joe Prado
Issue #11 by Rob Williams/Walter Simonson
Issue #12 by Gail Simone/Ryan Sook
It’s… definitely a bizarre way to structure a comic series, especially with each team having no idea what’s come before them. But it’s a pretty unique way to celebrate Kirby’s legacy at DC. The Kamandi Challenge is set to begin in January, with more details on the series being revealed later this week at New York Comic-Con.
