Robert Kirkman announces first post-Walking Dead comic Fire Power with surprise preview

Months after shocking readers with a surprise series finale for his megahit The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman has revealed his next comics project in the form of a 10-page preview.

Image Comics announced Thursday that Kirkman will team with artist Chris Samnee (Captain America), colorist Matt Wilson (The Wicked + The Divine), and letterer Russ Wooton (The Walking Dead) for Fire Power, a new martial arts action epic that will drop its first issue next spring via Kirkman's own Image imprint, Skybound. 

Fire Power is the story of Owen, a gifted young martial artist on the hunt for his family's roots in China. His journey through his ancestral homeland will eventually take him to a mysterious temple shrouded in the legend of the titular Fire Power. The students at the temple long to restore to the power, which grants the ability to throw fireballs, because they believe that one day soon it will help save the whole world. Could the first person in a thousand years to be imbued with fire power be Owen?

“Getting to create a whole new world with its own mythology and rules is always the highlight of my life. Getting to do that with Chris Samnee is definitely a high water mark in this dusty old career of mine,” Kirkman said in a statement. “With a massive cast of characters populating this sprawling globe-spanning epic, Chris has proven more than adept at handling anything I've thrown at him in the time we've been toiling away on this series in secret. Kung Fu, Fireballs, Chris Samnee, crazy action, Chris Samnee, Chris Samnee. What more could I say to get you excited about this book?”

In the 10-page preview in the gallery above, we get to meet Owen as he first arrives at a temple, where he's challenged by an old master who seems to know every trick in the book because he's the one who taught all the tricks in the first place. It's a classic "prove yourself to gain entry" scenario that we've seen in a thousand different martial arts classics, but with a Robert Kirkman twist. Check it out.

Fire Power #1 arrives in May 2020.