With so much going on in the world of comics, comics-inspired media, games, culture, and so on, it can an uphill task reporting on everything in a timely manner. Enter The Beat Digest, a new, twice weekly round-up of the biggest stories we’ve missed every Tuesday and Friday, featuring comics announcements, Hollywood gossip, side-projects from your favorite comics creators, and much, much more. Hopefully, you’ll find it quite helpful. Now without further ado, here’s a summary of various stories from the previous week.
§ At C2E2, writer Kyle Higgins and artist Dan Mora announced Immortal Legend Batman, an Elseworlds series starring a tokusatsu take on the Dark Knight. Written with Mat Groom, and also featuring art by Erica D’Urso, the book reimagines Batman, Robin, and Nightwing as galactic warriors in the far future, who rose up to protect humanity’s outer space colonies from the corruptive influence of a “Shadow” universe. The six-part series will kick off August 27. The premise is a natural fit for the creative team, who are all veterans of BOOM! Studios’ Power Rangers comics, DC, and the tokusatsu-inspired Massive-Verse Higgins launched with Radiant Black in 2021.
§ Marvel revealed Immortal Thor will conclude with issue #25, with a storyline set to feature the God of Thunder dying (once again) in battle with “the great Serpent who wore his own face and held his own hammer.” Writer Al Ewing‘s run will be relaunched afterwards, though details on this will be announced later on in the coming months. In the meantime, the finale, featuring art by Justin Greenwood (in his Marvel Comics debut) and Jan Bazaldua, will be released on July 2.
§ Dark Horse had a double dose of Hellboy news, announcing the two-part sequel Hellboy in Love: The Art of Fire, and the one-shot Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: Professor Harvey is Gone. Art of Fire, written by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden, with art by Hellboy newcomer Alex Nieto (Locust), will follow Hellboy and archaeologist Anastasia Bransfield on a trip to Iceland circa 1980. Professor Harvey is Gone, meanwhile, is written by Mignola with art by Giuseppe Manunta (making his English-language debut), and revolves around the disappearance of an antiquities professor. It is based on a Weird Tales #367 story Golden co-wrote in 2023. Art of Fire debuts on August 6, while Professor Harvey is Gone will be released August 27.
Also announced by Dark Horse were Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories Library Edition Vol. 1, collecting the first 12 issues of the 2023 series in hardcover, in bookstores and comics shops respectively on October 21 and 22, 2025; a paperback omnibus rerelease of Jim Starlin’s 1980s sci-fi/fantasy saga Dreadstar, also kicking off October 21/22, with Vol. 2 (of 3) set to follow on December 16/17; and Crystal Heart, a complete print edition of the TTRPG-themed webcomic by writer Eran Aviram (City of Mist) and artist Aviv Or (Critical Role: Tales of Exandria — Artagan), due out November 25/26, 2025.
§ Image and Syzygy unveiled Dark Honor, a five-part crime thriller written by Ethan Sacks with filmmakers K.S. Bruce and Brian DeCubellis (Trust), featuring art by Fico Ossio, David Messina, Gabriel Guzman, and Jamal Igle. Set in New York City at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the book sees a power struggle between the city’s crime families ensue when a new killer arises. Issues #1 and #2 bow respectively on May 28 and June 25. Image also revealed the final arc of Rob Guillory‘s horror satire Farmhand will kick off with issue #21 on May 7, and that James Tynion IV, Michael Walsh et al.’s Exquisite Corpses (which we discussed with Tynion last week) will come with trading cards in polybagged Cover C variants for each issue. The latter launches May 14.
§ In an ICv2 exclusive, Mad Cave Studios revealed a digital storefront, Mad Cave Digital, will launch via their website on Tuesday, April 22. Tantalizingly, the storefront will offer early access to some new titles; for more details, head to the link. As for book announcements, the publisher unveiled The October Girl, a young adult fantasy series by Matthew Dow Smith, starting October 21. The first volume follows an 18-year old woman who discovers her childhood imaginary friend is real, and that she is connected to a secret world of beings who inspired all of our folklore.
§ Titan Comics will release Rebel Moon: Nemesis, a prequel to the Zack Snyder films written by Gail Simone, with art by Federico Bertoni. Debuting July 16, the series will explore the backstory of Nemesis, the sword-wielding cyborg assassin played by Doona Bae. It will mark the second Rebel Moon comic, after Magdalene Visaggio and Clark Bint‘s House of the Bloodaxe, which was released alongside the two films early last year.
§ James Gunn revealed Peacemaker season two will premiere on Max on Thursday, August 21. (To put it in perspective, that will have been three-and-a-half years since the first season finale.) The announcement coincided with a promotional Max trailer featuring brief new footage, along with clips from several other upcoming shows:
§ Abrams ComicArts will commemorate 75 years of Peanuts with The Essential Peanuts, a hardcover selection of the greatest Peanuts strips, as chosen by Mark Evanier. The $75 release, due out October 7, will include an introduction by Mutts creator Patrick McDonnell, a foreword by Schulz’s widow Jean Schulz, commentaries by 16 more unnamed contributors, and much more. Peanuts originally debuted on October 2, 1950, and ran until February 13, 2000 (the day after Schulz’s death.)
§ Finally, actor Michael Haley, best known for voicing the title role on MTV’s The Maxx (1995), died on Saturday, April 5, after a “very abrupt” battle with cancer. He was 67. Primarily a background player, Haley was also best known for providing voices in the original Diablo game (1997), and was an extra in Grease (1978) and King Kong (1976). In later life, he worked primarily as a broadcast engineer for PBS station KCET, but continued to take smaller acting roles. He is survived by his wife, his daughter, and his son, actor/producer Brendan Haley.
