Exclusive Preview of Cyberpunk Thriller That Could Challenge Marvel and DC

We are lucky to live in a world where there are as many independent comic books as you can imagine, thanks to the ability of crowdfunding websites that allow truly INDEPENDENT voices to get their stories across to a wide audience. One of these new independent comic books is the high-fantasy cyberpunk thriller, The Wilder, which is currently being crowdfunded on Kickstarter.

Drawn and colored by longtime Line it is Drawn artist Axel Medellin (who famously drew Richard Starkings' Elephantman series for many years), this new series was created by Ben Canny and Liam Garrigan, the founders of London-based Running Ground Studios. The pair will also be writing the series, which also features lettering from Rob Jones. CBR has an exclusive preview of the first issue of The Wilder!

What is The Wilder about?

Running Ground Studios released the following solicitation information for The Wilder in its press package:

Earth 2196 is an era of global authoritarianism; Earth is controlled by the mysterious, omniscient Megasystem (OM), a ruthless A.I. and its cabal of tech elites. Between that and the underworld run by vicious Grapple Gangs, survival has become a rigged game. But in the slums of New Baltimore, young orphan Jaheem Johnson believes he has the smarts to stay alive—until things take a turn for the weird when he discovers a strange magical artefact that binds to his arm and rips him through a rift in space-time.

He wakes to find himself on Mor, a hyper-colour alternate world where beast-gods known as the Wilder rule and spirit magic reigns. Yet a corruption is spreading through this land, and the Wilder find themselves on the precipice of war. Tethered against his will to one of these beast-gods, Helfor, Jaheem must fight alongside her—and with other human “otherlings” pulled across the rift—to face a prophesied nightmare: the Endless Being.

Sure, there are sentient A.I., anthropomorphized rideable beast-gods, spirit magic, the multiverse, magneto repulser boots, and body-horror-inspired necrotic swamp creatures, but at its heart, it’s really a story about… family.

Here is a variant cover for the first issue of The Wilder by acclaimed artist John Pearson (who won the 2021 Eisner Award for Best Painter / Multimedia Artist with Anand RK for their Image series, Blue in Green)...

Exclusive CBR preview pages of The Wilder

The five pages above are exclusive to CBR preview pages of the first issue of The WIlder.

In the preview pages, we see Helfor arrive with the mangled body of another beast-god. That leads into the awesome double-page splash that we shared earlier in the article (that is also the basis for the featured image of this article).

Helfor and the other beast-gods argue about whether this means war.

We then see a glimpse of the cabal of tech elites who are ruling the world in the future.

Finally, we get two pages spotlighting the hero of the series, Jaheem Johnson, as he goes through a strange and frightening process.

The Wilder #1 is currently being crowdfunded on Kickstarter.