Joe Madureira Announces Return To Comics

News

Battle Chasers creator and Uncanny X-Men and Ultimates 3 artist Joe Madureira announced that he is leaving Vigil Games, the studio he cofounded in 2005. The creative director of the Darksiders franchise noted on his Facebook:

“Farewell and best wishes to all my brothers and sisters at Vigil Games! After 7 long years and 2 hit games ( Darksiders BABY! ) I’m afraid the time has come for me to move on to new adventures. I could not be more proud of what we achieved, or the awesome people who helped build up this studio. I can safely say Vigil’s future is in very good hands, so expect only awesomeness down the road. This feels surreal…I miss the place already.”

What are these “new adventures”? The Avenging Spider-Man penciler further explained, “I’ll be talking more about ‘The Next Big Thing’ in the coming months, but in the short term, I’m focusing on banging out a bunch of comics. Which should hopefully sate your hunger, you bloodthirsty savages!!! (*believe it or not that’s a term of endearment. )”

You heard right. Joe Madureira is going to be banging out comics again. Between that and Cyberforce and WildCATs‘ resurgence, am I in the nineties again? If so, I don’t want to leave.

Madureira has kept busy since he left his high-profile gig on Uncanny X-Men in 1997. He created the wizards and warriors series Battle Chasers for Wildstorm’s Cliffhanger imprint before putting the title on hiatus after getting nine issues out in four years and founding Tri-Lunar, a game development company. After developing concept art for a project, Tri-Lunar went out of business and the artist worked for Realm Interactive until that company was acquired and he moved on to become the creative director at Vigil Games for it’s Darksiders project (which incidentally was also helped along by Deadpool and Ben 10 scribe Joe Kelly).

While Madureira got his start at Marvel at 16, and eventually bringing his trademark style to Uncanny X-Men in 1994, he’s most known to recent comics fans for his run on The Ultimates 3 with Jeph Loeb. The 2010 Darksiders title was followed up by a 2012 sequel, during which time Madureira also illustrated the Zeb Wells penned Avenging Spider-Man.

I’m not surprised to see Madureira moving forward with another creative surge; he and I have that in common. I hope for a new approach to Battle Chasers, but welcome any project Joe Mad will announced. Comics Nexus will keep you informed.

Matt Graham is a freelance contributor when he's not writing and illustrating for himself and others. A screenwriter and illustrator with experience in nearly every role of comic and film production, he spends most of his time rationalizing why it's not that weird to have a crush on the female teenaged clone of the hairiest, barrel chested man in comics.