Highlander: The American Dream #1
It's amazing how far a half-decent action movie can take you, especially when that action movie is also one of the best movies ever made. Quality is a weird thing, folks, and this movie is proof.
Highlander was a movie that came out in 1986 and featured a Frenchman playing an immortal Scot who was trained by an Egyptian with a Spanish name who was played by a Scotsman fighting a Russian played by an American. The story followed Conner MacCleod of the Clan MacCleod as he moved towards a Gathering, the final battle fought by the last of the Immortals as they battled to take one another's heads and claim the mysterious Prize. The final battle took place, of course, in New York, because of course it did.
It was a weird little movie that started with wrestling and had a score and soundtrack composed by Queen, featured a whole host of tropes, and inspired a number of terrible sequels and an incredibly weird television series that would have made Freddie Mercury proud. There's been talk of a movie reboot or a series reboot or something coming down the pipe but IDW Publishing has decided to jump the gun and now we're getting comics~! Woo~!
The comics are set to feature Conner in 1950s Manhattan as he prepares for the Gathering and lays claim to his turf while also fighting in the American Civil War, though we are unclear whether he'll be fighting on the side of the North, Evil, the French, or the Scots. Given the character we met in the movies and how much he didn't like slavery, my guess is he'll be fighting against Evil.
Expect to see new Immortals pop up only to literally lose their heads and older characters like Conner's adopted daughter / secretary to get fleshed out and become proper characters as opposed to powerful one note moments. No word on if we're going to get anyone from the television series popping in, but it would be kind of nice to finally see Duncan and Conner fighting beside one another instead of whatever it was that happened in Endgame.
Seriously, don't watch Endgame unless you are drunk and ready to heckle.
Writer Brian Ruckley, who has penned the Godless World Trilogy takes charge on putting the story together. He's actually a good fit, though we do not know at this time if he plans to incorporate the planet Zeist in any of his stories, or the lost Magician, or anything from the Source. Probably not. Hopefully not. We're probably sticking with the premise as laid out in the original film and maybe the series. We'll see. If he does choose to bring anything in from those other places, well, we have faith he can make it work for comics in a way the films failed at. The Andrea Mutti art should help, as she's been doing some fantastic things with Rebels.
This is either going to be awesome or terrible or, if we're very lucky, both at the same time. Fingers crossed.
