DC Announces Kamandi Challenge Featuring Walt Simonson, Kevin Eastman, José Luis García-López, And More

Yesterday at Emerald City Comic Con, DC Entertainment announced a reboot of its 1985-1986 maxiseries DC Challenge.

The series, which was a round-robin featuring different characters and creators in each issue, featured some of DC's biggest talents working in a shared sandbox without the ability to talk to each other about what they were making. It featured most of DC's major superhero characters.

The new challenge will be set in the world of Jack Kirby's Kamandi, with 12 art teams and 12 writers pairing up to do a year-long project within the Kamandi map created by Kirby, according to DC. Newsarama later reported a list of creative teams, noting that DC had provided them with not 12, but 13 teams:

Dan Abnett and Dale Eaglesham, Peter J. Tomasi and Neal Adams, Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, James Tynion IV and Carlos D'Anda, Bill Willingham and Ivan Reis, Steve Orlando and Philip Tan, Marguerite Bennett and Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen and Steve Rude, Tom King and Kevin Eastman, Greg Pak and Joe Prado, Rob Williams and Walter Simonson, Gail Simone and Ryan Sook, as well Len Wein and José Luis García-López.

It's notable that a number of DC's veteran creators, including Keith Giffen, Dan Jurgens, and Len Wein, will have participated in both DC Challenge stories, thirty years apart. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman's name is also on the list, marking his first DC work.

Jurgens has introduced a post-Flashpoint take on the world of Kamandi in Batman Beyond, a series he will continue to write after Rebirth, albeit with a different protagonist than he's had up to now.

No release date is yet known for the Challenge series.