Mark Waid and Ed Benes Bring Axiom to Comic Stores This Week

If you didn’t get enough dark, menacing Superman stories from Mark Waid with Irredeemable, the fan-favorite writer has a new take on the idea hitting stores this week from Legendary Comics.

Axiom, a new, original graphic novel from Waid with artists Ed Benes and Dinei Ribeiro, is available tomorrow, August 24, at comic shops and on ComiXology.

(Irredeemable artist Peter Krause is mistakenly listed as the artist on the book’s Wikipedia page.)

Here’s how Legendary describes the project:

Axiom and Thena, aliens from another world, arrive on earth and exhibit extraordinary powers. Benevolent and godlike, they cure humanity’s ills and usher in an era of peace, prosperity and complacency.

A series of tragic events reveals another side of Axiom: humanity’s savior becomes its worst nightmare. A Defense Department analyst, armed with only scientific knowledge and courageous spirit takes on the turned hero in a fight for mankind’s survival!

Besides Waid’s Irredeemable, similar ground is currently being examined in Batman, where Tom King has introduced a male/female duo of superheroes that came to the city to do good and ended up as a dangerous threat.

Both Waid and Benes are longtime veterans of the mainstream superhero scene, with Waid having had memorable runs on JLA, The Flash, Fantastic Four, and Daredevil while Benes drew the best-selling Justice League of America run from novelist Brad Meltzer. This is their first original graphic novel together, but not Waid’s first with Legendary: not long ago, he and Superman: Earth One artist Shane Davis collaborated on Shadow Walk for the publisher.

The publisher hasn’t really had a straightforward superhero book yet, but projects like Axiom, The Tower Chronicles, Holy Terror, and The Infinite Adventures of Jonas Quintum manage to deconstruct superhero storytelling, tell superhero-adjacent stories, or move beyond the traditional superhero without ever actually depicting one. Combine that with big movie tie-ins like Godzilla and Pacific Rim and it’s a recipe for a publisher that appeals to hardcore geeks.

You can check out some preview pages from Axiom below.