Garth Ennis To Write "Where Monsters Dwell" Secret Wars Tie-In

Marvel Comics will pit a 1960s war comics hero against dinosaurs in Where Monsters Dwell, a five-issue Secret Wars tie-in series written by Preacher creator Garth Ennis and drawn by Russ Braun.

As revealed by Vulture, the protagonist is Phantom Eagle, the World War I fighter pilot Ennis previously spotlighted in the 2008 War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle Marvel Max series. Ennis, who is best known for gritty series like Preacher, The Boys and Punisher, is also known for his dark war stories. Ennis says this series will be something a little different.

"I was having a pint with editor Nick Lowe, and he suggested putting the Phantom Eagle up against dinosaurs," Ennis says. "It was exactly the kind of thing I was in the mood for — having been writing some pretty dark and grim stuff recently, I fancied something a little bit lighter. So Nick caught me at exactly the right time in exactly the right frame of mind."

The plot sees the Phantom Eagle, a.k.a. Karl Kaufmann, taking odd jobs and agreeing to give an English socialite a lift to Singapore. It turns out this socialite is more than she seems, and their trip is soon blown off course.

"Sometime in the early 1920s, ex–Great War fighter pilot Karl Kaufmann is bumming around the Far East, getting into various scrapes and trying to make a dishonest buck," Ennis explains. "He agrees to fly naïve English socialite Clementine Franklin-Cox to Singapore, only to end up blown off course and flung into an exotic world of dinosaurs, cannibals, and a rather unusual tribe of amazons — who have their own plans for Clemmie. She, in turn, is not quite all she seems."

The mystery will begin to unfold when Where Monsters Dwell #1 goes on sale on May 27.