Rick Remender & Steve Epting Go Hardboiled Horror with Upcoming 'Hammerfist'

Reservoir Dogs collides with Evil Dead in a filthy crime story that mutates into a savage splatter-horror nightmare from New York Times bestselling author Rick Remender (Escape, Captain America) and acclaimed artist Steve Epting (Velvet, Captain America), with colors by Matt Hollingsworth, in the upcoming Hammerfist. This all-new ongoing series was announced exclusively at IGN this week and is set to launch this August from Image Comics.

Hammerfist will launch with a lineup of jaw-dropping variant covers by such superstar artists as Jerome Opeña, Nic Klein, Dan Panosian, Daniel Acuña, Andrew Robinson, and more as well as a blank sketch cover and a special foil-treated version of Robinson’s cover art.

“Hammerfist is for people who grew up on those unhinged genre films of the VHS era, over-the-top, hard-R, wildly original, but never forgetting to be fun,” said Remender. “A hardboiled crime story that mutates into an ultra-violent, Raimi-style horror story following a low-rent killer who becomes the only thing standing between us and eternal darkness. Getting to see it come to life in the hands of a master like Steve Epting is a dream come true. I’ve wanted to collaborate with him for years, and the pages speak for themselves, cinematic, brutal, and emotional. Paired with Matt Hollingsworth’s color there just isn’t a better art team.”

In Hammerfist, readers meet Mike Denton: a dirtbag hitman, junkie, and absentee father. He’s spent his life chasing the easy fix—drugs, cheap sex, and murder for money—all while failing the one person who still believes he can be better: his daughter.

Now, on the eve of Black Noon—an ancient darkness that erases the light in all things—Mike has to drag himself out of the gutter, awaken a supernatural weapon powered only by love, and fight his way through the living embodiment of evil to save her. This is the story of an unredeemable killer forced to do the one thing he’s avoided his entire life: stand for something other than himself.

Epting added: “Collaborating with Rick on Hammerfist has been incredible. The book is unpredictable, gritty and funny. A hardboiled crime story that mutates into fever-dream horror without ever losing the heart underneath. There’s real emotion under all the blood and chaos; we just take the most violent road possible to get there. I can’t wait for readers to see what we’ve been building.”

Hammerfist #1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, August 26: