Rick Remender And Steve Epting Announce Video Nasty-Inspired Series ‘Hammerfist’ From Image Comics

by Olly MacNamee

As someone who recognises Rick Remender as one of my own generation, I can totally relate to his description of his and artist Steve Epting‘s new series Hammerfist as inspired by the “unhinged genre films of the VHS era”, as he told IGN exclusively this week. Or, as they were known in the UK, video nasties. Here’s Remender with more from that IGN announcement:

“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. 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.”

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.”

Think Reservoir Dogs meets Evil Dead with colours by Matt Hollingsworth, and you get a good idea of the tone of this “splatter-horror nightmare”. But what else can fans expect? Here’s the synopsis and first look:

“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.”