The Secret Service is planned to be a six issue mini-series and will be in comic book shops February of 2012. The details below are just a tease until the bulk of the information is released in January. What we currently know is that the project was co-created with Matthew Vaughn, and he'll be writing the screenplay. Matthew Vaughn is no stranger to Mark Millar's comics as he directed Millar's
Kick-Ass, and owns the movie rights to Millar's other property,
Superior.
This must be very exciting for Mark Millar as he sent a letter out to the legendary artist Dave Gibbons in 1987. In that letter he asked him to draw one of his stories, and now the dream has come true. Dave was the co-creator and artist on the classic
The Watchmen comic books. Below are his sketches for the upcoming comic,
The Secret Service.
“Something to do with the government and something to do with the military intelligence wing of the government. It’s not a spy story as such,. That would be WAY too straight for a couple of guys who made their names in superhero comics… It’s a hero book, and there’s a sidekick and there’s vast headquarters and a secret origin and all the stuff you’d expect to see in a superhero book. But we really, really play around with a lot of conventions here.
“No two scenes seem to be set in the same country and we’re working on a scale unlike something as up-close-and-personal as a crimefigheter with no super-powers. But I can see the link, because we’re balancing that sense of the real and the outrageous and there’s super-villains and so on. But what’s exciting about it is that it‘s something new.
“The Ultimates was about heroes responding to the new America and the new world after the attacks on September the 11th. The Secret Service is the ramifications of that, as America is struggling on the world stage, funding is being seriously undercut to balance the books and some people are trying their best to take advantage of the fragile global situation.
“The Secret Service started as two different projects. I had an idea that was mainly set in the US and [Matthew Vauughn] had an idea for a similar thing that was mainly set in the UK. I can’t give too much anyway without blowing the story, but we essentially fused both characters together and so the Batman and Robin or whatever you want to call these guys really are a genuine co-creation between me, Dave and Matthew. He had some sequences in mind and I had these crazy plot ideas I’d been mulling over for a year or two and we just hammered it out in the pub, really. It evolved naturally. So I’ve gone off and written the comic and he’ll write the screenplay for the movie, which might feed back into the comic too. l don’t know. It’s impossible for one of us to untangle one from the other and now Dave is the third man in this whole creation, bringing in a THIRD dimension to the story. We’re going to see all his drawings and designs and emblems and so on working their way back into the movie too.” - Posted by bleedingcool.com
Pictures Courtesy of comicbookresources.com