Pacific Rim Uprising is getting an official prequel comic, it’s been revealed. The six-part comic book series Pacific Rim Aftermath will debut in January 2018, teeing up the film’s March release. The comics will somewhat bridge the gap between Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 Kaiju-versus-robots movie, Pacific Rim, and Steven S. DeKnight’s sequel, Uprising.
This isn’t the first time that the Pacific Rim franchise has crossed over into the comic book world. The first film’s writer Travis Beacham released the Tales from Year Zero graphic novel in 2013. A series titled Tales from the Drift followed in 2015, with Beacham getting a story credit while Joshua Hale Fialkov handled the writing. DeKnight has already expressed his interest in using Uprising to “expand the universe” of Pacific Rim, so it’s no surprise that multimedia tie-ins have begun again now in earnest.
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An all-new creative team has been brought in for the Aftermath comic book series, with Cavan Scott on writing duties and Rich Elson tackling the art. Their series has been described as “a gritty action adventure that explores a new criminal underworld born in an age of monsters and mechs”. A full synopsis and the first cover have also been unveiled:
“Santa Monica, 2034. In a city that was once the jewel of the West Coast, a new world has emerged: one rising up from the ashes of giant robots and giant monsters. In this futuristic aftermath, we will meet a new generation of survivors, including Jake Pentecost, son of Stacker Pentecost, who is searching for answers behind the death of his Legendary father; Griffin, a Jaeger pilot who has gone from defending the world to piloting an illegal Jaeger enforcer for a mob boss; and the Mech Czar, a techno-criminal overlord who rules the underworld with a steel fist. Set against a neo-noir backdrop of street gangs, Kaiju worshipers, and Jaeger Scrapyards, a mysterious but familiar figure arrives with a dangerous agenda…”
The first film ended in 2025, and the second one takes place ten years later. Therefore, the events of the Aftermath comics, set in 2034, should slot in roughly a year before the Uprising film’s narrative. It should be an interesting primer regarding John Boyega’s Jake, who is the protagonist of Uprising and the son of Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba’s apocalypse-canceling hero from the first film).
However, as much as this is an exciting prospect, film fans have learned to be wary of movie prelude comic books. This sort of tie-in content has become synonymous with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which churns out useless preludes that add little to the films they’re attached to. Hopefully, Pacific Rim Aftermath will have a bit more to offer.
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Pacific Rim Aftermath #1 arrives in print and digital formats on January 17th, 2018.
