CURT PIRES + JASON COPLAND + PETE TOMS + RYAN FERRIER

I S S U E

ONE OF FOUR

POP ISSUE 1 of 4 | $3.99

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PART ONE EYES WITHOUT A FACE

POP #1, August 2014. Published by Dark Horse Comics, Inc., 10956 SE Main Street, Milwaukie, OR 97222. POP™ © 2014 Curt Pires and Jason Copland. Dark Horse Comics® is a trademark of Dark Horse Comics, Inc., registered in various categories and countries. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of Dark Horse Comics, Inc. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental. Printed in the United States of America.

STORY CURT PIRES

ART JASON COPLAND

COLORS PETE TOMS

LETTERING RYAN FERRIER

DESIGNER DYLAN TODD

ASSISTANT EDITORS ROXY POLK & AARON WALKER

EDITOR DAVE MARSHALL

PUBLISHER MIKE RICHARDSON

END ONE

LOST MYSELF

IN YOU R N EO N D R EN CH ED K I SS

YOU R CAN DY COATED INV I TAT IO N

TO INS ID E TH E ABYSS

TH E K E TAM IN E D R E AMS

TH E FUTU R E SHOCK SCR E AMS

POP

CREATIVE ENDEAVORS ARE EXERCISES IN EGO MANAGEMENT.

There’s a certain amount of hubris required to play God, sure, but it takes roughly twice that measure to stare down the critics and naysayers that live in your head, the ones that have access to your darkest fears and vulnerabilities and set them out, some-times as potholes, sometimes as IEDs, in your path. Courage and confidence (bolstered by ambition) are the armor and engines that enable your passage. Too little of either and you’ll never make it through; too much, and you’ll veer off course.

So writers, as I have come to know most—and this is not a universal rule, but it’s, at the least, very common—live a tenuous balanc-ing act, pitting their inner narcissist against their inner . . . I don’t know . . . Charlie Brown, maybe? Eeyore? You get the idea. The self-obsessed versus the self-loathing, locked in a dance.

Now imagine five such writers, five bags of volatile chemicals sloshing about, all arranged around a cauldron and charged with the act of creation. This is a writers’ room.

I took the job on Prometheus: Fire and Stone because I wanted a place at that cauldron. I took the job to be part of what the men in a position to take such things for granted coolly call “the room.” I know that I am inviting ire from some of you and expla-nations and excuses from others, but I am past the age of car-

ing about the opinions of those of you who would judge me for your discomfort at this news: Our industry has very few “rooms” and women are seldom, if ever, invited in. Unless they’re there to take notes.

I am also a person, like you probably, who has always wanted to see what was past the doors that were closed to me. Dark Horse invited me in and offered me a title: lead writer—not only a spot at the cauldron, but a chance to help oversee what went

into the pot. I tried to decline, but we all knew it was a ruse.

What I experienced in the room was at once banal and miraculous, the sort of thing that feels like it should be pro-tected by blood oath or NDA, but no, no, I’m not only allowed to share; I’ve been charged with the duty. A

dozen dodgy drums spilled open, newts’ heads and cats’ tongues poured into the brew, and from the black goo they rose: Angela, Elden, Francis, Galgo, and the nameless one we call Ahab. Our cast.

It wasn’t magic; it was craft, work, predictable and dull. But it was magic, really, the way no one of them came from any one of us.

—Kelly Sue DeConnick

AUGUST 2014

DARK HORSE COMICS IS: Mike Richardson, President and Publisher • Neil Hankerson, Executive Vice President • Tom Weddle, Chief Financial Officer • Randy Stradley, Vice President of Publishing • Michael Martens, Vice President of Book Trade Sales • Anita Nelson, Vice President of Business Affairs • Scott Allie, Editor in Chief • Matt Parkinson, Vice President of Marketing • David Scroggy, Vice President of Product Development • Dale LaFountain, Vice President of Information Technology • Darlene Vogel, Senior Director of Print, Design, and Production • Ken Lizzi, General Counsel • Davey Estrada, Editorial Director • Chris Warner, Senior Books Editor • Diana Schutz, Executive Editor • Cary Grazzini, Director of Print and Development • Lia Ribacchi, Art Director • Cara Niece, Director of Scheduling • Mark Bernardi, Director of Digital Publishing • Editorial: Daniel Chabon, Spencer Cushing, Jim Gibbons, Annie Gullion, Sierra Hahn, Carl Horn, Jemiah Jefferson, Shantel LaRocque, Freddye Lins, Dave Marshall, Everett Patterson, Roxy Polk, Philip Simon, Patrick Thorpe, Ian Tucker, Aaron Walker, Brendan Wright • Production and Design: Tina Alessi, Amy Arendts, Justin Couch, Rick DeLucco, Heather Doornink, Matt Dryer, Christianne Goudreau, Allyson Haller, Chris Horn, Nick James, Clay Janes, Ryan Jorgensen, Kat Larson, Christina McKenzie, David Nestelle, Rich Powers, Jimmy Presler, Sara Proctor, Krystal Randolph, Jason Rickerd, Sandy Tanaka, Brennan Thome • Marketing: Topher Alford, Jeremy Atkins, Katie Bednark, Sean Brice, Aub Driver, Amy Huey, Zach Klassen, Melissa Lomax, Kari Yadro • Sales and Licensing: Rachel Golston, Michael Gombos, Nick McWhorter, Pat Richardson, Sarah Robertson, Andrea Sanders • Internet and IT: Jonathan Boschiero, Chase Caster, Mike Denning, Jamey DeOrio, Gary Franz, Gregory Randolph, Bryan Schlief, Max Schwarz, Oskar Stephens, Warren Stevens, Miles Stokes, Ian Terrell • Product Development: Caitria Cogan, Rebecca Dudeiros, Chris Gaslin • Scheduling: Casey Goodwin, Christina Niece, Jeremy Niece • Operations: Curt Bieker, Kevin Freeman, Jeremy Helton, Brian McMeen, Douglas Nolan, Bill Portus, Tim Stubson • Accounting: Sheena Birthmark, Jason Espinosa, Nicole Lapalme, Raymond Leslie, Tina Mitchell, Tara Raybun, Kim Schettig, Cynthia Silver-Biggi • Administration: Teresa Gresham, Rachel Roberts

DARK HORSE HEROES A séance disaster left medium JOHANN KRAUS without a body. A ghost in a containment suit who is able to commune with the dead, he grows more and more detached from the living, even as he fights to save mankind from the monsters who now beset them.

PART ONE