When dark forces conspire to corrupt the fabric of reality, Eddie’s immortal soul is shattered and strewn across the cosmos – his unbound essence corrupting countless worlds. Now, a weakened, primal Eddie must journey across space and time to battle the twisted legions of The Beast, seek out the lost shards of his soul and bring order to the realms…
When Iron Maiden decided to produce their first Eddie comic, they didn’t fuck about. Landing in October via established and suitably titled publisher Heavy Metal, Legacy Of The Beast – linked, of course, to Maiden’s mobile game of the same name – will follow Eddie through a new adventure and feature a metric shit-ton of characters, scenes and, naturally, other Eddies from the vast Maiden canon.
“There have been opportunities to create a comic many times, but there had to be a reason and a new story to tell,” explains Llexi Leon, Creative Director at Maiden’s Phantom Management and the man behind the metal-as-fuck Eternal Descent comic series. “The first Maiden comic had to be something original and innovative.”
As Llexi explains, while the necessity to create something that Maiden fans would click with was in safe hands, it was also important that they could make a comic that could do justice to the format, and brought in some heavyweight names to help make that happen.
“It was a passion project for me, having worked on Eternal Descent,” he says. “I was fortunate to get to work with some really high-calibre creators on the LOTB series including Ian Edgington, a superb writer, with over 700 credits to his name including some of my favourite Batman and Judge Dredd stories, and Kevin J West, who was one of the principle pencil artists from Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy in the 90s. Our ink slinger was Jason Gorder, who’s a tremendous talent that’s worked on everything from Spawn to X-Men. I also worked closely with Santi Casas and Ikari Studio on the covers and colours for the books, and those guys were heavily involved in the art style of the videogame itself. There’s a great consistency between the look of the comics and the look of the game.”
“Since we decided music would be a central focus for us, one band has been on our minds,” adds Heavy Metal’s Jeff Krelitz. “Eddie is such a natural fit for Heavy Metal that we couldn’t resist the chance to work with them on bringing this story to life. Like so many millions of Iron Maiden fans growing up with Eddie papering their walls, I’m honoured to be a part of this evolution in Eddie’s history!”
Issue 1 of Iron Maiden: Legacy Of The Beast comes out this October. The mobile game is available to download now for Android and iOS
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