George R. R. Martin teams up with Marvel for new comic book series

Game of Thrones writer George R. R. Martin has teamed up with Marvel on a new comic book series.

• READ MORE: John Bradley: “After ‘Game Of Thrones’, nobody wanted to take a chance on me”

Martin has adapted the Wild Cars saga into a new comic book series. Marvel describes the saga that Martin “masterminded” as a work that “[Spans] more than 25 novels, 20 short stories, and written by more than 40 authors over three decades, the Wild Cards series tells the story of an alternate history where Earth is home to super-powered individuals.”

They add: “When a human is infected with the alien ‘Wild Card’ virus, the odds are that they will be killed… which is referred to as ‘drawing the black queen’.

“Of those that survive, the bulk of them become “jokers”, left with some strange mutated form. A lucky few are called ‘aces’, those gifted with super powers they can put to use towards heroic goals…or villainous ones.”

Martin will now present the work “for the first time in comic book form”.

A statement from Marvel added: “the limited series, titled The Drawing Of Cards, will be written by a team of comic superstars, writer Paul Cornell and artist Mike Hawthorne, and serve as a perfect entry point for Wild Cards newcomers and a must-have new reimagining for Wild Cards aficionados.”

George R.R. Martin's legendary Wild Cards universe comes to Marvel Comics in a new series! Learn more: https://t.co/Omwq3DZFcQ pic.twitter.com/0IDYcbEtOA

— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) February 18, 2022

Martin has described working with the superhero franchise as a “privilege” that brought him “no end of joy”.

He said: “As my fans may already know, the Wild Cards World holds a special place in my heart, so to have the privilege of announcing that an industry titan like Marvel is going to produce the narrative from the beginning as a comic book brings me no end of joy.”

Cornell added: “Wild Cards is still a unique take on super heroes, a creation story that’s influenced everything since, but still maintains its power.

“It’s an honour and a pleasure to bring all these wonderful stories to their natural home at Marvel, and I hope to give George, Melinda and the rest of the Wild Cards Collective the credit they deserve for making the super hero myth new again.”

The series will arrive on June 1.

John Bradley told NME that he felt Game Of Thrones fans “lost their minds” over the show’s finale.

Bradley, who played Samwell Tarly in all eight seasons of the HBO fantasy drama, said “We were never going to please everybody. People had invested too much.”

Bradley added: “We genuinely wanted it to be great. We genuinely thought it was going to be great. We were really proud of it. We weren’t arrogant enough to think: ‘Oh we’ll just put it out there and they’ll swallow it’. We only ever wanted people to like it… I was really disappointed.”

He continued: “The fan reaction was so fierce and vociferous, when people think of Game Of Thrones, they have a sense of disappointment because they didn’t like the finale. I’d like it to be seen as a complete body of work… Those great moments are not going to be forgotten and they shouldn’t be dimmed or taken away from because the ending wasn’t to your liking.”

Fans were left disappointed by the finale to the point where they started a petition to remake the final season, which racked up 1.8million signatures.

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