Now here’s an interesting, exciting turn up for the books. Marvel have announced that Jimmy Palmiotti will be bringing his creator-owned character Painkiller Jane to their Icon imprint in November, for a four-issue miniseries with artists Juan Santacruz, Sam Lofti and Paul Mounts. Santacruz will draw the feature story, whilst Lofti will handle a back-up detailing the character’s origin.

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Created by Palmiotti and Joe Quesada for their own Event Comics publisher way back in the 1990s, the character has since bounced around publishers, with Palmiotti overseeing every new story she’s appeared in. Most recently she turned up at Dynamite for a well-received miniseries, and built up a wider and broader fanbase than she’d ever had before. His reasoning for now taking her next chapter to Icon is that he’ll be able to have complete creative control, whilst still getting all the benefit of Marvel’s wide distribution and reach.

Icon is the perfect home because of the freedom I am given to take the book in any direction I please, and they have the distribution of Marvel Comics behind them. In the end, the best thing for me would the to get the book out to as many people I can. As most people know, I have a huge history with Marvel Comics, and some of my good friends are in charge of things there, so this choice was a no brainer for me.

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Painkiller Jane is a basically indestructible, tough-as-nails vigilante, and in this series we’ll see her on a mission to keep a Saudi Princess safe in Manhattan… which, inevitably, descends towards chaos. In the CBR interview Palmiotti repeatedly talks about using this new miniseries as a chance to get under that invincible skin, and get really into the head of the character. 

She was suicidal in the Dynamite comics series, and now I feel she is finding her place in the world and exploring her sexuality a bit more. This was really a case of slowly falling in love with the character and, because every writer does this, I started putting a lot of myself into her. Her reactions and the abrupt side of her was mine. Amanda [Conner] always told me Jane was me in a female character’s form, and the more I write her, that becomes more and more clear. The connection is there, and when you have that, it’s something unique. I hear her voice in my head.

Issue #1 of the 4-part series is out in November, with a cover from Amanda Conner and Dave Johnson.

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