Mad Cave Studios has announced Land of Never, a twisted take on Peter Pan by writer Steve Orlando, artist Miguel Mora (Megadeth’s Death by Design), colorist Fares Maese, and letterer Micah Myers. The psychological thriller follows a disgraced former pathologist, who believes his missing daughter was kidnapped by a masked brute he briefly glimpsed, but is unable to prove it. Six months on, he learns from others with similar experiences that the culprit may be a cryptid known only as the Flying Man.
Six months ago, Jim Hoke’s daughter Wendy disappeared from her room. All Jim caught was a glimpse of a hulking figure at the window — the kind of late-night vision that’s easily written off as a hallucination. No one believes Jim’s story — and six months later, the retired pathologist is just looking for anyone who’ll still listen. And even if he finds someone, should they believe him? Jim had already retired early to plant evidence against an alleged killer. His word doesn’t mean much — and it means even less with him as a suspect in Wendy’s disappearance. He can’t leave town, he can’t forget what he saw, and he doesn’t get any sleep thanks to the nightmares.
With Wendy’s disappearance declared the coldest of cases, Jim believes he’s the only one who cares about finding his daughter. And he’s got a withered Father’s Day card in his pocket to remind him — all he can do is his best. So he’d better step it up. Jim goes into business for himself, tracking leads and harassing anyone polite enough to listen to his story. He dives into rabbit hole after rabbit hole, until he meets someone else like him. Then another, then another, a whole community of people who’ve lost someone to a cryptid they call the Floating Man — just like the huge creature Jim saw take Wendy. Suddenly, Wendy’s abductor has a name — the Floating Man. And Jim’s obsession has direction — he’s got to track down the Floating Man, uncover his crimes, and free not just his daughter Wendy, but everyone who’s been lost.
Jim Hoke’s name is a nod to how the roles of Captain James Hook and Wendy Darling’s father are traditionally portrayed by the same actor in stage and film productions of Peter Pan. Orlando states, “I love the [Disney] movie version, love the stage version — and loved the book, which I read while living abroad. Now, with Land of Never, we throw an intense lens on childhood, innocence, shepherdship, and parenting. But with that lens comes dark horror and intense crime, with a big infusion of Lord of the Flies.”
Mora adds, “Working on Land of Never has meant engaging with a story that refuses comfort and resists easy interpretation. There’s a tension beneath the surface that demands a closer look. The world that emerges is defined as much by shadow as by revelation. I hope readers approach it with curiosity — and the willingness to be unsettled along the way.”
Created for London’s West End by J.M. Barrie in 1904, Peter Pan entered the public domain in the United States in 2024. The comic comes on the heels of a similarly horrifying film version, Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare (from the same producers as the Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey series), which was released early last year, and a villainous take on Disney’s own version in 2022’s Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie. The character’s most recent comics appearance came in Dan Panosian, Alessio Avallone, and Alberto Canale‘s BOOM! Studios sequel The Last Boy, also released last year.
Issue #1 will be released on June 17, with a variant cover by Sebastián Píriz. You can check it out below, along with a four-page preview. In the meantime, Orlando’s next Mad Cave series, Gatchaman: Red Impulse will begin on April 29, and another take on a classic character he scripted, Tarzan Beyond, will debut from Alien Books on June 10.
