There are some brands or properties in media that are so iconic that they’ve transcended generations and entrenched themselves into pop culture permanence. One of them, without any doubt, is the Rod Serling created, “The Twilight Zone.” From 1959 to 1964, audiences were brought to a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. Though its been over sixty years now since its final episode of its original run, the show has lived on in various ways. That legacy is set to continue this fall when IDW Comics drops “The Twilight Zone” comic book.
Currently, IDW’s run is contracted for 5 issues with the first issue dropping on September 24th. Entirely in black and white, the first installment is titled, “Blanks” and is being written by Dan Watters with illustration by Morgan Beem. No firm plot details were released, but the cover image was, showing a man in a hospital bed flanked by doctors with no faces. The motif firmly fits into the kind of imagery you’d expect from the legendary franchise. At the time of this writing, the other four issues in the run remain a mystery; exactly as they should be.
Die hard fans of Serling’s creation would be quick to point out there already was a comic book of “The Twilight Zone” decades ago. Which is true, but this franchise is no stranger to revivals. As a television series, “The Twilight Zone” had a successful run in the mid ’80s, a terribly unsuccessful one in the early 2000s, and a severely underwhelming one in 2019. Various comic runs have popped up over the years too, with the most successful one running from the early ’60s into the late ’70s.
“I have long been a fan of all horror, but creepy stories that slowly build to unnever you have always been first in my heart,” Beem said.
“The Twilight Zone” is “…a cultural titan and a North Star in the strangest skies revealing what science fiction, fantasy, and horror can do for us: revealing uncomfortable truths about what lies in our own hearts,” Watters said. Not to mention, comics have a long history of being in the horror genre, with EC Comics bringing us “Tales From the Crypt” all the way back in the early 1950s.
This is one of those projects that has a lot of potential. “Black Mirror” has shown that there’s still a market for horror anthologies, but with the glut of programs across streaming platforms, maybe the realm of comic books is a good place for “The Twilight Zone” to make its mark. Let’s hope it follows in the legacy that Serling left behind for us.
