A Zenith Return For 2000AD With Steve Yeowell And Red Dragon

Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, Rebellion / 2000AD | Tagged: grant morrison, steve yeowell, zenith

A Zenith return for 2000AD with Red Dragon, from Rob Williams, Steve Yeowell, Patrick Goddard, and Dylan Teague

This September, Rob Williams, Steve Yeowell, Patrick Goddard, and Dylan Teague bring the Welsh superhero Red Dragon, last seen in Grant Morrison and Yeowell’s acclaimed 1980s series Zenith, back for a story exploring the past and present of Wales itself.

Once Britain’s most powerful superhero, Siadel Rhys, appeared in Zenith years after his glory days were over, running a pub and disillusioned with superheroing. Recruited by Zenith to form a team protecting Britain from a new threat, the character was killed in the line of duty. Now, starting in 2000 AD Prog 2451 on 24 September, the new series revisits Rhys’ superpowered heyday of the 1960s alongside the present day. The story which looks back at the character’s origins, marks a major new series for 2000AD.

Original Zenith artist Yeowell returns with writer Rob Williams and artist Patrick Goddard for a new story set across two ages, exploring the beating heart of Welsh courage. This new series heads back in time to explore the young and powerful Welsh pyrokinetic in his glory days during the swinging Sixties. Yeowell and Goddard will split artistic duties, with Yeowell joined by colourist Dylan Teague to explore the 1960s-set sequence, while Goddard remains in the present day, pencilling events as a documentary crew head to post-Brexit Wales to look at the legacy left by their greatest hero.

Red Dragon first debuted in the very first Zenith series in Prog #535 in 1987: a Welsh superhero recruited by the bratty young superhero to take on the danger of Nazi super-soldier Masterman. Red Dragon, real name Siadwel Rhys, was a pyrokinetic hero who had found fame in the 1960s – but by the 1980s, Zenith found this once-mighty hero had become disillusioned and lost his heart for battle.

Siadwel’s only appearance to date was in the first “phase” of Zenith, although he’s long been a fan-favourite character, as Yeowell knows all too well, noting that Siadwel has become “one of the mainstays of my sketching repertoire. My first encounter with him was when he appeared in Zenith phase one, more than thirty years ago: a broken and disillusioned figure, fated for a tragic end. So I’m really excited at the opportunity to work with 2000 AD writing veteran Rob Williams and fellow artist Patrick Goddard on this dual timeline story, to show him as a super hero in his 1960s prime – charismatic, confident and principled”.

Rob Williams explains: “Reading Red Dragon’s story arc in Zenith in 1987 broke my heart, and I wasn’t alone in that. Grant and Steve created this vibrant, deeply flawed, extremely human character and, what’s more – he was a Welsh superhero. Red Dragon sounded and felt like quite a few people I’ve known over the years growing up in South Wales, just they didn’t have the ability to fly (although there were a few alcoholics and arsonists).”

Williams and Goddard will also both be heading to Forbidden Planet in Cardiff on Saturday 27th September from 3pm-4pm for a very special Red Dragon signing, joined by Rogue Trooper: Ghost Patrol artist and fellow Welshman Neil Edwards.

Williams notes: “When I was asked if I would be interested in telling a Red Dragon story, I started to think about the idea of a Welsh superhero. Of where the UK and Wales was in the 1960s of Red Dragon’s heyday, of showing some of that optimism and bright colour, and then telling a story about where Wales, and Britain, is now.”

Red Dragon starts in 2000 AD Prog 2451, a special bumper issue releasing on the 24th of September in the UK, and available in the USA in December. It will be joined by horror thriller The Ravilious Pact by T.C. Eglington & Steven Austin; a major new Rogue Trooper series begins in Ghost Patrol by Alex De Campi & Neil Edwards, and we return to the Orrery in Brass Sun: Pavane by Ian Edginton & INJ Culbard. Plus in Prog 2451, new horror Dredd series starts, And to the Sea Return, by Rob Williams & Henry Flint,

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