Tom Morello is officially heading back to the long boxes with Leviathan Freedom, a sprawling sci-fi epic that takes a massive piece of American history into the stars. Most people know him as the sonic architect behind Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, but Morello is a massive comics nerd with a history in the medium. He’s teaming up with veteran writer Marc Guggenheim and artist Szymon Kudrański for this five-issue event under the Comixology Originals banner. It’s his first major comic project since his 2011 debut with the series Orchid, and the hype is real for a summer release.
The Revolutionary Inspiration of Robert Smalls
The core of Leviathan Freedom pulls from the incredible true story of Robert Smalls. If you don’t know the name, you should. Smalls was born into slavery and famously commandeered a Confederate warship, the CSS Planter, to sail his family and others to freedom. Morello is taking that revolutionary spirit and transplanting it into a galaxy torn apart by civil war. It’s a space opera where the stakes are grounded in the struggle for basic human rights.
“For as long as I can remember, I’ve been on a mission to unearth the stories of revolutionaries—the fighters, the visionaries, the ones history either buries or sanitizes beyond recognition,” said Tom Morello. “Their courage, defiance, and unwavering pursuit of justice, often in the face of seemingly impossible odds, have shaped the world, even if their names are too often left out of the narrative. Robert Smalls is one of those heroes. The idea of taking his revolutionary spirit and launching it into the cosmos feels like a perfect extension of his fight.”
A Galaxy Divided: The World of the Doldrums
In this universe, the high-level politics of war don’t matter to the people on the ground. The story focuses on the Doldrums, a laborer caste that keeps the entire war machine running while bearing the brunt of the conflict’s cost. Everything changes when one man decides he’s had enough of the status quo. Morello’s activism has always been a part of his art, and this looks like a natural evolution of that message.
Marc Guggenheim brings a lot of weight to the script. He’s the guy who helped build the Arrowverse and has written everything from Star Wars: Jar Jar to The Whisper War. He knows how to pace a high-stakes thriller.
“Leviathan Freedom comes as a reminder that true freedom is rarely given and very often must be taken,” says Marc Guggenheim.
The Creative Powerhouse Behind the Pages
The visual side of things is in great hands with Szymon Kudrański. You’ve seen his moody, textured work on Spawn and Punisher, so expect a gritty, lived-in sci-fi aesthetic. Letterer DC Hopkins rounds out the team to ensure the dialogue hits as hard as one of Morello’s riffs. Sedat Oezgen, who worked with Guggenheim on The Whisper War, provides the cover for the first issue, with Kudrański taking over for the rest of the run.
Amazon’s Comixology Originals has been on a roll lately with titles like The Adequates and GhostBox: Black & White. Adding a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer like Morello to their exclusive digital line is a big move. You can catch the first issue of Leviathan Freedom when it debuts digitally this summer.
