Ten years after Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog hit the web with its three episodes of musical superheroes and villains, it’s back, now in comic format. Filmmaker Joss Whedon, who wrote and produced the online musical, will write a one-shot Dr. Horrible comic from Dark Horse.
The original Dr. Horrible was created by Whedon and his friends and family as a response to the 2007-2008 writers’ strike, but it quickly became a pop-culture sensation. In the story, the hero-vs.-villain script is flipped by showing the audience the perspective of Billy (Neil Patrick Harris), a hapless and likable man who yearns to shock the world as the supervillain Dr. Horrible. Billy is continually harassed and mocked by Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion), a clueless and insensitive but locally adored hero. They’re also rivals for the affection of Penny (Felicia Day).
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In the new comic, titled Dr. Horrible: Best Friends Forever, the status quo will be upset once again. The enmity between Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer apparently is, and has always been, a deep friendship. When Whedon made his announcement today at Comic-Con International in San Diego, he offered no clues about how this came about, but was glad to poke fun at his characters: “Each member of the Hammerverse — sorry, Doc, that’s what it’s called, he registered it — is a delightful, bigger than life character, but more importantly, on a very human level, they’re idiots.”
Arriving Nov. 14 from Dark Horse, Dr. Horrible: Best Friends Forever is written by Joss Whedon, with art by José Maria Beroy and Sara Soler, colors by Dan Jackson, cover art by Fábio Moon, and a variant cover by Francesco Francavilla.
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