Marvel Comics have announced that Star Wars: Doctor Aphra writer Kieron Gillen and Moon Knight artist  Jacen Burrows will be the creators behind the first Marvel Comics Warhammer 40,000 comic book, Warhammer 40,000 Marneus Calgar.

Calgar is one of the main protagonists of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. He is the Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, the blue armoured Space Marines who are humanity’s best chance of surviving the horrors that lurk in the grim darkness of the 41st  Millennium. The new series will explore Calgar’s origins, from his youth spent in the realms of Ultramar to his rise in power as a Space Marine.

Gillen is well known for his love of table-top gaming, so much so that one his other projects, DIE, is heavily inspired by fantasy gaming.

In press relase, he said: ”  I am venerable enough to have bought Rogue Trader in 1987.Since then, I like to think every hastily dry-brushed Necron, every badly edge-highlighted Marine, every ignored Harlequin (as painting Motley petrified me) has prepared me for writing the first Warhammer comics for Marvel. If I said, ‘Getting to explore the roots of Marneus Calgar and setting the stage for Marvel’s Warhammer comics is a dream come true,’ I would be betraying everything this grim future should be since ‘dream’ implies the possibility of hope. But getting to do this is the sort of thing Slaanesh would wave in my direction if she wanted me coming over to the tentacle-y side.“

“Or to translate for those less indoctrinated in 40K,” he concludes, “I’m excited.”

The first issue of the comic book will be avialble via the usual outlets from October, 2020.