Comic series The Red Star, a genre-bending saga set in the world of an alternative history USSR, could be appearing in the form of a TV pilot.

Inspired by Russian folklore and military history and constructed with a fusion of equal parts high-tech sci-fi, dark sorcery and alt-history insanity, it immediately demands an answer to why in the name of all that is good and holy is this the first that I’m hearing about it?!?

The adaptation was originally set to be a feature film directed by Chronicle’s Josh Trank, who is soon to preside over the conflagrating vortex of WTF that is the Fantastic Four reboot. However, according to a report on io9 the rights now reside with Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz, a writing team who provided the scripts for Thor and X-Men: First Class, and have written episodes of Fringe, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Andromeda. The duo are planning to adapt the comic as a TV series which they hope to sell to a cable network.

The story begins with a disastrous battle between the United Republics of the Red Star and Al’Istaan (an alt-history nation analogous to Afghanistan), where the Red Star fleet of Skyfurnaces (gargantuan aerial warships whose engines are so huge they function as incendiary weapons) is destroyed by an immortal sorcerer harnessing the power of his dying followers, the subsequent devastation awakening unknown mystical beings who begin a war over the souls of the dead.

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