A mad new story fromImage Comicshas officially been announced, combining the novelty ofHoney, I Shrunk the Kidswith the most heroic and fantastical elements of the barbarian fantasy genre. The result isBug Wars, a dark fantasy tale of one kid thrust into a brutal war, on the scale of bugs. And if anyone can make it work, it’s the duo of Jason Aaaron and Mahmud Asrar.
Image makes the news official in the midst of New York Comics Con 2024, with writer Jason Aaron (The Mighty Thor, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, andAbsolute Superman) and artist Mahmud Asrar (Conan the Barbarian, X-Men,andBatman & Robin)joining forces for this strange, dark fantasy epic. The first issue drops in February 2025, with the first details and cover art giving a clear sense of the outlandishly outrageous tale, which should not be missed.
Slade Slaymaker is a kid from Alabama suddenly lost in a vicious world beyond his imagining, a world of marauding ant armies, spell-casting spider witches, and beetle-riding barbarians. A kingdom of tiny but deadly warriors hidden in his own backyard. The same world that saw his father eaten alive by insects and now plunges young Slade into the middle of a brutal Bug War to decide the fate of his family.
What BUG WARS Means For Fantasy/Barbarian Fans
All The Best Parts of Fantasy, Just Very, Very Small
With more insight into the premise of the tale and Slade Slaymaker’s role in it, the comparison betweenHoney, I Shrunk the Kidsmake perfect sense. A young boy finding himself in larger-than-life territory that somehow manages to be even smaller than he is could make for compelling reading. Even more so when readers take into accountthe bloody, barbaric nature that synopsis forBug Warsteases, which seems right up the alley of the minds behindThorandConan the Barbarian. Speaking of, Jason Aaron has the following to say:
“When I was a kid, our backyard was a wondrous place, where I spent hours imagining epic adventures, action figures scattered all through the grass. In a lot of ways, I still feel like that kid, running around the yard, making up stories. Only the stories have gotten a bit darker over the years. For Slade Slaymaker, the backyard of his home in Alabama turns out to be a place of terror and brutality, where sects of tiny sword-wielding Mytes and their armies of flesh-eating beetles and acid-spraying ants have declared war on his family. ThinkHoney, I Shrunk the KidsmeetsGame of Thrones.”
In addition, Mahmud Asrar has this to add:
Bug Warsis the culmination of what I wanted to do in comics: A fantasy epic told with no holds barred. A tale where our imaginations run wild. A place where we reach the heights of escapism, all while keeping everything grounded with pure human emotion straight from the heart.
Our Take on Bug Wars, Coming From Image in 2025
Aaron promises an ambitious fantasy, which tends to be par for the course for most of his stories. It’sa story that seems to tap into the imaginative inner child at the heart of Aaron’s style of writing,while also speaking to the bloody (and gore-inducing) violence that his work typically welcomes, found even ina grittyNinja Turtlesreboot. TheGame of Thronesanalogy alongside ofHoney, I Shrunk the Kidsshowcases how there could be an overarching whimsy toBug Wars, but an underlying darkness that could creep up any moment.
If it wasn’t already clear from their previous works, it is especially evident from their words that both Aaron and Asrar are wholly passionate fans of the fantasy genre and anything barbarian.They are committed to bringing the philosophies and sensibilities of both into Bug Wars, and it’s something that readers should be excited about.Bug WarsfromImage Comicspromises something tonally different, while also bringing to its core the unyielding love and passion of the genre from fans of the genre.
Bug Wars#1will be released by Image Comics on June 09, 2025.
