Over the course of three films, Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables franchise has assembled the biggest and best action stars from across multiple generations for testosterone-fueled, explosion-packed violent romps of action and hyper-masculinity. It’s been six years since The Expendables 3 came out, but Sylvester Stallone is bringing The Expendables back in a new form. And this time he’s sending them to hell. Take a look:
All the craziness of The Expendables is unconstrained by the limits of budget and cinema technology, and free to be as wild as possible within the panels of a graphic novel? Umm, yes please. As you can see, Sylvester Stallone is bringing The Expendables back in a graphic novel that will see the mercenary team die and go to hell (was there ever any doubt?), where they will have to fight the monstrous residents of that fiery pit.
If that scenario sounds wild when you read it, all you have to do is take a look at Sylvester Stallone’s Instagram to see that The Expendables Go To Hell graphic novel will exceed all reasonable assumptions of absurdity. Sylvester Stallone’s Expendables character Barney Ross is, of course, ready for the challenge of going to hell and all that he will encounter there.
In the second panel the actor shows from the comic, Barney Ross is seen on a serpentine walkway, bridging the lake of fire. The next page shows Barney and an accomplice (can’t tell who) fighting in a war zone where they are under attack from some of Hell’s other residents, but ones from a different time period. Perhaps it is the Carthaginians because these foes have elephants (Cersei would be jealous).
Another page shows Barney and Dolph Lundgren’s Gunner Jensen fighting an alien worm that looks like something out of Alien or Dune that Barney gets swallowed by and has to kill from the inside. It’s truly wild stuff.
The Expendables Go To Hell is actually the result of an Indiegogo campaign to create the graphic novel. The campaign has blown its $10,000 goal out of the water, with nearly $60,000 in funding from fans that want to see what happens when The Expendables are finally killed in battle, only to find themselves facing an eternity of war in hell.
The story for The Expendables Go To Hell comes from Sylvester Stallone himself and comics writer Chuck Dixon. He is an established comics writer who helped create the character of Bane and has written characters like Batman and The Punisher. That’s a fitting pedigree for an Expendables comic. Comic book artist Graham Nolan will draw the book, with Daniel Brown handling the coloring.
The Expendables Go To Hell will encompass a 50-page main story, as well as three side quests which will feature the work of different artists. The graphic novel is expected to ship in May, and for those who are interested, there are plenty of perks for the project’s backers. There are signed copies, variant editions, pin-ups and T-shirts available at different price points for the project’s backers through Indiegogo.
The Expendables Go To Hell looks absolutely insane and is a must for fans of the action franchise. This should tide us over until The Expendables 4, which seemed like it was definitely happening, but we haven’t heard much definitive on that in a while. The Expendables, with its titans of action, was always kind of a superhero team anyways, so it makes sense that they finally made their way to the pages of a comic book.
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