Remender and Acuña plot an ESCAPE

Welcome back to The Beat Digest, a twice-weekly round-up of the biggest comics-related news stories we’ve missed every Tuesday and Friday. Is there a story out there you think we should cover? Be sure to let us know in the comments.

§ Former Uncanny Avengers creative team Rick Remender and Daniel Acuña will reunite at Image on Escape. An anthropomorphic, World War II-inspired thriller, Escape follows a crashed bomber pilot, who teams up with a father and son to flee the city he’s stranded in, before his side launches an offensive that’ll completely destroy it. An ongoing series, it marks Acuña’s first creator-owned work in “decades,” and he describes it as “my most solid, mature and personal work.” Issue #1 will be released on August 20.

Image also announced August’s Redcoat #14 will serve as a prelude to Geoff Johns, Brad Meltzer, and Gene Ha‘s upcoming series First Ghost. The issue, by Johns, Bryan Hitch et al., will take place during the burning of the White House in 1814, presumably explaining why there’s a ghost there in the new series, set in the present day. (Both comics take place in Ghost Machine‘s Unnamed Universe, alongside Geiger and Junkyard Joe.) Redcoat #14 releases August 20, while First Ghost is still unscheduled.

§ Via ComicBook.com, IDW Publishing announced TMNT: Journeys, a monthly series reprinting Peter Laird and Jim Lawson‘s 2001-09 run for the first time. Laird and Lawson’s TMNT, which ignored the prior Image run, marked the fourth and final volume of the original Mirage Studios series, and kicked off with Splinter taking Shadow Jones (Casey’s stepddaughter) under his wing, as well as Casey and April O’Neil expecting a baby. Issue #1 will be released on August 20, with Lawson’s original cover art, and a new variant by Kevin Eastman.

§ At Bloody Disgusting, AWA Studios revealed Kill or Be Killed, a horror one-shot by novelist Peter Tieryas (Mecha Samurai Empire) and artist Mike Choi. Due out August 20, the 48-page book revolves around a maniac on social media who threatens to murder people’s loved ones, unless they livestream killing a stranger on their behalf. It will mark the second comic in AWA and Vertigo Entertainment‘s multimedia Future of Fear series, following this month’s Look Out.

§ Titan will reprint their Blade Runner comics in a new line of omnibuses. Michael Green, Mike Johnson, and Andres Guinaldo‘s Blade Runner 2019 will be rereleased first on September 2, while Blade Runner 2029 and 2039 (which Johnson and Guinaldo created without Green) will follow respectively on October 7, and November 4, 2025. They should arrive on shelves in time for the Prime Video series Blade Runner 2099, which finished filming in December, but doesn’t currently have a known release window.

§ The second trailer for Paramount‘s Smurfs reboot, starring Rihanna as Smurfette, was released. The movie, also featuring the voices of Nick Offerman, John Goodman, James Corden, J.P. Karliak, Sandra Oh, and many more, hits theaters July 18, 2025.

Furthermore, it was announced “Friend of Mine,” Rihanna’s song for the film (her first since Wakanda Forever in 2022), would be released today, and that a Meta Quest 3 game, The Smurfs: Flower Defense, will launch ahead of the movie on Thursday, June 19.

§ The second trailer for DreamWorks Animation‘s The Bad Guys 2, due out August 1, was also released:

§ Per a press release, the Small Press Expo and American Film Institute are teaming up for a season of films and talks about cartoonists at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland. It will kick off with the documentary Drew Friedman: Vermeer of the Borscht Belt, and a Q&A with the filmmakers, on Sunday, May 18, before continuing with a screening of No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics on Sunday, June 1. Further events will be announced at the theatre’s website, so be sure to bookmark it if you’re interested.

§ Season three of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will premiere with two episodes on Thursday, July 17. The ten-part season will continue to release weekly on Paramount+ until the finale on September 11. Strange New Worlds has already been renewed for a fourth season, and in the meantime, you can watch season three’s trailer here.

§ Finally, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Benton died on Sunday, May 11, aged 92. Best known for directing Kramer vs. Kramer, and co-writing Bonnie and Clyde, Benton also penned the libretto for the 1966 musical It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman with Bonnie and Clyde co-writer David Newman. He briefly reteamed with Newman on the 1978 Superman film, rewriting the original draft of the script by Mario Puzo, before stepping away to direct 1977’s The Late Show. His final film was 2007’s Feast of Love. He was predeceased by his wife of 59 years, artist Sallie Rendig, and is survived by their son.