EXCLUSIVE: Titan Comics Unleashes First Lettered Pages of The Raid

Titan Comics and writer/director Gareth Evans are adapting the martial arts action film The Raid for a new comic book title in August, and CBR has an exclusive look at the first lettered pages from the upcoming series.

Based on the fan-favorite movie franchise, The Raid comic takes place during the events of 2014’s The Raid 2 and follows Iko Uwais’s Rama, a tough special forces Jakartan cop who goes undercover in prison to bring down a criminal empire.

The creative team behind The Raid are writer Ollie Masters (The Kitchen) and artists Budi Setiawan (Savage Dragon), Brad Simpson (Wolfenstein) and Jim Campbell (Giant Days), with Edwards overseeing the project.

As the pages below illustrate, the comic will continue to deliver the same level of action and violence that fans have grown to expect from its big screen, live-action counterpart. Starring alongside Rama are Bejo, an ambitious and ruthless Jakartan crime boss; The Assassin, Bejo’s most highly-ranked hitman; Hammer Girl, a brutal assassin who uses claw hammers to destroy her enemies; Baseball Bat Man, Hammer Girl’s brother; Uco, a mobster, son and heir to the head of the police’s internal investigation unit; and Teja, a special operations officer and new to the Raid saga.

Punching and kicking its way into stores in August 2018 with Issue #1, Titan Comics’ new four-part series brings the bone-crunching cinematic martial arts action to the bloodied page. Readers are invited to go beyond the movie to discover the shocking story behind fan-favorite characters, Hammer Girl and Baseball Bat Man.

Premiering in 2011, Indonesian martial-arts movie The Raid (also known as The Raid: Redemption) sent pulses racing at the Toronto International Film Festival and secured unanimous critical praise, rocketing to cult film status across the globe.

The movie captured audiences with its boundary-pushing, inventive choreography and piston-pumping narrative when a lone, isolated SWAT team are trapped by a ruthless mobster and his army of killers and thugs inside a tenement block, and they have to fight their way to the top.

Directed by Gareth Evans and produced by PT. Merantau Films and XYZ Films, the high-octane franchise has garnered great success since its release. The first film had 10 nominations at the 2012 Maya Awards, and was followed, in 2014 by The Raid 2, which featured the character of Rama returning to battle against corruption in his own police force.

Titan’s new comic series, overseen by series creator Gareth Evans, is a perfect companion to the upcoming American reimagining of The Raid mythos, which is being brought to life by renowned director Joe Carnahan.