Posted in: Comics, Oni Press | Tagged: Citizen: Stardust, Dave Baker, Fletcher Hanks, Malachi Ward, Stardust The Super Wizard
Dave Baker & Malachi Ward’s Citizen: Stardust For 2027 From Oni Press
Dave Baker and Malachi Ward reviving Fletcher Hanks’ Stardust the Super Wizard again in Citizen: Stardust for 2027 from Oni Press
Article Summary
- Oni Press revives Stardust the Super Wizard in Citizen: Stardust, a 12-issue maxi-series debuting in April 2027.
- Dave Baker, Malachi Ward, and colorist Dave Stewart reimagine Fletcher Hanks’ Golden Age cult icon for a new era.
- Citizen: Stardust follows fallen Hollywood star Barclay Flagg as art, obsession, and horror blur with superhero myth.
- The series builds on Stardust the Super Wizard’s recent revival while pushing into surreal, violent, psychodramatic territory.
Oni Press is launching a new 12-issue maxi-series that reimagines one of the Golden Age’s most psycho-surreal creations. Citizen: Stardust #1 arrives in comic shops in April 2027 from Dave Baker of Mary Tyler MooreHawk and Halloween Boy, and Malachi Ward of Black Hammerand Prophet, with colours by Dave Stewart.
Created by writer/artist Fletcher Hanks in Fantastic Comics #1 for Fox Comics in 1939, the original Stardust the Super Wizard appeared in fewer than 20 stories during Hanks’ brief two-year career. Hanks himself left comics in 1941 and was found dead on a New York City park bench in 1976 after decades of presumed substance abuse. The character has seen a modest but notable revival in recent years, driven largely by his public-domain status and the cult following that grew after Paul Karasik‘s Fantagraphics collections of the original stories, which won an Eisner for Best Archival Collection.
Stardust the Super Wizard Anthology, edited by Van Jensen, was a 2024 hardcover of new short stories by Mike Allred, Francesco Francavilla, Pete Woods, Ron Marz, Zander Cannon, Jesse Lonergan, Jeff Parker, Tom Fowler, and others. It also featured the first comic story by Ian Hanks, Fletcher Hanks’ grandson. The book later received an Eisner nomination for Best Anthology, which was withdrawn after it was revealed that one contribution used AI-generated art.
Family Fun Comics #18 from Cosmic Lion Productions in 2025 saw the Coats Brothers (James and John Coats rtevive the character in an oversized comic book, numbered as a continuation of the original run, as both a homage to the Golden Age originals and a more modern, heightened, and violent take that pushes the character’s bizarre elements further.
The new Citizen: Stardust series takes Stardust the Super Wizard and places him in an alternate America where the aging actor who brought the character to cinematic superstardom is about to uncover the terrifying secrets behind his on-screen alter ego. In 1947, Barclay Flagg is the brightest star in Hollywood, better known to the public as Stardust. After an attempted assassination by a crazed fan ends his career, Flagg decays inside his Los Angeles mansion until an invitation arrives to The Institute, an experimental arts retreat. There, with a near-unlimited budget and an obsessive crew, he sets out to create the long-gestating Stardust masterpiece he has always wanted, only to discover that some dreams are too good to be true, and that the two-dimensional comic book hero inside him was never truly locked away.
Dave Baker & Malachi Ward’s Citizen: Stardust
Dave Baker & Malachi Ward’s Citizen: Stardust
Dave Baker & Malachi Ward’s Citizen: Stardust
Dave Baker & Malachi Ward’s Citizen: Stardust
“The probability of Stardust: The Super-Wizard becoming one of the most bizarre and unique comics to be published in 2027 seems extraordinarily high, to me,” said Dave Baker. “Malachi Ward and I are bringing a new perspective to the superhero world informed by psychogeography, cult sacrifices, and technology beyond human comprehension. If that doesn’t make you want to read it? Just know that there’s a cat of nine tails made of human skulls.”
Malachi Ward added: “Dave’s take on Stardust, and on the work of Fletcher Hanks as a whole, is such a compelling meditation on the savagery of American pop culture and the often tragic consequences of trying to make something great. The task of bringing all of that grotesque action and sprawling imagination to the comic page is the most ambitious joy of my career so far. You are not going to believe what these pages hold.”
Oni Press President & Publisher Hunter Gorinson framed the series as lighting a new path out of the long shadow of deconstructions like Miracleman, Planetary, and Black Hammer. “Dave and Malachi are cutting deep to probe the liminal edges of America’s obsession with superheroes, celebrity, self-destruction, and, of course, power. This is an exciting, disturbing, and fascinating series… and Fletcher Hanks’ signature creation—the beautifully bizarre Stardust the Super-Wizard—is the perfect vehicle for this nightmarish descent into the superhero substrata. Citizen: Stardust is comics of the highest order.”
CITIZEN: STARDUST #1 (of 12)
Co-written by Dave Baker & Malachi Ward
Art by Malachi Ward
Colors by Dave Stewart
Oni Press | In stores: April 2027
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