‘Scarlet’ is an ultra-violent politically-charged comic book created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Alex Maleev that falls under Marvel’s Icon imprint – which basically gives some of Marvel’s biggest names the freedom to tell unique stories all while keeping the rights to what they create… and safely under the Marvel banner.
It’s in development for Cinemax as Bendis recently revealed (via Deadline) at the ATX Television Festival in Austin, Texas saying, “I do a book called Scarlet which is soon to be announced also in our universe of television. Not announced yet, but HBO.” He then later clarified that it wouldn’t be coming to HBO itself, but rather its Cinemax subsidiary. The TV series is currently in very early development and “the team around it will be announced as soon as all are on the same page”.
For those of you unfamiliar with the series, like me, here’s a handy summation:
The series is about a young woman named Scarlet Rue from Portland who rebels against a corrupt society and ends up starting a new American revolution in the process. The series often breaks the fourth wall in that the protagonist talks to the reader of the comic.
But I’m guessing not nearly as funny as Deadpool‘s fourth wall-breaking – and she probably shouldn’t be confused with another comic book character, Orange, who’s currently running for the US presidency. The reason for the rather short summary is simple – despite only having a planned run of 10 issues, and being published since 2010, ‘Scarlet’ still hasn’t finished its run and it currently sitting at eight issues published.
The comic book is regularly compared to ‘The Punisher’ in terms of its graphic violence (who’ll receive his very own Netflix series), but what’s controversial about the series is its political statements – which Bendis is very aware of and something Cinemax doesn’t appear to be shying away from:
Scarlet is a list of things you can’t get made. Here’s a female lead who’s killing cops because her world is broken. But when it was sold it was sold to people who were actively looking for that, so that put us in a good place. So stay tuned.
Colour me very intrigued. While I’m not a big comic book aficionado like that nerd Kervyn, I’ve enjoyed other Bendis works that have hit the small screen – like Powers and the excellent Jessica Jones. What do you think?
Last Updated: June 13, 2016
