Back in October I told you about five cool Comic Book Kickstarter projects, and all but one of them met their funding goals. The Masters, a really cool concept that mixes villains inspired by famous artists with public domain superheroes, and an all-star roster of creators came up a little short of its funding goal, but it has been relaunched (this time for one issue at a time, instead of all five) and has already exceeded its goal by a factor of five, and there are still more than three weeks left. So I’m going to remind you of this cool project, which you can now get in on from the ground floor.

THE MASTERS! are a group of villains inspired by master artists of the 20th century, and in this five-issue series, they prove worthy opponents for some of history’s favorite super heroes! This is he brainchild of Austin Hough, a fellow MEGO action figure enthusiast, and a man after my own heart. He has gathered together a “who’s who” of classic silver and bronze-age comic book artists to pit the villains he’s created against a wild collection of some of the most fun public domain superheroes available.

The story pits the heroes against the villains in the manner of the classic Batman team-up comic, The Brave and Bold, so that in each issue we have two or more of our revitalized Golden Age heroes teaming up to take on our artistically-influenced bad guys. As a guy who spent the better part of the last 18 months wearing Rene Magritte-inspired facemasks, this is right in my wheelhouse. The Masters are: Sir Real Ordeal, The Clerk, Graffiti, Panorama, and Monsieur Petit Renard.

The covers to the comics pay homage to classic covers from the 70s, and 80s, and the rewards for higher tiers range from variant covers to trade paperback and hardcover collections of the entire series (to be released in December 2022) to select pages of original art. There are also add-ons available with poster-sized reproductions of the covers, signed by the artists.

This time, the campaign just covers the 28-page first issue of The Masters, a five-issue comic book series featuring art by comic book legends: Ramona Fradon, Pablo Marcos, Mike Grell, Joe Staton, Bob Hall, Romeo Tanghal, Alan Weiss, Mike Vosburg, Val Mayerik, Joe Rubinstein, Ron Wilson, Alex Saviuk, Arvell Jones, Al Milgrom, Pat Broderick, Kerry Gammill, Chuck Patton, Tom Grummett, Geof Isherwood, Bart Sears, Darryl Banks, Stéphane Roux, Mike Lilly, Art Baltazar, Jimmy Palmiotti and MORE!

I’ve already kicked in for this, and the funding goal was met in a half hour, so you know you’ll get this. The following four issues will follow on a regular basis.

You can keep up with the project on Facebook and Instagram, and support the Kickstarter project HERE.