Snake Plissken’s Chicago to North Pole journey in comics
Snake Plissken is gearing up for a truly brutal fall, as Mad Cave Studios is launching a new comic book series that throws the iconic antihero into some of the most dangerous territories imaginable. This new adventure keeps John Carpenter’s legendary rogue navigating impossible escapes, but takes him to increasingly extreme locales.
The journey kicks off with Escape from New York: Escape from Chicago, a series that plunges Snake into the toxic underbelly of a dystopian metropolis. In this first adventure, Snake is back on the run, working as a smuggler and coyote across the volatile dead zones between prison territories. His immediate mission? To extract a woman named Maya Torres, who is wanted by Chicago’s ruthless warlord.
Chicago is a shifting landscape defined by warring factions. As Snake navigates the city, he encounters the Stockyard Nation controlling the industrial South Side, the Magnificent Mile Syndicate dominating the financial district, and the Lakefront Raiders controlling the highways with fast-moving vehicle gangs. Every street is watched, and every neighborhood is claimed, presenting Snake with a challenge far more complex than simple escape.
The chaos intensifies in the following installments. The second issue of the series delves deeper into the hostile territories of Chicago, where Snake and Maya must survive while dealing with profound personal conflicts. As the stakes rise, the adventure pulls Snake further into the lethal game of survival.
Things only get more complicated with the arrival of the next arc. The third issue of Escape from New York: Escape from Chicago reveals that the mystery of Maya’s parents’ smuggled device holds the potential to shift the balance of power between the city’s warring gangs. Snake’s extraction mission quickly transforms from a simple rescue into a near-suicide mission.
But Snake doesn’t get much time to rest. Following the intense Chicago escapades, the story takes a drastic turn as the series transitions to the Arctic. The final installment, Escape from New York: Escape from the North Pole, drops Snake into the frigid confines of the Ellesmere Island Containment Facility, the world’s northernmost prison. Here, Snake is given a choice: remain imprisoned, or pursue the legendary Soviet geneticist Dr. Svetlana Lysenko and rescue her from a Siberian bioweapons facility, where experiments have devolved into dangerous abominations.
This new comic series offers Snake another dose of high-octane action, honoring the cynicism and knack for impossible missions that defined the original film and subsequent adaptations. The creative team, including writer Kyle Higgins and artist Val Rodrigues, delivers a fresh spin on the classic concept, offering readers an epic narrative spanning from the grimy streets of Chicago to the frozen isolation of the Arctic.
Meanwhile, the cinematic world is also buzzing about a reboot of the classic. Zack Snyder is developing a new Escape from New York film, set in 1997 but viewed through the lens of 1981. Snyder aims to preserve the kitsch, camp, and satire of the original while updating the conflict between law and crime, though official casting and release dates remain under wraps.
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