At the height of the toy domination of 1980s pop culture, Kenner introduced M.A.S.K., an action line featuring fast cars, powered masks, high-tech weapons and flashy spycraft.
While not as ubiquitous as Transformers or G.I. Joe, the line nonetheless got a Saturday morning cartoon series, comics books and a video game.
Now, after mostly surviving as an occasional comic and occasional movie development announcement, M.A.S.K. is back in its most high-profile way thanks for Invincible co-creator Robert Kirkman and his Skybound multimedia production banner.
Skybound revealed a new ongoing comic from writer Dan Watters (Batman: Dark Patterns), artist Pye Parr (New Gods), colorist Pierluigi Casolino and letterer Rus Wooton. The announcement was made Friday by Kirkman at ComicsPro, as part of the annual meeting of comic book industry retailers, publishers, and distributors held in Glendale, Calif. The first issue is due to hit comic book shelves via Image Comics June 3.
In recent years, Skybound has relaunched both Transformers and G.I. Joe, polishing the media properties into best selling titles. Transformers, especially, has become a book that outsells many of the comics put out by DC and Marvel, and won an Eisner Award. The books are part of what is billed as the Energon Universe. Watters is already part of that universe having written Destro, a mini-series centered on the G.I. Joe villain put out by Skybound.
M.A.S.K. made ample use of acronyms. The name stood for Mobile Armored Strike Kommand and the security organization squared off against V.E.N.O.M., which stood for Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem.
As the logline Friday’s announcement states: The world is becoming a terrifying place. Matt Trakker needs your help saving it. Enter M.A.S.K. — a network of specialists ready to respond to the next global emergency. At a moment’s notice, Trakker and his agents can deploy bleeding-edge technology that converts their vehicles–and their drivers–into the ultimate weapon. But Miles Mayhem and V.E.N.O.M. are one step ahead in a secret arms race, scouring the globe for deadly weapons from this planet and beyond, ready to sell out the entire human race. Only M.A.S.K. can stop them… but will Trakker’s own secrets jeopardize their entire mission?
“80s sports cars! Jets! Lasers! Robots! M.A.S.K. has everything that I love to read, watch, and draw, and my inner 12-year-old fought to the surface and made me scream loudly in the meeting when I was offered this gig,” enthused Parr in a statement. “Never have I more bitterly regretted selling my beloved childhood toys, but the chance to rebuild all that stuff on the page has more than made up for it, and I can’t wait to see where Dan takes us in the Energon Universe.”
The first issue will showcase a main cover by Parr, with a lineup of variant covers from artists ranging from J. Scott Campbell, Cedric Poulat, Mark Spears, Daniel Warren Johnson, among many others.
M.A.S.K No. 1will also features the first-ever Energon Universe blind bag program that allows fans a chance to get any of the solicited covers, intermixed at varying degrees of rarity. There will also be rare surprise covers that will not be publicly announced in advance of the issue release.
Readers will be able to get a first look at M.A.S.K. in the Energon Universe Special 2026, a Free Comic Book Day issue releasing May 2. The special issue will include all-new stories from Transformer, G.I. Joe, and Void Rivals.
Check out a non-lettered preview and some of the covers below.
