Hammerfist: Two Marvel Legends Unite for a Horrifying Crime Story

Separately, Rick Remender (Uncanny X-Force) and Steve Epting (Captain America) have crafted some of the most popular and influential Marvel Comics stories of the 21st Century. Now the duo is joining forces to launch a new Image Comics series called Hammerfist, and we couldn’t be more thrilled.

Check out the slideshow gallery below for an exclusive first preview of Hammerfist #1:

Hammerfist’s creative team also includes colorist Matt Hollingsworth, and the first issue features covers by Epting, Dan Panosian, Jim Cheung, Daniel Acuna, and Jerome Opena. Here’s Image’s official description for Hammerfist:

Reservoir Dogs collides with Evil Dead in a filthy crime story that mutates into a savage splatter-horror nightmare from New York Times bestselling author RICK REMENDER (ESCAPE, Captain America) and acclaimed artist STEVE EPTING (VELVET, Captain America) about an unredeemable killer forced to do the one thing he’s avoided his entire life: stand for something other than himself.

Meet MIKE DENTON: a dirtbag hitman, junkie, and absentee father who’s spent his life chasing the easy fix—drugs, cheap sex, and murder for money—while failing the one person who still believes he can be better: his daughter.

Now, on the eve of BLACK NOON—an ancient darkness that erases the light in all things—Mike has to drag himself out of the gutter, awaken a supernatural weapon powered only by love, and fight his way through the living embodiment of evil to save her.

“Collaborating with Rick on Hammerfist has been incredible,” Epting tells IGN. “The book is unpredictable, gritty and funny. A hardboiled crime story that mutates into fever-dream horror without ever losing the heart underneath. There’s real emotion under all the blood and chaos; we just take the most violent road possible to get there. I can’t wait for readers to see what we’ve been building.”

“Hammerfist is for people who grew up on those unhinged genre films of the VHS era, over-the-top, hard-R, wildly original, but never forgetting to be fun,” says Remender. “A hardboiled crime story that mutates into an ultra-violent, Raimi-style horror story following a low-rent killer who becomes the only thing standing between us and eternal darkness. Getting to see it come to life in the hands of a master like Steve Epting is a dream come true. I’ve wanted to collaborate with him for years, and the pages speak for themselves, cinematic, brutal, and emotional. Paired with Matt Hollingsworth’s color there just isn’t a better art team.”

Hammerfist #1 will be released on August 26, 2026. You can preorder a copy at your local comic shop.

For more exclusive comic book previews, check out our new look at Marvel Creator Collection No. 1: Barry Windsor-Smith and X-Men ’97: Season Two #1.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.