At the beginning of 2015, Dark Horse Comics lost the Star Wars rights to Marvel Comics. But Dark Horse is still aggressively adding new licenses to help fill the void.
During the second day of New York Comic Con, Dark Horse announced plans to bring James Cameron’s Avatar and DreamWorks Animation’s How To Train Your Dragon to comics. While there is currently no word on the creative team for the Avatar comic book series, Cameron recorded a message for Avatar fans to go along with the announcement.
“For the past twenty-seven years, Dark Horse has been associated with my films The Terminator, Aliens, and The Abyss,” said Cameron. “I am excited that between now and the release of the first sequel, Dark Horse Comics will be bringing you new adventures from Pandora—covering the time before, during, and after the events of the original Avatar film.”
Dark Horse also disclosed that How To Train Your Dragon writer/director Dean DeBlois is co-writing the first comic book miniseries, How to Train Your Dragon: The Serpent’s Heir with writer Richard Hamilton. The Serpent’s Heir will be a direct sequel to How To Train Your Dragon 2 and the story begins only a few hours after the end of the film with Hiccup as the new chief and his dragon Toothless as the new alpha.
“I am excited to be writing this next chapter in the How to Train Your Dragon universe,” said DeBlois in a statement. “Dark Horse is a perfect home for these new original stories and Richard and I are thrilled to know they will be in the hands of our incredible fans very soon.”
Avatar and How to Train Your Dragon: The Serpent’s Heir will be published by Dark Horse Comics in 2016.