Cyberpunk Gets A Mythic Twist In New Sci-Fi Epic From Award-Winning Creative Team (Exclusive)
Kolt Day is a tenured freelancer who has brought invigorating and provocative takes to Screen Rant and ComicBook, alongside loads of writing experience in other realms. Outside of media journalism, Kolt loves music production and philosophy (particularly Nietzsche, Derrida, and Foucault).
"In a future rebuilt from the ashes of war, belief is no longer sacred—it’s monetized," begins the blurb on the back cover of Deicidium's first volume. There could hardly be a better introduction to the ambitious new sci-fi graphic novel from Ram V and Evan Cagle. Published through Image Comics, Deicidium is one of Fall 2026's most anticipated comics, promising a story that will collide cyberpunk dystopia with exhilarating action and complex social dynamics in a world where corporations collude with newly engineered (and monetized) religions for grand social control.
Co-creators Ram V and Evan Cagle certainly have the bonafides to pull off this vision. Ram V's rich oeuvre has included titles like The Many Deaths of Laila Starr (soon to receive an opera adaptation) and the Eisner-winning Blue in Green. Ram has also helmed memorable runs for DC and Marvel for properties like Swamp Thing and Detective Comics. Former animator Evan Cagle has collaborated with Ram V on works like NEW GODS, known for his eclectic and meticulous style, and has won awards for his covers for graphic novels like The Witcher, Stranger Things, and more.
ScreenRant has received a new exclusive preview of Deicidium's first volume, alongside information about Ram V's new creators' studio, Mirror Maker, and its accompanying YouTube channel.
Deicidium Is Set For Success From Day One
Broadly speaking, Deicidium's motivation can be found in its name. "Deicidium" is a Latin term which emerged in the early modern era, roughly meaning "slaughter of a god" or "slayer of a god" depending on context. To take this further. Of the novel's ensemble cast of protagonists, one is named Bhairav, likely modeled after Shiva's avatar Kala Bhairava, who in Hindu mythology would be the one to decapitate Brahma in response to arrogance and falsehood.
That gesture—killing gods built on an arrogant house of cards—is the cornerstone of Deicidium. In a world where corporations and new religions collude to exercise social control, dictate beliefs, and generate massive profit through the monetization of faith, ancient gods awaken within ordinary people—and the established order, recognizing those gods and citizens as threats, deploy 12 highly trained, faithless orphans to neutralize them. The full blurb from Deicidium vol. 1 is as follows:
In a future rebuilt from the ashes of war, belief is no longer sacred—it’s monetized.
Humanity has entered a hard-won age of stability, governed by an unholy alliance between global corporations and newly engineered religions. Worship fuels the economy. Faith is power. Salvation is a product. Welcome to the industry of belief. That fragile balance shatters when the old gods return. Ancient deities of fire, wind, jaguars, love, war, and mischief awaken inside ordinary people, transforming neighbors and strangers into living gods. To the powers that be, they aren’t miracles—they’re threats.
The great faiths of the new world knew the old gods could one day return, and they planned for such an eventuality. 12 orphans were chosen, bestowed with gifts and taught to be faithless, loveless instruments without reward or remorse. The old gods have returned—and the 12 will be unleashed.
As old myths collide with a world built on manufactured faith, a brutal conflict ignites—one that will decide who controls humanity’s future, and whether salvation comes from those placed above us…or from within us. DEICIDIUM is a global epic series from the multi-award-winning collaborations of Ram V, Evan Cagle, Anand Radhakrishnan with Tom Muller, Aditya Bidikar and more.
While certain publications have already fielded limited previews of the volume's introduction, ScreenRant has obtained access to pages which specifically show the series' action, shown above. In these four pages, an altercation is captured between a person in a mech suit chanting a Latin phrase and then disabling a tank attempting to rush through him, before throwing the tank's bloodied driver to the side. Even in this microcosmic altercation, the air is tense; the stakes are high; much is shown with little.
Overall, the premise of Deicidium is notably strong. Certain phrases, like "a hard-won age of stability", indicate that while power might act in a repressive sense in this society, it also is the condition of stability; the function of faith necessarily means that civilians, in a sense, "ask" for such a life. Conversely, the "faithless, loveless" orphans lack attachment to the concepts they protect. With power taking so many forms, it is clear that Ram V's lyrical and detailed storytelling, shown for example with his work in Detective Comics, will be a deciding force in this work as it progresses.
It's clear in the revealed artwork, too, that Cagle is playing an important role in establishing the atmosphere and humanity behind these panels, even in moments that seem fairly brutal. In fact, Deicidium's promise is driven by the spirit of collaboration between its co-creators. "What is hard is finding creators curious enough about their own ideas to trust that they haven't explored [...] what those ideas could be, and who generously allow a partner in that journey of exploration. I have been exceptionally fortunate to find that in Ram," Cagle would say.
Ram V To Launch New Creator's Studio, Mirror Maker
The collaborative dynamic between Ram V and Cagle can be understood as an example of Ram V's exciting new project, Mirror Maker Studios, in microcosm. Ram V reflected on the early moments of Deicidium's creation like so:
[W]e brought together a bunch of creative people at the top of their game from all over the world; we locked ourselves into a small apartment and filmed the creative energy, early decisions and ideas behind making the book. It's like watching a band come together to make a song that is somehow more than the sum of its individual parts.
Enter Mirror Maker Studios, described as a creative studio and ideas incubator that will bring life to creative works which push boundaries across genre, publishing, and media. It's an extension of what Ram V described with The One Hand and The Six Fingers, aiming to push the boundaries of comics as a medium. On the general mission, Ram V would say the following:
I believe that the ability to create things and make art is one of humanity’s most beautiful aspects; worth valuing and encouraging. [...] At a time when companies seem to want to push both creators and consumers to accept mass produced content devoid of human perspective and endeavour, I think more creators should convey the magic that exists in the process of making things, not merely in the product.
Mirror Maker Studios' launch will coincide with a new YouTube channel, timed to the publication of the first volume of Deicidium. The YouTube channel intends to "document [the creative process] and give readers, viewers, and fans a place to engage with the process and people behind the things they love and enjoy—especially a time when the primacy of the creative human mind and experience as the force behind making art is being challenged."
The new YouTube channel will launch with an episode focusing on the Deicidium creative team and the process behind its creation, while upcoming episodes will feature a variety of guests, creator commentary on upcoming works, and more. A link to the Deicidium episode will be provided when available.
Deicidium's Message Is Important And Timely, And Mirror Maker Proves It
The mission behind the Mirror Maker YouTube channel quietly underlies what could potentially make Deicidium such a resonant work. If, as Ram V says, the primacy of the creative human mind and the force behind artistic work is being challenged, then sincere conviction for human artistry itself becomes a leap of faith. But to take Ram V's words further, the modern world features constant distortion, parallel explanations, and the almost mandatory impulse to confess and describe "truth" in one's own words—so sincere conviction itself becomes a leap of faith.
Deicidium's core conceit might rest on the basis of faith (in the religious sense) being the last bastion of sincerity that was corrupted and monetized. It's almost painfully on the nose how much the aforementioned opening words of the blurb resonate with a particularly clever bearded fellow's words that, in the modern world, all that is sacred becomes profaned. If the reader understands sincerity and conviction as works of faith in their own, then Deicidium's stakes are any of their sincerest convictions becoming a commodity—and the price is the utter terror of that commodification becoming the norm.
It is true that Deicidium, in general, seems to use its fantastical world to comment on a real-world problem of universal commodification. Even art itself, per Ram V, is losing its soul to mass-production and slop. But perhaps that's a bit too sunny. Deicidium seems positioned to depict faith, sincerity, and conviction as battlefields: stages where competing forces duke it out for glory and legitimacy.
In a weird sense, that movement means that Deicidium doesn't project itself as hopelessness in the face of that reality. Instead, it seems to promise itself as a bastion of optimism in the face of real-world monetization of everything that exists, and an encouragement to both critique one's own values and hold fast to whatever emerges. In Deicidium's fantastical premise lies a metaphorical manual for resistance.
Deicidium will be published through Image Comics, available for purchase in comics stores on November 11 and in bookstores on December 8.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.