Ever since we’ve been able to look to the heavens, we have constantly asked “What if?” “Are we alone in the universe?” “Is there other life out there waiting to meet us?” They’re questions that have propelled humanity to think beyond our own immediate surroundings and punch the sky.

But as much as we look into the dark of space and pierce our atmosphere, what keeps us continuing to keep questioning is the internal. Who we are. Our relationships. Our successes. And our failures.

This is something Mark Mitchell, the protagonist of the upcoming Mad Cave Studios comic The New Space Age, knows all too well. From the creative minds of writer Kenny Porter, artist Mike Becker, colorist Kevin Betou, and letterer Buddy Beaudoin, The New Space Age follows Mark, a disgraced astronaut whose whole goal in life has been to find his brother Joey, who was abducted by aliens when they were young. While Mark’s foibles hurt both his career and the space program itself, he’s about to get another chance to find his brother, if he can decode messages that reveal the truth of space travel.

I spoke with Kenny Porter recently about the idea behind The New Space Age, the cast we meet in the comic, working with the creative team, and how the comic echoes some real-world happenings.

This book is already proving to be a really fun concept, with exploring a tale of what we think of space and traversing the stars in a really novel way. Kenny Porter’s enthusiasm for the project is infectious and it’s a passion that will prove to carry throughout this series.

 

Cover A: Mike Becker

 

FreakSugar: For folks reading this, what is the conceit of The New Space Age?

Kenny Porter: The New Space Age is about a disgraced astronaut trying to find his little brother, who was abducted by aliens. What he discovers is that crop circles are instructions for space travel and that the key isn’t science, but magic.

FS: What was the genesis of the book? How did this comic form?

KP: I’ve always loved hopeful science fiction stories and the idea of traveling through the stars. At the same time, I’m always looking for ways to take the fantastic and blend it with real-life experiences. I took personal feelings that I think we’ve all shared around family, loss, and hope, and I pulled those in to create a story about looking up when the world is looking down on you.

FS: Following up on that, what inspires the comic? Do you have sources you pull from or sparks for a creative engine?

KP: Oh, there are tons of things that inspired this book! I really loved the sci-fi adventure movies of the ‘80s and ‘90s. The Explorers and Flight of the Navigator were definitely big influences on the story. In terms of comics, Darwyn Cooke’s DC: The New Frontier and Moebius’s work on The Incal were also big inspirations for me when I was crafting the story.

 

Cover B: Khartoum Randolph

 

FS: What can you tell us about Mark and his brother Joey?

KP: Mark and Joey grew up losing themselves in comics and dreaming of the stars because they had a terrible home life. They had a mother who wasn’t in the picture and a really abusive father. Mark tried to be Joey’s protector, but he felt like he failed when Joey was taken.

FS: Does Mark have survivor’s guilt?

KP: Definitely. It’s a big driver for the book. A lot of this story is going to be Mark working through that and finding new meaning in being a survivor.

FS: You have a stacked creative team. What can you tell us about your collaboration?

KP: I completely agree! My editor, James, recommended Mike Becker for the art, and Mike recommended Kevin Betou for the colors, and I was familiar with Buddy Beaudion’s lettering work, so I thought it was a really fun, naturally brought together team.

I had mentioned the influence of DC: The New Frontier as well as The Incal. Mike’s artwork has a lot of inspiration from animation and has a kind of flair that the Franco-Belgian comics have.

FS: The defunding of the public space program feels a little too close for comfort. Do any real-life events impact this narrative?

KP: Oh, absolutely. And I wanted it to feel close to home. I wanted to start at that place of hopelessness, that the overall world isn’t interested in a brighter future, then present a group of characters who were willing to fight tooth and nail for that dream again.

We’re also seeing a ton of UFO and UAP footage get released, and there was one article that Mike shared with me recently called about the “Buga Sphere” that was discovered in March of 2025. I wrote the series over a year ago, but the sphere in the article sounds a lot like some things that come up in the story. Which is thrilling and scary at the same time.

 

Cover C: Daniel Warren Johnson

 

FS: Maybe a loaded question: Do you believe in aliens?

KP: I do, but not in the general pop culture way. I just know that, based on how vast the universe is, there’s definitely life on other planets. Where they can travel to and from other worlds, I have no idea. But the idea that nothing else is living anywhere else in the universe is bonkers to me.

FS: Following up on that, do you have a favorite alien story or alien abduction tale?

KP: I grew up as a big fan of Alien, The X-Files, and anything that had to do with space. I will say, like most people my age, the abduction scene in Fire in the Sky is one of the most disturbing and creepy scenes ever put in a film.

FS: Are there any other projects you’re working on you’d like to discuss?

KP: I have several that haven’t been announced yet, but I do have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Annual coming out from IDW in October. I’m really excited for people to read that!

FS: What are you reading right now?

KP: I’m a huge reader, so I always have multiple books going. Right now, I’m reading all of the DC event 52, The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler, and of course, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run.

FS: Can you tease anything about what we can expect to see in the book moving forward?

KP: You’re going to see a lot of big, crazy concepts that Mike completely knocks out of the park. We play a lot with visuals, actual layouts of the page, and surprising storytelling elements that are going to get readers really excited. It’s a hopeful story, but there’s still plenty of action and heart.

FS: If you had a final pitch for The New Space Age, what would it be?

KP: Outside of the normal pitch, I’d tell comic fans to imagine if Hal Jordan (Green Lantern) and Zatanna built a spaceship together.

The New Space Age #1 goes on sale Wednesday, December 17, 2025, from Mad Cave Studios.

From the official press release about the comic:

An astronaut, a magician with a dangerous past, and a desperate engineer build a ship not of physics, but of magic…

Mad Cave Studios is proud to announce THE NEW SPACE AGE—a psychedelic sci-fi heart-wrencher that asks, “How far would we go to save the people we love, and what happens when belief itself becomes the engine for exploration?”

From writer Kenny Porter (Superboy: The Man of Tomorrow, DC: Mech) and artist Mike Becker (Young Offenders!), with colors by Kevin Betou (Tempo), letters by Buddy Beaudoin (Gatchaman), and featuring a cover B by Khary Randolph (Wolverine: Black, White & Blood) and retailer incentive by Daniel Warren Johnson (The Moon is Following Us), The New Space Age charts a course beyond the stars in this exciting five-issue limited series!

Disgraced astronaut Mark Mitchell has only ever had one true mission—to find his little brother Joey, who was abducted by aliens from a crop circle when they were little. But when Mark’s hotshot piloting gets him grounded and the last of the public space program defunded, Mark loses his only means of finding Joey out in space.

Until Mark’s homemade scanning rig discovers the shocking truth about the crop circles—they’re instructions for space travel.

Mark will need to uncover the hidden messages that have been left on Earth for years, and reverse engineer the magic that can finally help him find Joey.