Patton Oswalt Comic ‘Minor Threats’ Launches Anthology Spinoff With Matt Fraction, Brian Michael Bendis (Exclusive)

The universe of Minor Threats — actor and comedian Patton Oswalt and TV writer Jordan Blum’s cult hit comic book centered on the travails of underappreciated and overlooked D-list villains — continues to expand and has now attracted the attention of some A-list creators.

Matt Fraction, known for his Eisner Award-winning work on Marvel’s Hawkeye, and Miles Morales co-creator Brian Michael Bendis, along with award-winning artists Michael Allred and Gene Ha, are working on an anthology mini-series that is set in the Minor Threats universe and set to be published by Dark Horse Entertainment next year.

Writers Gail Simone and Gerry Duggan and artists Soo Lee and Mark Torres are also involved in the four-issue project that is titled Welcome to Twilight City and will feature a mix of new and established characters.

The idea of an anthology had been percolating for some time for Oswalt and Blum, who thought it was an effective way to continue explore different facets of genres. Previous spinoffs, such as The Alternates, The Brood, and Barfly, worked in the areas of psychedelic superheroes, a Wes Anderson-style family drama, and a punk rock coming of age story, respectively.

“Doing an anthology felt like the perfect way to expand the universe and explore new subgenres within this world of heroes and villains,” said Blum. “We seem to focus on stories and characters who would fall through the cracks at Marvel or DC. The underdogs who often get overlooked. Our books are incredibly character focused and anthologies really allow you to spotlight one at a time in really unique ways.”

Added Oswalt, “I know this is gonna sound cliche but sometimes the spinoff ‘chooses’ us — a writer or artist, or both, will come to us with ideas they have about a character or dangling storyline from a previous Minor Threats arc. We’ve also gone out to our dream roster of writers and artists, asking if there’s anything they’d like to play with in the world. The responses have been insane.”

Fraction and Allred are the creative team behind the first issue, which will focus on a washed-up, bird-winged actor Benjamin “Brock” Bronkowicz who isn’t a superhero, but played one on TV. Brock now spends his time on the superhero convention circuit, trying to cash in on his fleeting fame, drinking away his problems as he fades into obscurity. A chance encounter with a mysterious woman, however, empowers Brock to fight for a life he once thought was over. Laura Allred is doing the colors and Nate Piekos is lettering.

Issue No. 2 will be written by Bendis and illustrated by Lee (The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos), issue No. 3 will be written by Simone (Uncanny X-Men) and drawn by Ha (Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons), while issue No. 4 will be written by Gerry Duggan (Falling in Love on the Path to Hell) and drawn by Torres (Cold Spots).

The first issue, From the World of Minor Threats: Welcome to Twilight City No. 1, will hit stores March 12, 2025.

A love letter to the superhero genre, Threats debuted in August 2022 and took on tropes and themes of the genre by telling its story from the perspective of the D-list supervillains. The initial mini-series proved to be a surprise hit with readers and critics, and Oswalt and Blum used the success to create a universe. A sequel as followed as well as the aforementioned spin-off mini-series.

The series is also in development as at Netflix as a live-action series with Oswalt and Blum to serve as writers, showrunners and executive producers. Dark Horse is also executive producing as is the comic’s co-creator, artist Scott Hepburn.

Duggan has a history with Oswalt going back to the days when the scribe worked at LA’s Golden Apple comic shop and where he struck up a friendship with the comedian, who was a regular. Their mutual love of noir led to Duggan’s issue.

“I’ve always been drawn to noir, and some of my favorites were ones I saw at the New Bev along with Patton, titles like Blast of Silence and The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” Duggan wrote via email. “A ‘cleaner’ in a superhero universe is just such a fun fertile place to tell a story, and we’re giving our lead some very real problems to deal with — there is an equation that goes back to Stan, Jack and Steve that still works. You’ll see that in our introduction to this universe. The biggest problem in the story isn’t how to disappear the invulnerable corpse. It’s been a privilege to collaborate in this shared universe, and I look forward to hanging my pork pie hat here for a while.” 

Simone also teased her story and self-deprecatingly said it was tailored to her particular set of writing skills. “I have a bit of a history writing just-barely-redeemable losers with books like Deadpool and the Secret Six. It makes me happy to think that the creators of the series thought, ‘Hey, we should do a book with a downtrodden shellfish man whose family doesn’t respect him and who is in therapy! Who would be good for that? Oh, yeah, let’s ask Gail!’”

As with many aspects of Threats, there is an anything goes and let’s see what happens aspect mixed in with Oswalt and Blum’s grand design. Already the two are thinking beyond the anthology.

“I’m not gonna spoil anything (but) some of these “single” issues have taken on a life of their own and might turn into series,” he said. “Stay tuned.”

Check out some design work and art pages from Welcome to Twilight City below.