Comic Book Worldbuilding

William in Outer Space in Issue 3 of Zero Hour Epsilon Force. When people search for Black Christian comics , or something similar, they're probably looking for more than representation. Chances are, they're looking for stories that combine spiritual depth, cultural identity, and meaningful heroism. Zero Hour Epsilon Force offers this. William Wallace: A Black Action Hero One of the main characters in Zero Hour Epsilon Force is William Wallace , a Black deuteragonist whose

The written rules of time travel. Time travel is one of the most exciting narrative tools in superhero and science fiction stories because it allows heroes to fix mistakes and villains to rewrite history in their favor. With time travel, entire worlds and universes can collapse and be rebuilt in just a second or two. However, one crucial aspect sometimes gets overlooked: Rules. The Problem With Ruleless Time Travel Without rules, time travel can stop being powerful and start

Time travel and alternate realities are staples of superhero and science fiction stories. The terms alternate timeline  and parallel universe  are sometimes used interchangeably but they can sometimes mean slightly different things depending on the fiction's logic. Grasping the difference between these two concepts can add depth to our understanding of characters and the stakes in their stories. Alternate Timelines: Branching Histories Explained An alternate timeline occurs

The demon prior to the final battle in Zero Hour Epsilon Force. When I decided to include a Bible-based demon as a major villain in the trilogy story arc portion of Zero Hour Epsilon Force , I thought it would be straightforward. An evil entity who opposes God and causes chaos. But when I read the Bible and thought about the theology behind demons, it became a bit more complicated. While Zero Hour Epsilon Force is largely a science fiction and fantasy comic series, it also t

When I first started creating my comic series, I didn’t begin with awards in mind. I started with a simple goal: create a superhero, fantasy, and sci-fi comic series with raw, meaningful and impactful stories. I grew up on cartoons, superhero shows, and big sci-fi movies. Most of them were the 90's and early 2000's Saturday morning cartoons. Those stories shaped how I see storytelling. But as I got older, I also became more aware of the different types of brokenness in the wo

As a Christian comic book creator working in superhero and fantasy genres, one thing that I never really thought about when I was initially creating Zero Hour Epsilon Force was if powerful artifacts are acceptable in a Christian comic universe. As a child, I loved superheroes (and still do) and they inspired me to make my Saturday Morning cartoon style comic. I'm sure many of us know how some of these superheroes (and villains) may have needed to obtain a certain number of p

Time travel shows up in a lot of sci-fi and superhero stories, but not all time travel works exactly the same way. One of the biggest differences comes down to this question: Does changing the past change the future or create a new alternate timeline? These two types of time travel lead to very different kinds of stories, each with different stakes and different outcomes. Multiverse Theory Time Travel In multiverse theory time travel, changing the past does not change the ori

When people hear the phrase “Christian comic book,”  they often imagine a very specific type of story. As I’ve been building my own comic universe, I’ve realized that creating a Christian-based comic book world comes with a few unique challenges that aren’t always initially obvious. Here are two struggles I’ve run into. Struggle 1: Christians Are Not Just One Audience It’s easy to talk about “Christians” as if we're one unified group. In reality, Christianity encompasses dive

When people hear that a story is set in a Christian universe, they may often expect every chapter, episode, or issue to revolve directly around theology, sermons, or explicit faith themes. But who says a Christian universe must always revolve around one theme? What if just like any big story world, a Christian universe also has story arcs that focus on different subject matters? The Zero Hour Universe In Issue 1 of Zero Hour Epsilon Force , Tyrannogator fights against Dr. Dew