Brian Truitt

USA TODAY

Writer Rick Remender and artist Sean Murphy are comic-book A-listers who are finally working together, on a project that is all about the yin and the yang.

Their Image Comics series Tokyo Ghost doesn't launch until July 2015 but the two creators, plus colorist Matt Hollingsworth, have already spent a year building a dystopian land ruled by entertainment and consumers desperately needing their digital fix. All the while, though, a natural haven has re-emerged for humanity on the other side of the world.

There is a lot of sci-fi action and political commentary, but "as people get into it there will be some more content in the plot that maybe people aren't expecting," says Murphy, an artist well known for The Wake and Punk Rock Jesus.

Adds Remender: "Ultimately every single thing seeded in the first issue that just seems like us being madmen and doing insane explosions and gore is seeded for an emotional payout and leads into something poignant and heartfelt and is really kind of beautiful."

The series centers on two locales in the year 2189 that couldn't be any different: the tech-addicted, decrepit, polluted isles of New Los Angeles and the mysterious lost nation of Tokyo, the last tech-free place on the planet.

Following a particularly nasty disaster, L.A. has been turned into islands, the Hollywood sign is half flooded and no one's leading a very meaningful existence, according to Remender, the writer of Image's Deadly Class, Black Science and upcoming Low.

The government's given up rule to the tech sector and the entertainment industry, and the town's run by gangsters whose "law enforcement" are brutal constables such as Led Dent and Debbie Decay. They are akin to sheriffs very willing to stomp somebody's head in or torture a perp in traffic while rolling large on their tricked-out, Mad Max-type motorcycles.

The population goes about their days with holographic screens — Google Glass taken to the most ridiculous level — constantly in front of their faces, Murphy says. "They're non-stop downloading torrents, watching YouTube, all through their daily lives. And people driving cars while they're playing Angry Birds while they're downloading porn while they're uploading torrents."

"It does what good science fiction is supposed to do: turn the focus on us and comment on our own society. It extrapolates some of the ideas that Rick and I think about how we rocket into the future as a species."

The antithesis of this is Tokyo, where Led and Debbie are sent on assignment.

What's left of the city is bathed in an electromagnetic-pulse field, shutting pretty much any gadget or device down, and has gone back to basics where farming is a lot more important than downloading.

The two main characters are built on archetypes and also reflect a balance of sorts.

Debbie is Led's assistant who avoids tech because she sees it as the addiction that it is, but she's constantly having to keep Led in focus since he's supremely distracted by the entertainment of this world.

Yet while he is clearly based on a violent, Judge Dredd/Lobo bruiser archetype, Remender says, "who Led is and what's going on with Led and where we take Led is ultimately the beating heart of this thing."