Clive Barker creates a dark and biblical 'New Genesis'

Brian Truitt, USA TODAY | USATODAY

God coming back to Earth is one thing. God coming back to Earth as imagined by Clive Barker? Uh-oh.

Launching in May from Boom! Studios, New Genesis is the first original comic created and written by the horror master. Featuring art by Haemi Jang (Hellraiser: The Road Below), the 12-part series is the Old Testament of the Bible in present day, "if God were to come back and tell you how we all got it wrong and what everything really meant," says co-writer Mark Miller.

"We're making something that is a radical re-reading of ancient structures. It does have the word Genesis in the title, after all. That should be a dead giveaway," adds Barker, who brought his Hellraiser franchise to Boom! two years ago. "I love the idea of stories being about great beginnings and terrible endings."

Miller and Barker began their own friendship through art. Barker paints models and photographs them in various landscapes, and for one project he painted Miller in a multi-colored tribal look with various earth-tone paints.

Looking at what he did, the two started to think about the guy they were looking at, wondering about what he'd be like if he were God and the devil all rolled up into one way-out-there package.

Thus Wick was born.

In New Genesis, Julian Demond is a captain of industry who believes he is on a mission to actually discover God, and in the wasteland finds Wick, fostering a relationship with this strange man who claims he is actually the Big Man Upstairs and appears to be just as omnipotent.

"He's sort of going back to Earth and seeing everything for the first time, so he's having all these new experiences," says Matt Gagnon, editor in chief at Boom! "What's really interesting about his story is how the world reacts to his judgment and seeing the world through his eyes."

This is a Barker story, though, so those experiences are laced with elements of dark fantasy and horror and "filled with all the terrible things that happened in the original Genesis," Miller says.

The protagonists of the story are Julian's son Tristan and his fiancée, Elspeth. They embark on their own road trip to stop Wick and reconnect with Julian. This strange religious journey of Julian's is very weird for Tristan "because his father has never been a spiritual man," Miller says. "Only in this new phase of his life does he feel the call to leave his mark upon the world, in a much stronger fashion than he already has."

While much of the story is supernatural in nature with what's happening with Wick and the places he's going and things he's seeing, New Genesis is also very grounded, Gagnon says. "The places the characters are traveling to are real, so the fun of it is seeing those places explored through Wick's POV, whether that's San Francisco or Rome," he says.

"That's one of the things about Clive's writing, he likes to keep things timeless," Miller adds, "so he has included these real-life places that are part of our consciousness and understanding the world. And then he burns them to the ground."