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Check out an exclusive preview of Die: Loaded

Image: Peach Momoko/Image Comics

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Die, the Hugo Award-nominated dark fantasy series from Kieron Gillen (Uncanny X-Men, Young Avengers) and Stephanie Hans (We Called Them Giants) wrapped after 20 issues in 2021. In its final entry, the story’s core group of friends who had been sucked into a tabletop role-playing game like the kids in the 1980s Dungeons & Dragons cartoon finally managing to return to the real world. But it turns out, the amoral god that forced them to survive a twisted fantasy world isn’t done, and Gillen and Hans have reunited for Die Loaded, which launches Nov. 12.

“There is always a frustration when you finish a book,” Hans tells Polygon via email. “The story has stopped being told but still lives in your mind. Die is a forever evolving world that I have the privilege to shape and color. I feel very lucky to be allowed to linger in this beautiful universe we created because each time I get to visit, it gets deeper and challenges my abilities as an artist.“

*Die: Loaded *reunites the party for the wake of Chuck, their most reckless member, who didn’t return from their last adventure. The issue follows their struggle to slip back into their mundane lives and responsibilities, even as those they love are threatened by the secrets they’re keeping. In two pages Image Comics exclusively shared with Polygon, a new player gets her hands on the Jumanji-style die that transports people into the game world and has to choose her character archetype and animal totem, which makes her think back to a touch of wildlife she encountered living in the suburbs.

Image: Image Comics

Image: Stephanie Hans/Image Comics

“The first issue wasn’t really singing for me until I wrote the second page here,” Gillen said in an emailed statement. “Die is about the biggest, gothic fantasy stuff imaginable, but it’s also about the mundane. What makes the book work is the juxtaposition of the magical and the mundane, and that’s what you get here — bartering with epic bear gods one minute, and then digging into looking at foxes feed in your background the next. That’s Die, all over.”

Die Loaded #1 will be available at comic book shops on Nov. 12, with the original cover by Stephania Hans and an alternate cover by Peach Momoko.