‘Escape From New York’: Kurt Russell led Sci-Fi Franchise Is Getting an Official Sequel Comic ‘Escape From Chicago’!!

Snake Plissken is a man who doesn’t know when to quit. He’s always one step away from punching society right in the old bread basket, and that’s why we love him, and always have since the first time he appeared in John Carpenter’s Escape From New York, which remains one of the great dystopian action movies of the 1980s and, indeed, of all time. It dropped us right into a broken America where Manhattan had been turned into a maximum-security prison, giving us one of the most wild plots imaginable. It’s been quiet for a while — despite chat of a Zack Snyder-helmed reboot — but now, nearly 30 years after Escape From L.A., the story is officially continuing in a new comic book sequel.

Mad Cave Studios will release Escape From New York: Escape From Chicago this fall, continuing the world of Carpenter’s original film. The new series is written by Kyle Higgins and drawn by Val Rodrigues, with Snake heading to the Midwest for another dangerous job in another ruined American city. The official synopsis states: “Once you go in, you don’t come out—unless your name is Snake Plissken! Plissken now survives as a coyote, smuggling people and contraband across the dangerous dead zones between prison territories like Chicago. It’s a hard and bitter job. But when he’s hired to extract a woman wanted by the city’s warlord, Snake sees one more chance at redemption—or one more chance for the universe to kick his ass.”

What’s ‘Escape from New York’ About?

Escape From New York was released in 1981 and followed Snake as he was sent into Manhattan to rescue the President after Air Force One crashed inside the prison city. The franchise later continued with Escape From L.A. in 1996, while Snake also lived on through comics from publishers including Marvel, CrossGen, and Boom Studios. Escape From Chicago now pushes the world into another major American city, giving fans a look at what happened beyond Manhattan and Los Angeles.

Higgins said in a statement, “Escape From New York is one of the films that taught me what genre storytelling could be—lean, mean, and built on a world you can’t stop thinking about. Getting to write in Carpenter’s Manhattan is the kind of thing my younger self wouldn’t have believed. I can’t wait for everyone to see Snake’s next adventure.”

Rodrigues added, “When I received the invitation to draw this project, I grabbed it with enthusiasm. Having the chance to draw such an iconic character from the movies by such a legendary movie director as John Carpenter is a fun and challenging task. Readers can expect the excitement of a Carpenter-style movie, with a distinctively absurd ’80s action skillfully adapted to the comics medium by Kyle’s writing, and that I’m doing my best to do justice with my linework.”

The original cast of Escape From New York included Kurt Russell (The Thing) as Snake Plissken, Lee Van Cleef (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) as Bob Hauk, Ernest Borgnine (Marty) as Cabbie, Donald Pleasence (Halloween) as the President, Isaac Hayes (Shaft) as the Duke of New York, Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog) as Maggie, andHarry Dean Stanton (Alien) as Brain.