Plunge. Written by Joe Hill, art by Stuart Immonen, covers by Jeremy Wilson ($24.99, 9781779506887, November 17).
A distress signal goes out from a research ship that disappeared in the Arctic more than 40 years ago. The Carpenter Salvage team, accompanied by a Marine Biologist eager to retrieve lost data and a company man looking to protect information and assets, are sent to recover what remains of the Derleth. But when they arrive and begin exploration of the ship and the island it crashed next to, they make discoveries more menacing than they could've ever expected.
There's something deep down in the icy darkness of the Arctic sea, something that doesn't want to be found. There's also something else terrifying: the long-lost crew of the Derleth emerges from caves. They seem as though they haven't aged a day--it's as if they're exactly the same as the day they disappeared except they're all missing their eyes. And they're capable of feats of unbelievable mathematics. And then a storm closes in.
Will the salvage crew survive to bring their findings to shore? What danger waits for them if they fail? What dangers await us all should they succeed? Plunge tempts readers to explore the wreckage and discover where ghost stories start.
Joe Hill says that in Plunge, "We're going for something that has the feel of a certain kind of '80s sci-fi/horror: think of The Thing or James Cameron's Aliens. You've got a team of tough, affable, resilient professionals who are used to dealing with trouble but who find themselves backed into a corner by something far beyond their experience, a chilling and otherworldly adversary. We want to build up that sense of claustrophobic danger and overwhelming menace, but we also want the reader to laugh with, root for, and care about the Carpenter brothers and Moriah Lamb."
The setting is also important, Joe Hill says: "The icy fathoms of the Arctic remain one of the least well-known places on Earth, and as H.P. Lovecraft noted, our fear of the unknown is the greatest fear of all."
Joe Hill added that artist Stuart Immonen was the perfect partner: "Stuart's ability to bring out the subtleties of character--in body language, in expression, in the tilt of the head--is second to none. His people feel real and relatable. In horror, identifying with the characters and coming to care about them is everything. Otherwise the scares just don't scare."