in 2022 IDW celebrated the 40th anniversary of Dave Stevens’ The Rocketeer in the limited series The Great Race. It looks like the Rocketeer won the race because he'll return in a May anthology one-hots featuring an all🌟-star line-up of co🍷mic book creators including Adam Hughes, Jae Lee, Gabriel Rodríguez, and Phil Noto.
The one-shot special includes three stories, and the project began during the production of a documentary about Stevens titled Drawn to Perfection. Its filmmaker Kelvin Mao discovered that screenwriters Danny Bilson and the late Paul De Meo, who wrote the 1991 The Rocketeer film ꦜadaptation, had years before also written an unpublished Rocketeer comic book story guest-starring Amelia Earhart.
Mao and the documentary's executive producer Robert Windom asked Adam Hughes to illustrate tཧhe story, and that project eventually evolved into the one-shot edited by Scott Dunbier.
The special also includes pin-ups by Phil Noto and Ma⛦ria Laura Sanapo and more content.
"The short story that Jae and I created is intended to be a dreamy contemplation on life and love, but with some great Rocketeer action and Betty, of course! Jae's e🎉thereal style is a perfect 𒊎fit for it," says Windom.
The Rocketeer will feature covers by Hughes and by Locke & Key artist Gabriel♈ Rodríguez, along wit♎h retailer incentive "Full Art" variants of the Hughes and Rodríguez art, respectively.
