Brace For Interplanetary Queer Family Drama in Orlando & Rebelka’s ‘Namesake’

Meet Jordan, a young man on a mission. You see, Jordan has two dads, one from Earth and one from the planet Ektae. And sadly, both of them are dead. But that's the end of Jordan's responsibilities as a son. He has to transport both of his fathers' remains from Earth to Ektae, which can only be done when the planets align once every seven years. What's more, the urns containing those remains are illegal on Ektae, because they're made of iron, which disrupts the magic that's common on that planet. Also, there's a powerful man on Ektae with a vendetta toward Jordan, and he might be pretty justified.

This is the fascinating premise of Namesake, a new four-issue series by writer Steve Orlando and artist Jakub Rebelka, coming in November from Boom Studios.

Orlando is best known for Midnighter at DC and Virgil at Image. He previously contributed to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers at Boom. Talking to Comic Book Resources, Orlando gave some insight into the inspirations behind Namesake:

The very question is, how do we know he's telling the truth? The urns that he carries on his back are outlawed on Ektae because iron disrupts. It's a different law of physics on Ektae that we call magic. On one hand, his parents said, "Come bury me," but on the other they give him a bunch of contraband that's going to get him arrested. We hit a lot of things and topple a lot of buildings along the way.

This is all about parents and what they see as helping us, but often seems harmful. Everything is a mixed blessing. It's all about intention versus reality and accepting those things as a whole. Real people aren't just good or just bad. You have to learn to accept them for all those things. In Jordan's case, it involves "Mad Max"-style chases through booby-trapped towns and all these things that make it exciting. As with the best fiction, we're really talking about the heart, the things that we go through.