the names

We at ComicsAlliance are suckers for a good mystery, and over the past six issues Peter Milligan and Leandro Fernandez's The Names has proven to be exactly our cup of tea – this high-suspense psychological financial thriller follows Katya Walker, a woman seeking information about her husband’s sudden death, who comes into conflict with a world-dominating techno-financial cabal called The Names, and finds herself in an uneasy partnership with her stepson Phillip, fighting for her life while searching for answers. It's a story full of brutal action, advanced technology, hairpin plot twists, and carefully layered concepts, populated by psychopathic murderers, mind-controlling financiers, corrupt cops, and mysterious digital beings known only as "The Dark Loops" – and, courtesy of DC/Vertigo, we're excited to bring you this exclusive first look at pages from issue #6, which hits comic shops next week!

This past September, Vertigo launched Peter Milligan and Leandro Fernandez's nine-issue limited series The Names. It's the story of Katya Walker, a woman who finds herself searching for answers after her husband's apparent suicide and fighting for her life against a world-dominating techno-financial cabal known only as the Names. We last spoke with Milligan six months ago, just before The Names #1 was released, and now that the story has reached its halfway point, we're excited to follow up with another in-depth conversation about the series.

Today sees the release The Names #1 by Peter Milligan and Leandro Fernandez. Published by Vertigo and described as Kill Bill meets The Wolf Of Wall Street, the book tells the story of Katya Walker, a woman who is thrown into a web of financial and technological intrigue after the sudden suicide of her husband -- a suicide that we learn in the first pages of issue #1 was not committed out of despair but at the behest of a man called the Surgeon, working for a world-dominating cabal of financiers known only as the Names. Dubious that her husband would take his own life, Katya's search for the truth takes the reader through a violent, decadent and technologically advanced world of money and power that teaches the young woman not just about the chilling reality of how the world works, but about the role her husband was subtly preparing her to take should the Names ever go too far. Drawn in a wildly expressive and sexy style by Leandro Fernandez with delicate, mood colors by Cris Peter, The Names is has some aesthetic and narrative similarities to Vertigo's revenge epic 100 Bullets, but with a very contemporary theme obviously inspired by current events such as the Global Economic Crisis and, presumably, the enduringly frustrating fact that its cruel architects have not been brought to justice. ComicsAlliance sat down with Milligan to talk about the real-world inspiration for The Names, his plans for the project, and to break down some special moments from its first issue.