Oni Press is bringing back one of pulp fiction’s oldest masked avengers. The publisher has announced Dr. Syn, a four-issue miniseries co-written by Michael E. Uslan, the longtime executive producer of the Batman film franchise, and Steven S. DeKnight, the showrunner behind Netflix’s Daredevil and Starz’s Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Sebastián Cabrol (EC’s Catacomb of Torment) draws it. Oni’s announcement puts the book in comic shops in January 2027, and the solicitation information published by AIPT and ComicsBeat gives Dr. Syn #1 an on-sale date of January 6, 2027, at $4.99 for 32 full-color pages.
Oni pitches the book as Inglourious Basterds meets V for Vendetta, and The Hollywood Reporter, which broke the news on Tuesday, says the creators use the same comparison.
The Scarecrow crosses the Atlantic
The Reverend Doctor Christopher Syn was created by author Russell Thorndike, who introduced him in the 1915 novel Doctor Syn: A Tale of the Romney Marsh. In Thorndike’s stories, as THR describes them, Syn was a vicar by day and, by night, a masked smuggler known as the Scarecrow. In Oni’s telling, Syn once waged a guerrilla insurgency across 18th-century England to avenge his family’s cruel deaths at the hands of King George III, and the masked “Scarecrow of Romney Marsh” became a beacon of resistance.
The new series picks up after Syn has been captured, tried and condemned. Now he faces “death by exile” in “the American penal colony known as ‘Georgia,'” where he is locked up with a crew of the king’s most notorious “undesirables.” Oni’s synopsis closes: “The year is 1775. And Dr. Syn’s war is about to begin.”
Uslan said the character had been on his mind for years. “Even as I was bearing the torch to bring Batman to the big screen as a major film franchise or taking up writing duties on characters like Archie or The Spirit, there was always one more legend itching away in the back of mind: Dr. Syn, the proto-pulp avenger first created by author Russell Thorndike more than a century ago,” he said in Oni’s announcement, adding that the team has built “a character that could be best described as ‘America’s first dark knight.'”
DeKnight called the story “a rollicking, historical tale of action and adventure” that is also “shockingly timely,” and said that at its core it is “a thrilling homage to the serial adventures of yesteryear.” Oni President and Publisher Hunter Gorinson told THR the book is “not just a modern refresh of the novel,” adding, “What Michael and Steven, and now Sebastián, are doing is taking the character and Tarantinoing him.”
A century of Syn
According to Oni, Syn’s adventures ran across six more Thorndike novels after the first, and the character was the subject of multiple film adaptations from the 1930s onward, including Disney’s 1963 The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, which also produced a tie-in comic from Dell. Oni says the new series will be the character’s first major appearance of the 21st century and the first time he has set foot on American shores.
Covers and NYCC
Dustin Weaver draws the main cover, with a foil edition of it priced at $8.99. Elia Bonetti and Cabrol draw the other regular covers. The solicitation lists a 1:10 character design variant by Weaver, a 1:20 variant by Jeffrey Alan Love, a 1:50 variant by Kelley Jones and a blank sketch cover.
Uslan will join Oni’s New York Comic Con panel on Friday, October 9, from 4:30 to 5:15 p.m. ET in Room 406.1, and THR says Oni will preview the book at the show. The panel also includes George Northy, Oliver Mertz, Ryan O’Sullivan and Dave Baker, whose Citizen: Stardust revives another vintage hero for Oni in April 2027, along with Oni’s Karl Bollers and Bess Pallares.
