This is a big year for crossovers in the indie comics world, especially over at Image Comics. We recently saw the restart of the Energon Universe by Robert Kirkman and Skybound Comics which has combined Transformers, G.I. Joe and the new title Void Rivals into one connected universe; now we're getting a similar treatment with Millarworld. 

Mark Millar announced earlier this year that the first ever Millarworld crossover event, titled Big Game, would be kicking off this summer, starting July 19th. This crossover is said to bring 20 Millarworld franchises into one huge event while also serving as a sequel to Wanted.

Here's the synopsis for Big Game #1: "MINISERIES PREMIERE. The comics event of the summer is here! Okay this is so top secret we can't even show you the main cover because it spoils something MASSIVE. Just trust us when we say that this is going to be the comic book event of 2023-and it's NOT what you're expecting.

Does the crossover really go that wide? Yes it does. BIG GAME pulls together KICK-ASS KINGSMAN NEMESIS THE MAGIC ORDER and ALL the Millarworld franchises in one special event. This must be ordered like CRAZY!"

2023 marks the 20th anniversary of Millarworld, which all started with Millar's first creator owned title, Wanted (illustrated by J.G. Jones). In an interview at CBR, Mark explained, "I always had an idea for a sequel, but I wanted to use all the characters we'd been building up over our 20-plus franchises. I never thought it would be possible as they were all at different studios and owned by different people, but now everything is in-house at Netflix it's the perfect time to do it. Wanted and Big Game are perfect compliments to one another, revisiting these characters after 20 years where they aged in real-time."

Millar says he wrote Wanted back in 2003 because Stan Lee suggested he would be good at it. He told CBR, "I had absolutely no idea this would be an Angelina movie four years later or a big company we would sell to Netflix." Wanted stands not only as a massive hit for Mark Millar but also as the catalyst for the Millarworld Universe. 

The synopsis of Wanted is this: "Wesley Gibson is one of life's losers. His job sucks, his girlfriend's cheating on him, and his life's going nowhere. Then he finds out everything he believed about his life was a lie... for Wesley is actually the son of the Killer, the world's most deadly assassin! Now the Fox-his father's former lover-offers to train Wesley as the new Killer, and bring him into a powerful society of supervillains."

Mark explains the connection between Wanted and the rest of the Millarworld franchises as such: "Wanted was about a guy who finds out that superheroes and supervillains were real and when the supervillains took over the world they made us forget the heroes ever existed. The sequel, Big Game, is about those same villains watching the heroes re-emerge like weeds again and deciding it's time to nip this in the bud. We only remember the original heroes though movies and comic books and the first of this new wave of heroes to emerge was Kick-Ass."

"We have Hit-Girl, The Ambassadors, The Chrononauts, the Kingsman organization, guys coming back from space like Duke McQueen and so on."

The connection continues with the end of Nemesis: Reloaded #5 (Mark Millar, Jorge Jimenez) where the Fraternity - a powerful organization of highly skilled assassin - made its official return.

According to Mark Millar, the only titles really necessary to understand Big Game are Wanted and Nemesis: Reloaded. However, if you'd like to get the full story either in preparation for the event or as a fun rabbit hole to dive into after experiencing Big Game, we've gone the extra mile of compiling everything for you right here!