Hidden Pasts issue #1

Writer Michael Cook-Hoar II 

Artist Michael Cook-Hoar II 

On purchase you will receive a digital version and then the physical version will be shipped directly to you. 

Story description below 👇 

After the fall of Earth, truth itself becomes an endangered species.  

Journalist Lana Gillman, one of the last surviving voices of free media, is granted unprecedented access to the Empress — Mara, the universe’s most powerful and most feared protector. What begins as a routine interview becomes a raw, unsettling descent into the origins of a legend.

Inside the Empress’s private archives, Lana uncovers records that shouldn’t exist — stories from futures not yet lived, classified intelligence, and the long‑buried diaries of Team Exalt. But nothing prepares her for Mara’s own confession: the rise from Olympic prodigy to cage‑fighting powerhouse, and finally to the night she first tasted the darkness she would one day command.

Across broken worlds and ruined governments, Mara reveals the truth behind her cult‑like following, her volatile power, and the moment she chose to make an entire city fear her. Violence, vulnerability, and destiny collide as Lana realizes she isn’t interviewing a hero — she’s interviewing the woman who rebuilt civilization from its ashes.

This is the beginning of the Empress.  

This is how hope learned to be terrifying.