Blade Runner Meets The Matrix This Fall in a New Neo-Noir Sci-Fi Series
If you’re a fiend for sci-fi, especially classics like Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, the Wachowskis’ The Matrix, and Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, then there’s a new neo-noir sci-fi series coming this fall that you should keep on your radar, as it promises to be nothing short of mind-melding.
David and Maria Lapham, the Eisner Award-winning creators behind Stray Bullets, are officially returning to redefine the noir genre with their upcoming series The Detective. Blending neo-noir with science fiction, The Detective is being marketed as a series that combines the masterful worldbuilding of Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s The Matrix and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner with the intricate storytelling of Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, making it sound like any sci-fi fan’s dream.
In addition to these iconic genre staples, the official synopsis for The Detective also promises that the series will feature “the groundbreaking visuals of Jack Kirby's Fourth World.” With The Detective being likened to not just one, two, or even three, but four legendary properties, it is clear that the series is being positioned as nothing short of spectacular.
Everything You Need to Know About THE DETECTIVE Before Its October Release
Cover Art by David Lapham, Gus Ricca, Lee Elias, and Bill Everett for The Detective #1 (2026)
Bad Idea Comics is truly going all in on The Detective, promising that the two-issue limited series will deliver a “seminal neo-noir sci-fi eріс,” meaning it is set to be a groundbreaking, genre-defining story that blends science fiction with a dark, futuristic neo-noir style. Fans can expect the first entry to arrive on October 21, 2026, with Maria and David Lapham’s The Detective #1.
Set in “The City,” The Detective follows Valencia Vallez, who wakes up in an unfamiliar bed with a revolver in her hand and a dead body at her side. While this may initially sound like a classic mystery murder setup, it is clear from the teaser, “Lucky for her, Val's a homicide detective. The only trouble? In the City, so is everyone else,” that the series will flip classic noir tropes on their head.
For a better idea of what readers can expect from The Detective, the full synopsis can be found below:
It's a cold morning in The City when Valencia Vallez wakes up in an unfamiliar bed with a revolver in her hand and a dead body at her side. She doesn't remember how she got there. She doesn't remember much of anything. Just the long list of names buzzing around her head--suspects in the brutal gangland execution of her husband.
Lucky for her, Val's a homicide detective. The only trouble? In the City, so is everyone else.
Val's hunt for answers has painted a target on her back. Caught between the crooked cops hot on her tail and the towering mechanical Judges looming over the City's rain-soaked streets, every lead Val runs down only raises more questions. What secrets lie hidden in Val's missing memories? Who is the Mastermind?
In The City, the truth doesn't come easy. And when it does, you'll wish it hadn't.
With a female protagonist and a unique futuristic setting where everyone is apparently a homicide detective, The Detective is already setting itself apart in what some might consider an oversaturated genre. And if the series’ synopsis wasn’t enough to sell you, the cover art might just do the trick, as it serves as a welcome throwback to classic comic art styles.
Featuring covers by David Lapham, Gus Ricca, Lee Elias, and Bill Everett, the preview for The Detective #1 offers future readers plenty of eye candy to enjoy while they wait for the official release. The first issue is slated to be 40 pages and will be available at comic shops and digitally for $9.99. So, if you’re a fan of Blade Runner or The Matrix and looking for your next obsession, you may have just found it.
Signal Received · Deep Space Broadcast The Ultimate Sci-Fi TV Trivia Quiz “The truth is out there.”
🚀Deep
SpaceFinal frontiers
⌛Time
TravelWibbly wobbly
👽AliensWe are not alone
👁DystopiaThe black mirror
💡Upside
DownHawkins, 1983
01
The most famous opening monologue in TV sci-fi begins: “Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the ___.” Complete the line from the original 1966 Star Trek series.
✓ Engage! William Shatner’s iconic opening — “Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before” — has become one of the most quoted passages in all television. Later Trek series would adapt it, but the Enterprise is the one that started it all.
✗ Subspace interference! The answer is Starship Enterprise. USS Voyager belongs to the 1995–2001 series, the Defiant to Deep Space Nine, and the Discovery to the modern 2017 series. It’s the original Enterprise, captained by James T. Kirk, that William Shatner immortalized in that final-frontier monologue.
02
The Doctor’s time machine is disguised as a 1960s British police box and is famously bigger on the inside than the outside. What is the acronym it’s known by?
✓ Allons-y! TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. The name was coined by the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan in the very first 1963 episode. The police-box shape is the result of its chameleon circuit getting stuck while parked in 1963 London — and it’s stayed that way for sixty-plus years.
✗ Chronal distortion! The answer is TARDIS — Time And Relative Dimension In Space. The other options are invented distractors. The TARDIS first appeared in 1963 and has followed every regeneration of the Doctor since, though its interior famously redesigns itself whenever the showrunners want a fresh look.
03
The acclaimed 2004 Battlestar Galactica reboot — considered one of the greatest sci-fi TV shows ever made — was developed by which writer-producer, a veteran of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine?
✓ So say we all! Ronald D. Moore developed the modern Battlestar Galactica, reimagining Glen A. Larson’s 1978 original as a gritty, post-9/11 political allegory. Moore had cut his teeth writing many of TNG and DS9’s best episodes. His BSG aired 2004–2009 and tackled terrorism, torture, faith, and what it means to be human.
✗ Frak! The answer is Ronald D. Moore. J. Michael Straczynski created Babylon 5, David Eick was Moore’s co-executive-producer on BSG, and Glen A. Larson created the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica. Moore took Larson’s cheesy space opera and rebuilt it into a Peabody Award-winning meditation on war and morality.
04
Netflix’s ’80s-drenched sci-fi hit Stranger Things is set in a small American town sitting above a secret government lab that tore a hole into the “Upside Down.” What is the town called?
✓ Friends don’t lie! Hawkins, Indiana is the fictional town the Duffer Brothers invented for Stranger Things — home to Hawkins National Laboratory, where Dr. Brenner’s MKUltra-style experiments opened a rift into the Upside Down. The show is actually filmed in Jackson, Georgia, but the Hawkins sign is now an iconic TV landmark.
✗ The Upside Down! The answer is Hawkins, Indiana. Derry is Stephen King’s fictional town from IT, Castle Rock is another King town (and an anthology series), and Springwood is from A Nightmare on Elm Street. The Duffer Brothers deliberately evoked King’s small-town horror tradition when creating Hawkins.
05
In The X-Files, Fox Mulder has a famous poster hanging in his FBI basement office — a UFO photograph with a three-word tagline beneath it. What does the tagline say?
✓ The truth is out there! “I Want To Believe” sits below a blurry UFO photo on the poster that hangs in Mulder’s basement office throughout the series. The line became so associated with the show that it was used as the title of the 2008 feature film, The X-Files: I Want to Believe.
✗ File that one away! The answer is “I Want To Believe.” “Trust No One,” “Deny Everything,” and “The Truth Is Out There” are all iconic X-Files taglines — but it’s “I Want To Believe” that’s literally printed on the UFO poster in Mulder’s office, and which became the title of the franchise’s 2008 movie.
06
Apple TV+’s Severance — about office workers whose memories are surgically divided between their work and personal lives — was created by a first-time showrunner who used to be a customer service rep. Who is he?
✓ Praise Kier! Dan Erickson wrote the Severance pilot while working soul-crushing office jobs — literally daydreaming about splitting his mind so the “work-him” would suffer instead. Ben Stiller came on as executive producer and directed most episodes, but Erickson is the creator whose personal ennui gave us Lumon Industries.
✗ Outie interference! The answer is Dan Erickson. Damon Lindelof created Lost, The Leftovers, and Watchmen; Ben Stiller is Severance’s executive producer and primary director (but not its creator); Jonathan Nolan created Westworld and Person of Interest. Erickson’s script sat on the Black List for years before Stiller championed it.
07
In 2018, Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror released a groundbreaking feature-length episode that let viewers make choose-your-own-adventure style decisions for the protagonist. What was it called?
✓ Interactive transmission received! Bandersnatch followed young programmer Stefan as he adapted a choose-your-own-adventure novel in 1984. Viewers could make choices at key moments, branching the story into multiple endings. It was Netflix’s most ambitious interactive experiment — and the meta commentary on viewer control remains quintessential Black Mirror.
✗ Null pointer! The answer is Bandersnatch. USS Callister is the Emmy-winning Star Trek riff, San Junipero is the beloved ’80s romance episode, and Metalhead is the black-and-white robot-dog thriller. All are Black Mirror, but only Bandersnatch was the interactive choose-your-own-adventure special that launched in December 2018.
08
Joss Whedon’s space-western Firefly became a legendary cult classic after Fox infamously cancelled it — airing episodes out of order, burying the pilot, and pulling the plug. How many episodes aired on Fox before cancellation?
✓ Shiny! Only 11 of the 14 produced Firefly episodes aired on Fox in late 2002 before the network pulled the plug. The remaining three (including the two-hour pilot “Serenity”) first aired in proper order on the Sci-Fi Channel and eventually on DVD. Fan outcry led to the 2005 film Serenity — a rare cinematic rescue for a cancelled series.
✗ Fox strikes again! The answer is 11. Fourteen episodes were actually filmed, but Fox only aired 11 before cancellation, and they aired them out of order with the pilot held until last. The complete set finally aired on Sci-Fi Channel and DVD, and the fan-driven “Browncoats” campaign eventually convinced Universal to greenlight Serenity.
Transmission Complete · Signal Decoded Your Sci-Fi Rating
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Trekkie-level canon — or still buffering?
The Detective #1 from Bad Idea Comics will be available to read on October 21, 2026!