Now that Joss Whedon has decided (without apparently consulting anybody else) that it’s time to climb back out of his personal time-out corner, he appears to be doing so with a vengeance, offering up all sorts of Whedon-themed goodies to lure his way back into fans’ good graces. You want another weird-premise TV show? Joss has got that for you, friend! Want more Dr. Horrible? Sure! (In comic book form, at least.)
This is per The Hollywood Reporter, which covered today’s 10th anniversary reunion panel for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog at Comic-Con today, celebrating the decade since Whedon, his brothers Zack and Jed, and Maurissa Tancharoen helped kick-start the streaming era with their web-only superhero musical. Stars Felicia Day and Nathan Fillion were on-hand to look back nostalgically at the hit project, which Whedon initially pitched as a way to show folks like Jeff Bezos and other tech-heads that there was room for independent streaming material in the media landscape. (In hindsight, this might have worked a little too well.)
In any case, while Whedon couldn’t promise an actual Dr. Horrible sequel, he did announce that a new comic book set in the universe was in the works, titled Dr. Horrible, Best Friends Forever. (There have been past Horrible comics, too, but this is the first time Whedon has written one.) The book will center on the relationship between Neil Patrick Harris’ well-meaning supervillain and Fillion’s asshole superhero, presumably without any pesky female characters to kill off for cheap emotional effect.
Whedon is also hard at work on his upcoming HBO show, The Nevers, and on trying to distract people from all those accusations of hypocrisy and philandering that his ex-wife, Kai Cole, publicized last year.