A new supernatural Western is headed for comic shops in 2027. Bronze Star #1, written by Mike Baron with art by Pat Broderick, is positioned as a collision of frontier gunplay and monster horror: six-shooters, an abandoned silver mine, a sheriff whose curse manifests beneath a full moon, and a town carrying more danger than its dwindling population suggests.
The first issue centers on Harley Brogden, a wanted gunslinger fleeing his past. His route brings him to Cobb’s Gap, a mining town in decline. But the town’s abandoned silver mine has become a source of dread: anyone who enters it fails to return. Brogden’s situation changes further when he takes up a deputy’s badge, placing an outlaw on the side of the law just as Cobb’s Gap reveals that conventional criminals are the least of its problems.
That setup makes Bronze Star a clear example of a weird Western. The term generally describes fiction that uses the recognizable iconography and conflicts of the Western—isolated settlements, lawmen, fugitives, guns and frontier uncertainty—while introducing supernatural, horror, fantasy or science-fiction elements. Here, the supernatural side is not merely decorative. The moon-linked curse of Sheriff Stjepin Dukic and the mine’s disappearances are central forces in the premise, rather than a one-off disturbance for a traditional gunslinger tale.
A town with two kinds of lawlessness
Harley Brogden’s move from wanted gunslinger to deputy creates the issue’s most immediately interesting dramatic tension. A badge in a Western is usually shorthand for duty, public order and accountability. Giving one to a man running from his own history complicates that symbol. Brogden will apparently be asked to protect Cobb’s Gap while carrying unresolved trouble of his own.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Dukic’s curse introduces a second strain of uncertainty around authority. A sheriff is meant to be the town’s stable center, but the full-moon transformation described for Dukic makes him a potential threat as well as an official defender. The premise does not establish whether Brogden and Dukic will become allies, rivals or both. It does establish a frontier community where the people empowered to enforce order may themselves be entangled with its greatest danger.
The abandoned mine is equally important to the series’ horror machinery. Mines already function well as enclosed, light-starved settings, but Cobb’s Gap’s mine adds a much sharper rule: people enter and do not come back. That gives the location a mystery beyond its practical role as the town’s former economic engine. It also puts a literal hole in the ground at the center of a dying community, one that can be read as both a site of vanished livelihoods and a route toward whatever horror has taken hold beneath the town.
Baron and Broderick reunite Western and horror ingredients
Baron is identified with Nexus and Deadman, while Broderick’s credits include Micronauts and Creature Commandos. For Bronze Star, their stated blend leans hard into an abrasive, pulpy combination of shootouts, werewolves and cosmic-tinged dread. The comparison attached to the project invokes both classic spaghetti-Western sensibilities and Lovecraftian horror, although readers should treat that as a tonal shorthand rather than a promise that the book will adapt a specific prior story or mythos.
In practical terms, that shorthand signals a story that may pair the direct momentum of a frontier action narrative with horror rooted in the unknowable. Westerns often turn on visible threats: an outlaw gang, a corrupt official, a land dispute or a showdown. Horror involving a curse or an unexplained disappearance shifts the terms. A fast draw cannot necessarily solve a problem that is ancient, concealed or beyond a character’s understanding. Bronze Star has the opportunity to let those modes pull against one another—especially with a protagonist accustomed to the dangers of other people forced to confront a threat that is not simply human.
The solicitation language calls the book blood-soaked, so prospective readers should expect violent material and creature-feature intensity rather than a subdued historical drama. At the same time, its core ingredients leave room for an investigation structure: What is inside the mine? Why has the sheriff been cursed? What past is Brogden escaping, and how does taking the deputy role change his path? Those are the questions presented by the premise, not answers established before the first issue.
What is known about Bronze Star #1
- Publisher: American Mythology Press.
- Creative team: Mike Baron writes; Pat Broderick provides interior art.
- Lead character: Harley Brogden, a wanted gunslinger who becomes a deputy in Cobb’s Gap.
- Key threats: A silver mine from which no entrant returns and Sheriff Stjepin Dukic’s full-moon monster curse.
- Genre: Supernatural or weird Western horror.
- Solicitation window: January 2027.
Because this information comes from advance solicitation material, it is best read as the publisher’s planned description of the debut. Solicits are promotional catalog entries used to describe forthcoming comics and their ordering options. They are useful for identifying the creative team, premise and covers, but they are not a substitute for the finished issue; story details can remain deliberately vague, and publishing plans can change.
Four announced cover options
Bronze Star #1 is listed with four covers. Broderick supplies Cover A, as well as the art for Covers C and D. Anthony Gonzales-Clark is credited for Cover B. The latter two Broderick variants have stated limitation details: the virgin-art edition is limited to 350 copies, while the black-and-white Century edition is limited to 100.
A variant cover is an alternate cover version of the same comic issue. It does not, by itself, mean that the interior story differs. A virgin cover generally refers to artwork without the usual logo and trade-dress elements placed over it, emphasizing the illustration. The black-and-white edition similarly signals a presentation change in the cover art rather than confirmed new interior material.
For readers who primarily want the story, Cover A is the standard starting point indicated by the listing. For collectors, the published limitation counts on Covers C and D identify their scarcity at production, not any guaranteed future value or availability. Condition, demand, distribution and many other factors can matter after release. Those distinctions are worth keeping in mind when a new comic arrives with several editions, particularly at a time when the surrounding hobby includes everything from ordinary reading copies to deliberately scarce releases. For another example of how item specifications can shape collecting decisions outside comics, see this look at the LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle and Grounds listing.
Other horror material in the same solicitation slate
Bronze Star is part of a broader January 2027 group of American Mythology offerings that emphasizes monsters and horror. Contest of Creatures #1 is billed as an all-out creature-versus-creature contest, with S.A. Check, James Kuhoric, Emanuele Tommarelli, Doriano Antonio Vanni and Puis Calzada credited. Its five cover choices include work by Roy Allan Martinez, Calzada, Buz Hasson and Mariano Nicieza.
Also listed is a Neil Vokes exclusive variant of Tom Holland’s Fright Night #1, credited to James Kuhoric, Jason Craig and Vokes. This particular edition is a first-printing warehouse find that was previously available only through the publisher and is now intended for the Direct Market. It was originally limited to 300 copies, with fewer still said to be available. The underlying story is described as picking up after the 1985 film, a year after Jerry Dandridge’s death, as Charlie Brewster, Amy Peterson, Evil Ed and Peter Vincent confront another ancient evil.
CursedVerse Resurrection #1 is another limited edition in the lineup, a Baltimore Comic Con-exclusive variant with a painted Mark Sparacio cover and a 400-copy print count. The issue is described as a return point for the CursedVerse shared universe, with stories involving Bombshell & Tomm Tomm, the Cemetorian and the Night Terror, plus the debut of Dash Carrington.
Finally, the Big Bundle of Western Horror Reader Pack collects eight randomly selected, non-duplicated back issues of Western-focused comics from the publisher’s ten-year history. Every pack is said to contain at least one limited-edition comic valued at $10. Unlike Bronze Star #1, the pack’s exact contents are intentionally not specified.
Why Bronze Star stands out in the lineup
Of those projects, Bronze Star is the one built around a newly introduced original setting and an immediate genre fusion. It has the simple forward drive of a stranger arriving in a compromised town, but its threats extend from human fugitives to a cursed lawman and an apparently impossible mine. The deputy badge gives Brogden an obligation to investigate rather than merely survive, which could turn the book’s action premise into a moral test as well as a monster story.
The announced debut offers a compact proposition for fans of horror comics and Westerns alike: a gunslinger attempting to outrun his past reaches a town where the past, in several forms, appears to be very much alive. Readers interested in the series can watch for Bronze Star #1 in the January 2027 solicitation period, while recognizing that the available details remain an advance preview of the opening chapter.
