David Hayter, co-writer of other comic book adaptations including X-Men, X2 and Watchmen, has been brought onboard to pen the scripts for the series.
The Damned was published by Oni Press and is set in prohibition-era Chicago when crime bosses were on the rise, and apparently so were demons. The main character – Eddie – has been brought back from the dead in order to solve the case of a missing bookkeeper. At the risk of being heartless, the curse is actually pretty cool: Eddie can’t die, but if he is killed then whoever next touches his body gets transferred all of his terrible injuries and drops dead, whilst Eddie walks off alive and well. At least, as well as a man can be when caught up in a turf war between the demonic forces running Chicago.
Apparently Showtime are going to do away with the prohibition-era setting and stick it in modern-day Chicago, presumably because it’s cheaper to just shoot on today’s streets rather than build 1920s sets, which I think is a bit of a shame. But no matter, it seems that this is going to be Showtime’s answer to AMC’s The Walking Dead or The CW’s Supernatural, and they could have done a lot worse for a story. Cullen Bunn is certainly excited about it, according to this statement on his website:
