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Lion Forge to Publish Voltron: Legendary Defender Comic Based on Netflix Series

Comics publisher Lion Forge Comics announced on Monday that it will publish a comic spinoff of Netflix and DreamWorks' Voltron: Legendary Defender, a reimagined animated series of the 1980s animated Voltron project. The comic will be a five-part series, and the first issue of the comic is slated for July, with a collected graphic novel version slated for December.

Lion Forge describes the comic:

The comic series expands the adventures of the paladins of Voltron with the first of a five-part series of Voltron: Legendary Defender comics. The mini-series is the first of several planned expansions of new storylines between seasons.

Written by DreamWorks Voltron: Legendary Defender's head writer Tim Hedrick and writer Mitch Iverson, the first comic tells the story of a training mission that goes awry when Coran, Princess Allura's majordomo, falls prey to a villain looking to settle an old debt. Team Voltron embarks on a series of increasingly dangerous quests to save their friend's life. Each issue focuses on one of the five pilots who together command the giant mecha known as Voltron, formed from their individual flying robotic lions.

The animated series premieres on June 10. Netflix debuted a teaser trailer last month.

Executive producer Joaquim Dos Santos, executive producer Lauren Montgomery, and writer Tim Hedrick — all of whom had worked together on Avatar the Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra — announced the cast at their panel at WonderCon in Los Angeles:

• Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) as Keith
• Jeremy Shada (Adventure Time) as Lance
• Bex Taylor-Klaus (Arrow) as Pidge
• Josh Keaton (Green Lantern: The Animated Series) as Shiro (formerly "Sven")
• Tyler Labine (Tucker and Dale vs. Evil) as Hunk
• Kimberly Brooks (Mass Effect) as Princess Allura
• Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords) as Coran
• King Zarkon as Neil Kaplan (Transformers: Robots in Disguise)

The character known as Sven in the first Voltron television series was originally named Takashi Shirogane in King of Beasts Golion, the original anime series that was adapted as Voltron.

Studio Mir (The Legend of Korra) is animating the new series.

The serialized story will focus on five teenagers named Keith, Lance, Hunk, Pidge, and Shiro. The heroes must defend Arus from King Zarkon's evil alien force. Unlike most of the characters from the original series, the main characters will have backstories and a purpose for going on the mission. The series will also have a Princess Allura, who Montgomery explained will be more realistic and "certainly not fainting at Every Little Thing that overwhelms her."

Montgomery added that, in the story, "Not everything is solved by Voltron alone. Sometimes they need to beat something just as the lions. Sometimes they just do it as themselves fighting as men." Dos Santos indicated at Friday's panel that the Voltron robot will not necessarily appear in all 13 episodes of the first season.

The series is part of an expansion of DreamWorks Animation Television and Netflix's 2013 multi-year deal.

World Events Productions, Ltd. (WEP) and the late Peter O'Keefe adapted the first 1984-1985 Voltron television series from two Toei Animation robot anime: King of Beasts Golion and Armored Fleet Dairugger XV. Both Golion and the first Voltron story centered on young pilots who fight against an empire of alien conquerors — with the help of five mechanized lions that combine to form a robot.

Since the first series, the franchise spawned two television series produced outside Japan: the 3D CG Voltron: The Third Dimension in 1998 and the 2D Voltron Force in 2011. The titular robot also appeared in several commercials, including one for MetLife during Super Bowl XLVI in 2012, and in a crossover comic project with Robotech.

Media Blasters released the first Voltron series with its English dub on DVD from 2006 to 2009, and released the original Japanese Beast King GoLion anime on DVD in 2008.