The world's worst jerk is also its greatest hero in Remender's The Scumbag

News
By published

'The world's fate is in the hands of the worst person on it'

(Image credit: Image Comics)

Rick Remender will write a new creator-owned Image Comics title called The Scumbag that will place the fate of the planet – along with incredible super power – in the hands of Ernie Ray Clementine, the worst, most unsavory jackass on Earth.

(Image credit: Image Comics)

What's more, The Scumbag features not just one artist or even a single art team, with the first issue drawn by Lewis Larosa, and subsequent issues by artists such as Andrew Robinson, Eric Powell, Tula Lotay, Wes Craig, Roland Boschi, Simone Di Meo, Duncan Fegredo, Yanick Paquette, Mike McKone, Dave Johnson, and Moreno Dinisio.

"We’re all voyeurs who love to watch the loser, we revel in taking part in their lechery, free from the consequences they suffer from their poor choices. To commit the crime of cliché: We love to hate ‘em," Remender tells ComicBook, explaining the genesis of The Scumbag. "And none of them come anywhere near the league of bad choices as Ernie Ray Clementine, a profane, illiterate, drug-addicted biker, with a fifth-grade education, and the only thing standing between us and total Armageddon because this dummy is going to become the world’s most powerful super spy."

"There’s a good reason he ends up with the codename: Scumbag. And, as his boss quickly realizes, until they can find a way to extract the serum that gave Ernie his super-spy abilities - the fate of the world rests in the hands of the worst person on it."

(Image credit: Image Comics)

So what's to stop the worst guy in the world from getting even more terrible once he's got super powers? Well, the scientists who developed the serum thought of that, says Remender, explaining "[The Scumbag's] powers only work when he’s operating under noble motivations, a safety precaution cooked in by the formula’s engineers."

The Scumbag #1 is due out in October.

George Marston
George Marston

I've been Newsarama's resident Marvel Comics expert and general comic book historian since 2011. I've also been the on-site reporter at most major comic conventions such as Comic-Con International: San Diego, New York Comic Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic journalism, I am the artist of many weird pictures, and the guitarist of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)