Geiger #20
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeGeiger #20 marks a structurally pivotal moment in Ghost Machine's Unnamed Universe, serving as the formal first-meeting issue between Tariq Geiger (the Glowing Man) and the Northerner — a time-displaced Union soldier introduced in the Redcoat sister series — bringing two distinct Ghost Machine titles into direct narrative contact for the first time. Titled 'The Northerner: Dead America, Part 1,' it launches an arc that reframes the series' central mystery: whether the catastrophic Unknown War was preventable, and whether two characters from opposite ends of American history can jointly reverse it. The issue introduces an alternate-history dimension to the Geiger mythos — the Northerner hails from a timeline in which the Confederacy won the Civil War — deepening Ghost Machine's ambitious project of threading an alternative American history from 1776 through a near-future nuclear wasteland. Reviewers noted that the issue operates as 'an ambitious pivot point that trades survival horror for temporal mystery,' signaling a deliberate tonal and structural expansion of the series.
ComicBooks.com Value
Find on ebay
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
Geiger began in April 2021 as the first creator-owned Image Comics project by writer Geoff Johns and artist Gary Frank, developed directly after the two completed DC's Doomsday Clock, with Johns describing the concept as an 'atomic western' influenced by 1970s–80s science-fiction films. The series was relaunched as an ongoing in April 2024 under the banner of Ghost Machine, a creator-owned cooperative media company Johns and Frank co-founded in October 2023 at New York Comic Con, which publishes through Image Comics with the express goal of building interconnected creator-owned universes outside the superhero genre. Issue #20 sits within Ghost Machine's deliberate long-game architecture: Gary Frank confirmed in a January 2026 interview that a crossover between Geiger, Redcoat, and additional Unnamed Universe characters was planned from the very beginning of the line, with Simon Pure's first-ever comics appearance having been seeded in the earlier Geiger 80-Page Giant specifically to set this eventual convergence in motion.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published January 14, 2026 by Image Comics / Ghost Machine; written by Geoff Johns, art and cover by Gary Frank, colors by Brad Anderson, letters by Rob Leigh.
- Subtitled 'The Northerner: Dead America, Part 1' — the first chapter of a multi-part crossover arc running through at least Geiger #23.
- First issue to bring the Northerner (real name: Malcolm North) into direct, sustained story contact with Tariq Geiger; the character had previously appeared in the Redcoat series and a mini-series titled Redcoat: The Northerner.
- The Northerner is revealed in-story to originate from an alternate timeline where the Confederacy won the American Civil War — a piece of alternate-history world-building new to the Geiger title specifically.
- Plot events include Geiger receiving rhodium-plated batons that allow him to control his radioactive powers, and the pair setting course for Detroit and a faction called the Department of Historical Preservation.
- Three cover variants were offered: Cover A by Gary Frank and Brad Anderson, Cover B by Germán Peralta, and Cover C by Sean Von Gorman and Brad Anderson (the latter a Wicked Broadway Musical poster homage).
- The issue is part of Ghost Machine's 'The Unnamed' shared universe — an alternate American history spanning from 1776 (Redcoat) to a near-future nuclear wasteland (Geiger) — a crossover infrastructure Gary Frank confirmed was planned from the line's inception.
- A television adaptation of Geiger was announced in October 2022 at Paramount Television Studios, with Geoff Johns attached as showrunner and executive producer alongside Justin Simien and Gary Frank.
Full credits
Variants (1)
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.