Geiger #9

History

The 2024 ongoing Geiger series was the flagship title of Ghost Machine, the creator-owned cooperative media company that Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, Brad Anderson, and colleagues launched publicly at New York Comic Con in October 2023 and began publishing through Image Comics in April 2024. Issue #9 falls within a second story arc (issues #7–9) that introduced Paul Pelletier and Andrew Hennessy as the interior art team in place of Gary Frank, who shifted to cover duties and epilogue pages — a division of artistic labor that became a defining structural feature of this arc. The Grover's Corners arc was conceived as a contained two-issue escalation before the series pivoted toward larger inter-title storytelling; issue #9 ends with an epilogue sequence illustrated by Frank himself that simultaneously closes one story and seeds three others across the Unnamed line.

Trivia · 9 facts

• Published December 25–26, 2024 by Image Comics / Ghost Machine; Lunar code OCT240471; 32 pages, rated T+.
• Written by Geoff Johns; interior art by Paul Pelletier (pencils) and Andrew Hennessy (inks); colors by Brad Anderson; letters by Rob Leigh; cover by Gary Frank and Brad Anderson; variant covers by Ryan Sook and Yanick Paquette.
• Gary Frank drew the epilogue pages, visually distinguishing the 'present action' sections (Pelletier/Hennessy) from the universe-seeding coda (Frank) — a deliberate two-artist structure used across the #7–9 arc.
• The issue concludes the 'Grover's Corners' arc: Geiger defeats the New King, whose Tungsten-Titanium armor and Boron-powder weaponry were specifically engineered to counter his radiation powers.
• Key character revelation: Nate is disclosed as terminally ill from accumulated radiation exposure — both from proximity to Geiger and environmental contamination — recontextualising his entire motivation as a companion.
• Geiger gives Nate a shard of the New King's sword — an object established in continuity as one of the few things capable of killing Geiger — and asks Nate to use it if he ever loses control again, a pivotal trust moment in the central relationship.
• The Custodian — previously the creator and primary antagonist of Junkyard Joe — makes his first on-page appearance in the Geiger series in this issue's epilogue, alongside President Griffin; Junkyard Joe also appears, as does a teaser of Redcoat, signalling the coming Unnamed crossover.
• Issues #7–9 (the Grover's Corners arc, including this issue) were later collected alongside Geiger: Ground Zero #1–2 in the Geiger Vol. 3 trade paperback (June 2025) and in the Geiger Vol. 2 Deluxe Hardcover collecting issues #1–9 (December 2025).
• A television adaptation of Geiger has been in development at Paramount Television Studios, with Johns serving as showrunner and writing the pilot, alongside director/co-executive producer Justin Simien and Gary Frank as executive producer.

Full credits

Variants (2)