I Heart Skull-Crusher! #9
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeIssue #9 is the dramatic turning point of the second story arc — and of the entire ten-issue run — because it marks the moment Queen Mob herself descends from her position as the series' unseen power broker and enters the Screaming Pain Ball arena as an active combatant, reframing the story from a sports-underdog adventure into a direct showdown between protagonist Trini's found-family ethos and the corrupt ruling class she has been fighting. It is the penultimate chapter of a series that earned a second story arc on the strength of reader demand after issues #1 and #2 both sold out and went to second printings, making it a marker of one of BOOM! Box's more enthusiastically received original YA properties of the 2024–25 era. The series as a whole represents a rare, fully creator-original work for writer Josie Campbell — her first wholly self-generated comic concept — and #9 is where that creative investment pays out dramatically, setting up the series finale.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
The series launched March 13, 2024, as a five-issue limited run under BOOM! Studios' BOOM! Box imprint, created by writer Josie Campbell (screenwriter/producer on My Adventures With Superman and Head Writer on She-Ra and the Princesses of Power) and Italian artist Alessio Zonno, whose previous U.S. work included Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The book was edited by Dafna Pleban and colored by Angel De Santiago with lettering by Jim Campbell. After the first arc concluded with issue #5, fan response was strong enough that BOOM! announced a second arc beginning with issue #6 in October 2024, converting the series into an ongoing that ultimately ran ten issues. Campbell has described the project as the first fully original story she had ever been able to write for comics, blending her affection for Mad Max: Thunderdome with the emotional structure of sports anime.
Trivia · 7 facts
- Written by Josie Campbell; interior art and main cover by Alessio Zonno; colors by Angel De Santiago; letters by Jim Campbell.
- Variant covers for #9 include Cover B and Cover D by Paulina Ganucheau, and a 1:10 incentive virgin variant (Cover C) by Alessio Zonno.
- The issue's central story development: Queen Mob — the series' primary antagonist and tournament overlord — enters the Screaming Pain Ball arena as a first striker for the first time, escalating from background villain to active in-story threat.
- Issue #9 is the penultimate chapter of the complete ten-issue run; issue #10 (June 18, 2025) serves as the series finale.
- The series was originally solicited and completed as a five-issue miniseries (issues #1–5, March–August 2024); a second arc (issues #6–10) was greenlit after both issue #1 and issue #2 sold out at the distributor level and went to second printings.
- Issues #6–10 (the arc containing #9) were collected in the trade paperback I Heart Skull-Crusher! Vol. 2, published by Penguin Random House.
- The series was conceived by Campbell as an explicit fusion of post-apocalyptic road-narrative influences (Mad Max: Thunderdome) and the emotional underdog structures of sports anime, and is described in retailer copy as featuring queer characters and queer romantic dynamics at its center.
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