Everything You Need To Know About Emilia Clarke's Comic Book

Emilia Clarke, best known for her role in the wildly popular "Game of Thrones," has proven her talent time and again. After her recent projects starring in "Solo: A Star Wars Story" and the latest holiday hit "Last Christmas," The Mother of Dragons is trying her hand at a new adventure: She's created a comic, and it hits stands this summer. The exciting comic book debut is titled "M.O.M.: Mother of Madness," and features a single mom who discovers she has amazing powers. In a cultural landscape dominated by male superheroes, we have to say we're pretty excited to have a new female superhero to look up to.

Clarke announced her forthcoming project on Instagram, saying it's been in the works for two years before diving into some details. "I couldn't be prouder, my girl Maya, is a badass single mom superhero," she wrote. "She's funny, she's fierce and she is just a regular woman trying to figure her [stuff] out. ... it couldn't be more feminine, it couldn't be more fabulous. I wrote this one from the heart and designed it with nothing but love." Here's everything you need to know about "M.O.M.: Mother of Madness."

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly (EW), Clarke revealed that her idea to write a comic stemmed from a lack of representation in the superhero world. As a young girl, Clarke wanted to partake in comic shops with her brother, who didn't let her tag along because she was the "loser little sister." When she did get to join him, she didn't see many women represented on the shelves or in the stores, which led her to lose enthusiasm for the medium.

Years later, Clarke had a bit of an epiphany. "Cut to me at Comic-Con, and I'm there going, 'I'm still not seeing a lot of women. I'm still not seeing women that aren't in Lycra reflected back at me,'" she explained to EW. "'Are there any women out there that are superpowered, but aren't in a skintight costume? Not that I can see.'" That observation led her to make a tongue-in-cheek comment about making her own comic, which brings us to today, with the announcement of her very own women-centric story.

Clarke described her inspiration for her protagonist Maya's backstory, saying, "We're always calling mothers superheroes, and I'm like, what if they were? What if they legitimately were superheroes?" In the upcoming Image Comics miniseries, single mother Maya uses her newly-found superpowers to take on an all too real evil — human traffickers. According to EW, Clarke further described the comic as a blend of silliness and dry humor, with feminist themes "explored in an extreme genre-bending atmosphere."

While comic books are a new creative endeavor for Clarke, she explained her main inspiration to try her hand in a historically male-dominated industry. "I wanted young girls to look at a woman that was fallible. Obviously, you're seeing that a lot in the industry; you've got all of these incredibly empowering female shows. But I just felt like I hadn't seen it in this genre." She also thought back to her younger self, and how much it would have meant to see an empowering female superhero as a young girl. "It's a very personal experience that everyone has with comics. These are characters that people are passionate about, and care about deeply, and relate to. I wanted to throw a new character into the mix, and see if people related to her in a way that was impactful to them." 

While Clarke gushed about her excitement for "M.O.M.: Mother of Madness," she was elusive about the specific powers Maya has — though she did reveal that they come from a quite womanly source. "There's many, many things that she can do that are pretty cool," she said. "She can do all of these wicked things, but they all come from the fact that she is a woman who has a menstrual cycle. I thought it would be cool to have all the things that women don't like about themselves, flip that, and make those the things that make her superhuman." (Not only that, but Maya's mask is reminiscent of the balaclavas made famous by the Russian feminist protest punk group Pussy Riot.)

While Clarke remained secretive about details, she revealed how Maya's newfound powers will lead to her profound self-discovery. "Maya has had a very hard life, and she finds herself in a place where everything that makes her unique, she hates and is ashamed about. It's only in the discovery of her powers that she finds her true acceptance of who she is."

"M.O.M.: Mother of Madness" will hit comic book shelves on July 21, 2021.