DC Comics Announces Bodies, a New Murder Mystery by Si Spencer, Available July 2014

DC Comics has announced Bodies, a new murder mystery written by Si Spencer that will feature four dead bodies from four time periods — and illustrated by four artists. Set in London, the eight-issue series follows a centuries-spanning murder mystery — set in 1890, 1940, 2014, and 2050.

"The initial pitch was, 'four time periods, four detectives, four murders — same M.O., same location, same victim … someone's being murdered — forever' and that pretty much covers it," Spencer tells Newsarama. "Four detectives are each investigating a brutal and inexplicable murder, each believing it has something to do with a larger case they're already engaged in. They're all wrong — it's far bigger than that."

When asked to share more information about the detectives and their cases, Spencer said, "The key thing about all of them is that they're all outsiders for various different reasons, relevant to their time periods and the overall theme of the book. With one exception, they've all experienced prejudice, but none of them are quite self-aware enough to realize how that experience has prejudiced their own opinions to the detriment of the enquiry they're working on … Edmond Hillinghead is a buttoned down Conan Doyle fan trying to bring science to a police force that essentially exists to protect the rich; Charles Whiteman is a Polish émigré, career-criminal who fled the Nazis and signed up with the London police; Shahara Hassan is a fast-tracked female Muslim detective in the London Mets; and Maplewood is an amnesiac cop trying to police the few survivors of an apocalypse while struggling to remember who she is at any given moment. Beyond that I can't be much more specific, other than to say there's sex, murder, magic, betrayal, terrorism, torture, madness and comedy. All the stuff of your average quiet night in."

Bodies will be released by the publisher's Vertigo imprint with the first issue available July 2014.