It’s not uncommon for celebrities to branch out into the world of comics and graphic novels. Many fans are very familiar with Keanu Reeves’ foray into comics with BRZRKR. but he’s by no means alone. Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke co-wrote a three-issue series for Image back in 2021, and other celebrities have projects on the horizon, including Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready’s Farewell to Seasons. But one of the most exciting upcoming projects might just be Momo. Written by John Cusack with art by Ignacio Noé, Momo is coming out from Mad Cave Studios in September, and is a unique, genre-bending road trip story that has huge cosmic stakes with a wild mission that involves the actor Jackie Gleason — and that doesn’t even scratch the surface. There are actual alien conspiracies at the heart of the story that make it unlike anything else out there.
Speaking with ComicBook at San Diego Comic-Con, Cusack revealed that the core of the story centers, in part, around Gleason’s friendship with Antonin Artaud, but more than that it all ties into an alien conspiracy that he feels is itself centered in a lot of truth.
“I think a lot of truth,” Cusack said about the conspiracy. “A lot of truth if you look it up, there’s a flight log of Air Force Two, whatever the helicopter is. And it has Richard Nixon, Jackie Gleason, Vernon Coffee, and redacted. I have information that was Artaud.”
He continued, “There’s a lot of files and some of them actually have been taken offline even since I wrote this.”
The conspiracy theory about Jackie Gleason and aliens isn’t exactly new, but it’s recently resurfaced thanks to the film Disclosure Day. As the conspiracy or urban legend goes, in 1973 Richard Nixon (who was president at the time) took Gleason to Homestead Air Force Base in Florida and showed Gleason a series of glass-topped freezers containing the remains of aliens recovered from a crashed flying saucer. It’s a tale that has circulated for decades and was briefly referenced in Disclosure Day in a scene where Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) shows Jane (Eve Hewson) old security footage that shows Nixon greeting “some old TV comedian” — aka Gleason.
While it’s a story that largely lives in the world of urban legend and conspiracy theory, it’s a story that Cusack believes is true and incorporated into Momo. The result is a wild sort of buddy road trip story that blends sci-fi, occult, humor, and more to tell its tale. In Momo, two criminals are thrown together by fate — a weathered man and a mysterious young woman who refuses to give her name — and they set off on a mission to recover an ancient artifact for Jackie Gleason. But as is the case with any mission, it’s not going to be easy, with cosmic forces beyond imagination that have a penchant for chaos and vengeance popping up all along the way. The result is a wild ride that is both divine comedy and cosmic horror and the idea that there could be a genuine alien conspiracy at the core of the story makes it all the more fascinating.
Momo, written by Cusack with art by Noé, will be released by Mad Cave on September 29th, meaning you can head into fall deciding for yourself if the conspiracy is real.
