Alex Ross re-imagines 'Hornet' comic

Artist Alex Ross has revealed the thought process behind redesigning classic Green Hornet characters for a new Dynamite Entertainment series.

Kevin Smith's Green Hornet, born out of his film screenplay and featuring superhero Britt Reid and the now female Kato, hits shelves in March. Ross was chosen to create new-looks for the characters' first comic book incarnation in over 15 years - Jonathan Lau is to handle the interior art.

Ross told CBR: "I had conversations with [John] Cassaday on the subject of whether or not it had a better advantage by going more realistic or more superhero. Of course, I was going hyper-superhero in my interpretation because the visual medium of comics needs something a bit more flamboyant.

"That's why a character like Batman thrives in comics whereas Green Hornet was always played realistically in his radio shows and his TV show. It's the most realistic superhero show on television, and it seems lost in the confusion by juxtaposition to the Batman TV show produced by the same company back in the '60s.

"People didn't know what to make of this thing because it didn't have that flamboyance. In a way, Green Hornet would make perfectly for a realistic representation in film if it was so interpreted, but for comics, to make it impactful for a modern audience, dressing him up as a superhero, I thought, was needed."