Cover of issue #1
"We are born to serve Her Exalted Majesty.
We are bred to obey Her Divine Radiance.
We will die-singing and with joy in our hearts-for The Eternal Empress.
We do not falter.
We do not fail.
We do not retreat.
Should our swords and spears shatter against Her enemies' shields,
It does not matter, for we are more than our weapons.
We are Her weapons.
We are The Forged."
The Forged Creed, as seen in issue #1.
The Forged is a science fiction comic book published by Image Comics. Written by Greg Rucka and Eric Trautmann, and drawn by Mike Henderson, the comic was announced in December of 2022 and debuted March 15th, 2023.
The comic takes place during the 11th Millenium under the reign of the Empress Eternal and follows Forged Team Scimitar-3, a team of Super Soldiers who find themselves caught in a strange conspiracy during what they think is a routine mission.
The Forged contains the following tropes:
- Amazon Brigade: All members of Team Scimitar-3 are women.
- An Arm and a Leg: Crazy Jo apparently had a rather unlucky history with having her suit's arm ripped off. The instance in issue #2 marks the eighth time it has happened to her.
- Artificial Human: Both the Forged and the Cassandras are cloned from the Empress's genetic template.
- The Big Girl: FS3-Bravo (Callsign: Crazy Jo) is the largest of the Scimitar team and towers over everyone on the Triumph. Even her mech suit is larger than the others.
- Blood Knight: Crazy Jo is the most enthusiastic about violence. Her first line of dialogue in the entire series is "Please tell me I get to murder something soon."
- Brawn Hilda: All members of Scimitar-3 are muscular women. Crazy Jo in particular towers over everyone on the ship.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Crazy Jo lets loose a rapid string of profanities when a worm monster bites off her suit's arm.Motherfucking fucking fuck. Jumping shit-encrusted hell. Not again.
- Cold Sniper: PS3-Gamma (Callsign: Harpo) serves as the team's scout-sniper.
- Combat Medic: FS3-Epsilon (Callsign: Pusher) serves as the team's corpsman and field surgeon.
- Death World: The recap text of issue #2 describes Gehena D-54-C as a "hellscape of poisonous atmosphere and a permanent rain of molten glass". The terrain itself keeps being remade every moment, making it inhospitable.
- The Engineer: FS3-Delta (Callsign: Hap) serves as combat engineer.
- Erotic Dream: Pusher is knocked unconscious by the Triumph's explosion. She has a dream in which she is naked and conversing with a naked woman before waking up, much to her displeasure.
- Fun with Acronyms: E.V.I.L. (Evolved Virtual Intelligence and Logistics) is the Eternal Empire's A.I which contains all information on the Empire's planets and is capable of natural, human-like interactions with users.
- Instant Armor: The golden box the Cassandra tasks Jo with protecting contains a square-shaped device that upon activation covers the Cassandra in golden armor.
- It Can Think: The insectoid creature the protagonists are battling in issue #3 displays the ability to communicate through the corpses of it's dead victims. It informs the Forged that it is tired of the Empire's colonization and intends to kill them.
- God-Emperor: The Empress Eternal is spoken of as if she were a goddess.
- Good News, Bad News: We get an example in issue #2. The good news is that Jo is stable and ready for battle after having her arm ripped off by a Sand Worm. The bad news is that the planet's hostile fauna are attracted to seismic activity. And between the ship crashing and Hap planting a probe into the planet's surface, a lot of creatures are very aware of the team and are now very hungry.
- Landfill Beyond the Stars: Al-Ashanti has been using Gehena D-54-C as a dumping site for waste generated by its mining operations. This is the reason the native creatures of the planet are so angry.
- Mind over Manners: The Cassandra doesn't care much for the privacy of people's thoughts and casually uses her powers to mess with their minds as seen in her interactions with the captain and Victory.
- Mouth of Sauron: The Eternal Empress prefers to communicate through Cassandras, women with telepathic powers who serve as her mouthpieces.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Pusher's mech suit has four arms.
- Ms. Fanservice: The Cassandra wears a luminescent robe over a revealing leotard. The telepathic fantasy she shows the captain also has her in nude while they are having sex.
- Powered Armor: The Forged operate large, high-tech exoskeleton suits.
- Psychic Powers: The Cassandras' precognitive and telepathic powers make them invaluable intelligence assets to the empire.
- Sand Worm: The Scimitar team is attacked by one in the second issue.
- Super-Soldier: The Forged are clones created from the Empress's genetic template and bred to be the perfect soldiers.
