Hugh Jackman is going Nowhere fast.
The X-Men star is looking to keep the fanboys happy by joining forces with Virgin Comics to carve out a new comic-book series called Nowhere Man.
Jackman—currently reprising his razor-clawed, sideburn-sporting role in the now-shooting prequel X-Men Origins: Wolverine—will mastermind the comic with ex-Marvel scribe Marc Guggenheim, who penned Wolverine and Amazing Spider-Man and who hatched ABC's new dramedy Eli Stone.
"I've had so much fun in the graphic-novel world with the X-Men franchise that I wanted to get even more involved," the 39-year-old actor says in a statement.
Nowhere Man, which Virgin will debut this summer, is being touted as an Orwellian sci-fi fantasy adventure set 500 years in the future, when humans have ceded all privacy in the name of security.
Jackman says he wants to create a "compelling" character at the center of a franchise that may be spun off into a videogame and possibly even a film—in which Jackman might star, natch.
"We're fans of Hugh's," Gotham Chopra, Virgin's cofounder and chief creative officer, told E! News. "Talking more and more with him about his love for comics, we mentioned that we often collaborate with filmmakers and artists, so we discussed creating something. And that appealed to him."
According to Chopra, Nowhere Man was an idea his team had been "incubating in raw form," and when they showed it to Jackman, he sparked to it immediately. The company then brought in Guggenheim for further brainstorming.
"The setting is a fairly Spartan, Soviet-style world that on the surface looks beautiful and crime free, but now there's this über-computer that tracks and monitors everyone's thoughts and feelings," says Chopra.
The Nowhere Man character is a person who has "sort of managed to exist off the grid."
"He's the one guy whom the megacomputer can't track, and he's apart of this revolutionary group aiming to bring down Omni Mind, this elaborate monitoring system that manages even people's thoughts," says Chopra. "It's a larger allegory. Think about the Patriot Act 500 years in the future and on steroids."
Virgin Comics plans to have the first issue in stores by August but will probably offer a sneak peek at San Diego's ComiCon Convention in July, the same time Marvel will be in high gear promoting Wolverine, which is targeting a May 2009 launch.
Virgin is quickly establishing itself as the go-to comic-book publisher for Hollywood types looking to try their hand at writing graphic novels.
Aside from Jackman, Virgin has signed Nicolas Cage to create the comic book Voodoo Child with his son Weston. The publisher has also commissioned an adaptation of Gamekeeper, a comic dreamed up by Guy Ritchie for producer Joel Silver and Warner Bros. Other notable filmmakers working with Virgin include Terry Gilliam, Ed Burns and John Woo.
As for Jackman, he next appears in theaters in the mystery thriller Deception, costarring Ewan McGregor and Michelle Williams and due out next month. Then he headlines Baz Lurhmann's Australia, a sweeping drama with Nicole Kidman due in November.