Meet Rick Remender’s Texas Spaceman, the last FEAR AGENT

by 02.04.2025

Fear Agent is an American science fiction comic book series written by Rick Remender with art by Tony Moore and Jerome Opena, who alternated on story arcs. The series was published by Dark Horse Comics from 2007 to 2018 and by Image Comics from 2005–2006 and currently from 2018. The series stars the rugged alcoholic Texas spaceman Heathrow Huston, the supposed last Fear Agent, in a series of fast-paced adventures. The series emphasizes action, adventure, horror, and plot twists rather than realism or scientific detail; Remender claims in the first issue that “science fiction has lost its stones” and that Fear Agent was his attempt to fight that trend. Numerous incidents that occur early in the series are left unexplained for a large period of the story in order to reinforce this.

The series launched in October 2005, published by Image Comics. It ran for 11 issues. In September 2006, Dark Horse Comics announced that Fear Agent would be moving to Dark Horse. The company reprinted the first trade paperback collection (originally published by Image), released on April 28, 2007. The second volume followed on May 30, 2007.

On June 13, 2007, Dark Horse began Fear Agent: The Last Goodbye, a four-part mini-series telling of the alien invasion and creation of the Fear Agents by way of flashback after issue 10’s events.

After completion of The Last Goodbye and a one-shot “Tales of the Fear Agent: Twelve Steps in One,” Dark Horse resumed chronological numbering for the series with number 17, making “The Last Goodbye” issues 12–15 and the one-shot #16.

The series went on a hiatus with issue #27 (cover dated June 2009), following Remender signing an exclusive deal with Marvel, but restarted in July 2010 for the last five-issue storyline “Out of Step”.

Issues 1–4: “Re-Ignition”
Heath Huston is a Fear Agent, a member of a task force dedicated to eradicating alien threats to member planets, which in Heath’s case, is Earth. A Mark Twain-studying redneck alcoholic from Texas, Heath spends his days conversing with Annie, the A.I. system of his spaceship.

After a close escape from the planet Frazterga, Heath is forced to investigate an abandoned space outpost with whom he cannot communicate. The compound has been invaded by Feeders, a plasmoid-like octopoid race that devour their victims using powerful stomach acids and reproduce more of their kind. Heath discovers that the race that uses them in biological warfare, the Dressites, who have previously attempted to destroy Earth, intend to make another attempt on the planet.

Heading back to Earth, Heath picks up Mara, another survivor from the mostly decimated Earth. Heath is sidetracked into joining with a race of seemingly primitive aliens, only to find they are not what they seem. It is revealed that Heath is the lone remaining Fear Agent, following the mass slaughter of all of the other Fear Agents in an unknown incident. Heath then discovers a member of the “primitive” race is planning to betray him and his brethren by giving him to the Dressite Empire, who have posted a bounty on his head for a prior incident.

Rick Remender (born February 6, 1973) is an American animator, comic book writer and television producer who resides in Los Angeles, California. As a comic book creator, he is best known for his work on Uncanny X-Force, Venom, Captain America and Uncanny Avengers, published by Marvel, as well as his creator-owned series Fear Agent, Deadly Class, Black Science and Low, published by Image. In video games, he wrote EA’s Dead Space and Epic Games’ Bulletstorm. In 2019, Sony Pictures Television adapted Deadly Class into a television series of the same name, for which Remender served as a showrunner and lead writer.

Tony Moore is an American comic-book artist whose work consists mainly of genre pieces, most notably in horror and science fiction, with titles such as Fear Agent, The Exterminators, and the first six issues of The Walking Dead. He also co-created the Invincible Universe character Brit.

Jerome Opeña is a Filipino comic book artist best known for his numerous collaborations with writer Rick Remender.

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