Soon after the announcement that Philip K. Dick’s novelette is being made into another movie, Dynamite Comics began a four-part comicbook sequel to the original film adaptation.
The comics continue the version of the story that appears in the 1990 Schwarzenegger film Total Recall.
That film, of course differs wildly from the source material, the Dick novelette We Can Remember it for You Wholesale, which the new film, also called Total Recall, is going to readapt from scratch, so these comics will have no tie-in with the new movie.
In the original tale, a seemingly ordinary man goes to a memory implant office in an attempt to have a fun vacation to mars implanted in his recent memories.
When they attempt the procedure, however, they find that the man has defenses and blocks in his mind to prevent the process, and that he is, in fact a secret agent who has his memories regularly altered so that he can live a normal boring life between missions. Once discovered, the man runs from government forces who want to execute him the secrets he now has access to. Of course, as with all Dick stories, the truth is much deeper.
The film has a similar premise, in that it deals with a man whose memories have been tampered with in a similar way, but the adventures of which deal a lot more with Mars, and establish a population and back-story for the mission and people of Mars, including, of course, all that stuff about Martian terraforming and past civilizations and whatever else. It also leave open the question of whether any of the story is real, or if it is all just part of his implanted memories. Something the original story seems to be pretty clear on.
This comics series continues the tale of the Quaid from the film, starting with the outro kiss, and going forward, and are not connected to the DC Comics adaptation of the film which came out in the 90’s.
The first issue of the series is already available from Dynamite Entertainment, and the second will be available in June.
