When Mark Millar was 13, he sent in his very first comic book proposal to a publisher. It was for a title called Conquered, and featured a drawing of a dragon attacking The White House. The young Scottish kid had a simple pitch: a portal opens, fantasy creatures pour out, and they conquer America.

DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz sent Millar a nice rejection letter at the time. But now 43 years later — after Millar became a big name in comics with titles such as Kick-Ass and Kingsman — Conquered is becoming a reality.

Millar launches a Kickstarter today for the first of four volumes, made with artist Valerio Giangiordano, known for Millar’s Nemesis: Rogue’s Gallery and Todd McFarlane’s Spawn series. The artist has quietly been working on the project since the top of 2025, and considers it his biggest undertaking ever, given that he’s showing an entire world at war with fantasy creatures.

“It’s the basic idea of Independence Day meets Game of Thrones,” says Millar in a video announcing the project. “The idea of a portal opening up in the middle of New York City, and dragons, barbarians, all these hordes coming in … and wiping out America, just taking the country down. And they’ve got their eyes on the rest of the world.”

Despite all the dragons, orcs and barbarians, the intention is for the story to be grounded. The Kickstarter runs for the month of October, with the book hailing from Side Hustle Comics.

Conquered stands separate from Millar’s work at Netflix, which purchased his company Millarworld in 2017 and has developed its titles into onscreen projects such as Jupiter’s Legacy and The Chosen One. Earlier this year, he and Kick-Ass collaborator John Romita Jr. launched a separate Kickstarter for the book Psychic Sam, which brought in more than $100,000 in pledges.