About ‘If Destruction Be Our Lot’
There’s a certain kind of high-concept premise that either makes you roll your eyes or immediately shove money at your local comic shop. A robotic replicant of Abraham Lincoln wandering a post-human Earth looking for meaning – and maybe a friend – is very much the latter. If Destruction Be Our Lot sounds like someone took the best parts of WALL-E, Fallout, and an existential philosophy lecture and smashed them together into something genuinely, wonderfully strange.
And honestly? It might be one of the most intriguing Image Comics launches of 2026.
The Team Behind the Thing
This isn’t a first-timer passion project. The creative team assembled here is absurdly stacked.
Matthew Rosenberg – the writer behind cult favourite 4 Kids Walk Into A Bank and the emotionally gut-punching We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us – is co-writing with his brother Mark Elijah Rosenberg, a filmmaker whose credits include the sci-fi drama Approaching the Unknown and the Emmy-nominated documentary series Year Million. The film-to-comics pipeline has produced some genuinely electric work lately, and Mark’s perspective on big ideas through a cinematic lens sounds like exactly the kind of fuel this concept needs.
On art, you’ve got Andy MacDonald, who’s done time on Doctor Strange and Wonder Woman and brings serious sequential storytelling chops to the table. Colours are handled by Francesco Segala, with legendary letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou rounding out the crew. This is the kind of team you look at and think: okay, they’re not messing around.
So What’s Actually Going On?
Humanity is gone. Extinct. The robots who once served us are still out there – doing their jobs, running their routines, and by all accounts, pretty happy about it. No messy humans to get in the way. Just the quiet satisfaction of a world that finally makes sense.
Except for Abe.
Abe is a robotic replicant of Abraham Lincoln – yes, really – and he’s not buying it. While everyone else is content to clock in and clock out, Abe is convinced there’s something more beyond the edge of the city. Something worth finding. So he heads out into the wasteland to look for it, even if it kills him. Or gets him recycled.
It’s a road trip story. It’s a story about loneliness and purpose. It’s also, apparently, partially about a talking toaster.
What the Creators Are Saying
Matthew Rosenberg has been sitting on this one for a while, and it shows in how he talks about it.
“This is a story I’ve wanted to tell for a long time,” he said. “Working on it for the last few years it has really become something so much bigger, funnier, sadder, weirder, and more hopeful than I ever could have dreamt.”
Mark Rosenberg, coming at this from the film world, zeroed in on something that cuts right to the heart of why this concept works:
“We’re making something that feels important to us because it deals with real issues through a totally bizarre metaphor, but in the end it’s all about the search for one primal, universal thing: friendship. Even if it’s only with a talking toaster.”
And MacDonald, for his part, gave what might be the most relatable quote about working in the current cultural moment:
“My hatred of A.I. is matched only by my love for weird little robots.”
A comic made by humans, about robots, that has something pointed to say about the AI conversation happening right now – without beating you over the head with it. That’s a tightrope worth watching them walk.
The Variant Situation
Image isn’t holding back on the cover front. Beyond MacDonald’s main cover, the variant lineup features Jerome Opeña, James Harren, and Tradd Moore – three artists whose involvement in anything is reason enough to pay attention. There’s also a 1:75 foil variant by Opeña for the collectors who like their robots shiny.
When and Where
If Destruction Be Our Lot #1 hits comic book shops on Wednesday, May 6th, with the full cover breakdown below:
- Cover A by MacDonald (Lunar: 0326IM0233)
- Cover B by Opeña (Lunar: 0326IM0234)
- Cover C by TBA – 1:10 (Lunar: 0326IM0235)
- Cover D by Harren – 1:25 (Lunar: 0326IM0236)
- Cover E by Moore – 1:50 (Lunar: 0326IM0237)
- Cover F by Opeña Foil – 1:75 (Lunar: 0326IM0238)
The series will also be available digitally through Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play.
A post-apocalypse where humans lost and robots won. A Lincoln bot looking for something to believe in. A creative team that clearly cares deeply about what they’re making. Put this one on your pull list now – before Abe finds whatever’s out there beyond the edge of the city.
If Destruction Be Our Lot #1 is published by Image Comics and arrives in comic book shops on May 6th, 2026.
If Destruction Be Our Lot #1 – Preview Pages
