If you're wondering what that smoldering hot red-head is doing holding a Lancer and smoking a stogey while chillaxin' on the dead body of a Brumak, you might be a redneck. If you were thinking to yourself, "But Luke, there's no girls in Gears," you were right. Until now.

The Gears of War comic, written by GoW2's Josh Ortega, expands upon the universe created by Epic, giving fans more insight into their favorite chainsaw/machine-gun wielding badasses. This July, they'll be introducing us to the first female on the front lines that either the game or the series have seen. Thanks to iconic comic artist Jim Lee's Twitter we now get a glimpse to the cover of the ninth issue of the ongoing series. The actual DC Comics solicitation page doesn't even have any info on this book yet, other than it is due to ship later this summer.

I'm not Gears Fan #1, but I do enjoy the game and the franchise in general, so I've been following the comic. It's pretty solid, and delivers the same action and intensity that you'd expect to find in the game. There's quite a bit more time to spend with the characters in a monthly comic than there is in a 6-hour video game, so it makes a good read if you're into the characters. Unlike Microsoft's other flagship franchise turned comic Halo, GoW the comic at least has the decency to come out every month, and actually feature the main characters of the wildly popular game series.

We don't know anything else about the woman pictured above right now, but hopefully answers to her identity, and to the larger question, "Where did all the women of Sera go?" will come when the issue ships.

UPDATE: Jim Lee was kind enough to share each step of the cover creation process, including the inks of Scott Williams and colors of Jonny Rench. From initial sketch to final pass, here is the cover to the upcoming Gears of War #9 comic.

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