Chris is a Senior News Writer for Collider. He can be found in an IMAX screen, with his eyes watering and his ears bleeding for his own pleasure. He joined the news team in 2022 and accidentally fell upwards into a senior position despite his best efforts.
For reasons unknown, he enjoys analyzing box office receipts, giant sharks, and has become known as the go-to man for all things Bosch, Mission: Impossible and Christopher Nolan in Collider's news division. Recently, he found himself yeehawing along to the Dutton saga on the Yellowstone Ranch.
He is proficient in sarcasm, wit, Photoshop and working unfeasibly long hours. Amongst his passions sit the likes of the history of the Walt Disney Company, the construction of theme parks, steam trains and binge-watching Gilmore Girls with a coffee that is just hot enough to scald him.
His obsession with the Apple TV+ series Silo is the subject of mockery within the Senior News channel, where his feelings about Taylor Sheridan's work are enough to make his fellow writers roll their eyes.
This time, the spotlight is falling on one of the franchise’s most important—and tragic—characters. Netflix and Dark Horse Books have officially announced Stranger Things: The First Shadow, an 80-page graphic novel adaptation of the award-winning stage play of the same name. The book is available to pre-order now and will be released on January 19, 2027.
Written by Kate Trefry, from an original story by Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer, Jack Thorne and Trefry, The First Shadow takes audiences back to Hawkins in 1959. The synopsis reads:
In 1959 Hawkins, Indiana, the Creel family seeks a fresh start, especially their teenage son Henry, who is eager to escape his troubled past. Initially, things seem to go well — he finds friendship and joins the school play. But when a wave of shocking crimes strikes the town, Henry is forced to confront a terrifying possibility: Something inside him may be connected to the horrors unfolding around him. As this thrilling mystery races forward, shadows of the past are unleashed, relationships are tested, and the town of Hawkins must band together to face unspeakable darkness.
The production has also become one of the most acclaimed entries in the wider Stranger Things universe. It won Olivier Awards for Best Entertainment and Best Set Design, while its Broadway production became the most Tony Award-winning play of 2025, taking home four awards, including Best Scenic Design, Best Lighting Design, Best Sound Design, and a Special Tony Award for Illusions and Technical Effects.
COLLIDER
Collider · Quiz
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality QuizWhich Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like?Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky
Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🏜️Paul Atreides
🖖Capt. Kirk
✊Princess Leia
🔦Ellen Ripley
🔥Max Rockatansky
QUESTION 1 / 8LEADERSHIP
01
How do you lead when the stakes couldn't be higher?The way you lead under pressure is the most honest thing about you.
QUESTION 2 / 8STRENGTH
02
What is your greatest strength in a crisis?The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.
QUESTION 3 / 8MOTIVATION
03
What is the thing you'd sacrifice everything else for?Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.
QUESTION 4 / 8PEOPLE
04
How do you relate to the people around you?Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.
QUESTION 5 / 8THREAT
05
You're facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do?How you respond when you're the only one who sees it defines everything.
QUESTION 6 / 8COST
06
What has your heroism cost you personally?Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they'd pay it again.
QUESTION 7 / 8RULES
07
How do you feel about the rules of the world you're in?Every hero has a relationship with the system. What's yours?
QUESTION 8 / 8PURPOSE
08
When everything is on the line, what keeps you going?The answer is the most honest thing about you.
Your Hero Has Been IdentifiedYour Sci-Fi Hero Is…
Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.
Arrakis · Dune
Paul Atreides
You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you're capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.
You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
You are driven by loyalty to your people and a sense of destiny you didn't ask for but can't escape.
Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won't, is exactly you.
USS Enterprise · Star Trek
Captain Kirk
You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you've always believed there's a third option nobody else has thought of yet.
You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you've earned it.
Kirk's genius isn't tactical — it's human. He reads people, bends rules with purpose, and wills outcomes into existence through sheer conviction.
That combination of warmth, audacity, and relentless optimism is unmistakably yours.
The Rebellion · Star Wars
Princess Leia
You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you're fearless, but because giving up simply isn't something you're capable of.
You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you've never looked back.
Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.
The Nostromo · Alien
Ellen Ripley
You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone's hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.
You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
Ripley's heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn't have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn't there.
When it counts, you don't flinch. That's everything.
The Wasteland · Mad Max
Max Rockatansky
You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.
You don't ask for help, don't need validation, and don't wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it's earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.
Who's Involved in 'The First Shadow'?
The original stage production starsLouis McCartney(Stranger Things: The First Shadow) as Henry Creel,Ella Karuna Williams(The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power) as Patty Newby,Patrick Vaill(The Gilded Age) as Dr. Brenner,Rosie Benton(The Good Wife) as Virginia Creel,Alex Breaux(Joe Pickett) as Victor Creel,Alison Jaye(Orange Is the New Black) as Joyce Maldonado,Burke Swanson(FBI: Most Wanted) as James Hopper Jr. andJuan Carlos(The Outsidersstage production) as Bob Newby.
The stage production is directed by Stephen Daldry and co-directed by Justin Martin, with a script by Kate Trefry based on an original story developed by the Duffer Brothers, Jack Thorne and Trefry.
The graphic novel adaptation of Stranger Things: The First Shadow arrives in bookstores and comic shops on January 19, 2027.