The Hollywood trades are reporting that Spider-Man thespian Tobey Maguire is teaming up with Fast and the Furious producer Paul Moritz to bring Afterburn, a comic book series from new publisher Red 5 Comics to the big screen.  Afterburn, which is set on an earth heavily damaged by a huge solar flare, follows the adventures of a former oil worker turned soldier of fortune from Texas, who takes on dangerous missions to the sun-damaged Eastern hemisphere to rescue precious works of art and history such as the Mona Lisa and the Rosetta Stone while fighting off other groups of looter/rescuers and solar radiation-created mutants along the way.

The Calgary-based Red 5 Comics, which was launched last February, was founded by two Web savvy entrepreneurs, Paul Ens, the former director of Lucasfilm's StarWars.com and Scott Chitwood, co-founder of TheForce.net.  They joined forces to publish "cinematic-style stories that appeal to same avid movies and comic fans" who frequented their Websites.  So far Red 5 has launched five comic series, Abyss, Atomic Robo, Midknight, Neozoic, and Afterburn, which is written by Red 5 founders Ens and Chitwood and drawn by Wayne Nichols.

In addition to Afterburn, Tobey Maguire is also involved in developing a movie based on the Robotech franchise (see "Robotech Live Action") for Warner Bros. and Tokyo Suckerpunch for Sony, while Paul Moritz is working on the fourth Fast and the Furious film.  So far no writer has been assigned to the Afterburn project.