Samurai Jack creator returns to Cartoon Network to continue the samurai's tale

Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Samurai Jack, will continue the story of the time-lost samurai and his quest to return to the past and defeat an unspeakable evil before it consumes all of history.

Cartoon Network released this five-second teaser today, with scant but exciting details. Tartakovsky — whose turn at creating, writing and directing many episodes of the original, multiple-award-winning series put him on the road to directing Star Wars: Clone Wars and the Hotel Transylvania movies — will return. The show is already in production. It will air sometime during 2016 during the network's Adult Swim block of programming. While it is possible that Phil Lamar may return to the show as the voice of Jack, the voice of his rival Aku is another matter. Veteran voice actor Mako Iwamatsu passed away in 2006.

Samurai Jack aired a round playing card deck of 52 episodes between 2001 and 2005. The half-hour program was made of simple but beautifully crafted stories, from the hand-painted backgrounds to the understated dialogue. It was also a series that could deftly move between high drama, comedy, surreality and even noir when it wanted to. The strange adventures of the eponymous, ultimately anonymous samurai were the focus: After training for his entire adolescence to defeat the evil shapeshifting wizard Aku (encompassed entirely by the series' first episode), Jack finds himself flung forward in time at the very moment of his triumph, and into a future where Aku has ruled the earth for centuries. In this new, strange time full of aliens, ancient ruins and blasted landscapes, Jack must find a way back to the past as Aku and his minions dog his every step.

The story was never concluded, except in the vaguest, unconfirmed hints, and Tartakovsky has always held out that if given the chance to make an ever-rumored feature film, he would wrap up Jack's adventures. Perhaps this new series will finally see that promise fulfilled.