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SCOOP: Steve McNiven To Join Tom King On Batman From DC Comics In 2026

SCOOP: Steve McNiven to join Tom King on Batman from DC Comics in 2026, no longer exclusive to Marvel Comics after twenty years

I have learned that Steve McNiven is the "best artist in comics" who will be drawing a 40-page Batman story for DC Comics, written by Tom King and being published next year. McNiven has been exclusive with Marvel Comics for twenty years and at Crossgen before that. But not any more.

Earlier this week, reporting on The Batman Book Club podcast, Tom King said that he was returning to Batman for 2026, and had written a one-shot. He said "I just wrote a Batman story. I'll keep writing Batman stories until they kick me off. I got approached, I was in the [DC Comics] offices doing whatever, meeting with editors, and the editor Batman came up to me [that would be Rob Levin – Rich] and he's like, hey man, I got 40 pages of Batman, you wanna write it, you can have any artist you want?" I was like, "I have an idea, he may be the best artist in comics, and they said yeah, and the artist said yeah… and I wrote the story, it may be one of the best things I ever wrote, it'll be put next year…. I think it's a standalone issue. I have no idea, he said, you can have 40 pages to do whatever you want with Batman. It was on a whim, I was just walking past his desk, and someone gave me forty pages… it was a little bit of existential crisis. It can be Batman, any era, any thing you want, it;s too much, give me some restraints. I'm not a guy with trouble coming up with ideas; I'm good at that part of the game, but I could not think of an idea for this Batman. There are more stories told about Batman than any other fictional character. So first you have to have a good idea and then you have to check against your knowledge of Batman, that's been done before… no, Tom, you've already done that, Scott's already done that, Grant did that, Steve Engelhart did that. I was going for like Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow, it just stands alone like a perfect story. And I couldn't come up with it, finally I was on a plane and I was just sitting, and thinking this reminded me of this stupid thing, and oh that's it. I was so relieved, It was such a moment of relief, with that core of an idea you could do something. I'm really proud of  how it turned out, and like I said, it will have the best art in comics."

Steve McNiven first gained prominence on CrossGen's Meridian, before moving to Marvel on titles such as Ultimate Secret, Marvel Knights, and New Avengers. He is best known for drawing Marvel's Civil War, Old Man Logan and Nemesis, all written by Mark Millar, has recently been drawing the stellar Daredevil: Cold Day In Hell series written by Charles Soule, including drawing Daredevil and Elektra in a style reminiscent of Frank Miller's work on both characters, to great effect. How will he draw Batman? We will have to wait into 2026 to find out. But on his Instagram, he announced that he is no longer exclusive to Marvel… Talking about Daredevil, he said "90 pages of pencils and inks, five covers and 30 pages of colours and it's a wrap for me on Daredevil Cold Day in Hell! What a blast it has been doing this project with @charlesdsoule and @deanwhitecolor ! This will also wrap up my over 20 year exclusive run with @marvelcomics ! I've had so much fun working with @cbcebulski and @tmb11779 and @hellyeahnicklowe and all of the other fine folks at Marvel, I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to collaborate with! I'll be sure to let you know where I'll be going and what I'm doing as things progress but I'll still be posting more Cold Day in Hell stuff here as issue 2 and 3 hit the stands."

Well, not unless Bleeding Cool tells you first. Batman by Tom King and Steve McNiven. DC Comics, 2026.

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