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Tom King Returns To Batman In 2026 With The Best Artist In Comics

Tom King is returning to Batman In 2026 with the best artist in comics. But who is it?

Published Tue, 24 Jun 2025 05:57:08 -0500

Article Summary

Tom King is set to return to Batman comics in 2026 with a new standalone 40-page story.
DC Comics gave King full creative freedom to write any Batman tale he wanted for this special project.
King calls the artist joining him "the best in comics," though their identity has not been revealed yet.
He describes the story as one of his best works and promises outstanding art and originality.

On The Batman Book Club podcast, Tom King made a recent appearance, talking about the origins of the now-classicBatman/Elmer Fudd comic, the influence of the Killing Time Batman series, the Joker found in The Winning Card as well as plenty on Riddler, Batman/Catwoman, The Penguin, and more, and why Hollywood has been winnowing down his comic book work of late, though it remained his favourite medium to both write in and read.. But also if he would return to Batman. Turns out not only would he, but he already has.

Tom King Returns To Batman In 2026 With The Best Artist In Comics — Tom King by Tom King and Mitch Gerads in Strange Adventures

"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."

So who? Milo Manara? Frank Quitely? Geof Darrow? Brian Bolland? Forty pages… so it's not going to be Jim Lee… and it will be out in 2026.

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