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Wes Craig's Superman: The Stranger, Golden Age Comics For Adults Only

Wes Craig writes and draws the new DC Comics Black Label series Superman: The Stranger via Fleischer and Golden Age but for 17+ audiences

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Article Summary

  • Superman: The Stranger is a six-issue DC Black Label series by Wes Craig, launching September 2, 2026.
  • Set in a 1938 Art Deco Metropolis, it reimagines early Superman through Golden Age comics and Fleischer flair.
  • Wes Craig’s take strips Superman back to his original roots: a brash young hero battling corruption and inequality.
  • Rated 17+, Superman: The Stranger follows Clark Kent’s earliest nights in Metropolis as he fights for the downtrodden.

Superman: The Stranger is a new six-issue DC Comics Black Label comic book series launching in September, written and drawn by Wes Craig. And set in an Art Deco-inspired 1938 Metropolis, with Superman's earliest adventures told through a modern storytelling lens but drawing from the visual language of DC's Golden Age of comic books and the Fleischer Studios Superman cartoons. But rated for audiences 17+.

"Superman is my favorite hero. Always has been," says writer-artist Wes Craig. "I grew up on Christopher Reeve and John Byrne's interpretation, then his animated adventures and All-Star Superman as I grew older. His mythology always changing with the times. But the version I love the most and the one that I think, strangely, reflects our modern world best, is the ORIGINAL. You strip away the extra powers, you strip away Ma and Pa Kent, and Smallville and Krypton, you boil it down to that explosive first issue of Action Comics, and you have this vital, powerful myth of a brash young man with incredible powers fighting against a corrupt city. That's the story I want to tell."

"In Superman: The Stranger, readers will follow Superman at the very beginning of his journey. During the day, Clark Kent does what he can to make ends meet in the bustling city of Metropolis, but when the sun goes down, he leaps into action to keep the city streets safe. As Superman, Clark fights for a better tomorrow, but he feels like he's not affecting change. The rich keep getting richer, and the poor struggle to survive. Can Superman truly save the downtrodden?"

Superman: The Stranger, a six-issue DC Black Label comic book series written and illustrated by Wes Craig with colours by Jason Wordie and lettering by Tom Napolitano, will feature variant covers by Dave Johnson, Goran Parlov, and Ethan Young on the debut issue. Superman: The Stranger #1 is published by DC Comics on the 2nd of September, 2026, and is rated 17+.

The first Superman cartoon from the famous Fleischer brothers was in cinemas in 1941. Not only did it successfully adapt Superman into movies for the first time, but it did so in full colour, with painstaking animation, and invented aspects that would stick with the character over the decades, including "Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!" amd for the first time, actual flight, a power that the comic books soon picked up. Have a little reminder…

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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of comic books The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne and Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from The Union Club on Greek Street, shops at Gosh, Piranha and Forbidden Planet. Father of two daughters, Amazon associate, political cartoonist.
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