In 2024, DC Comics launched the Absolute Universe, which offered interesting new spins on A-listers like Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Flash. The entire line just completed its first full year, and the publisher used the opportunity to brag about how good it’s doing. And spoiler: it’s doing really good.
Per the Hollywood Reporter, the entire line has sold 8.2 million copies up, as of November 2025. The big earner is Absolute Batman, Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta’s very viral ongoing that sees a blue collar (and pretty big) Bruce Wayne fight crime and reinvented versions of his classic enemies in Gotham. That book accounts for 35% of the Absolute book’s success—so around 3 million copies overall—and its first issue is now on its 10th printing. Its five-bestselling books of 2025 include the recent Absolute Batman #15, Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee’s Batman #158, Matt Fraction and Jorge Jimenez’s Batman #1, the publisher’s Batman/Deadpool crossover, and Snyder and Javier Fernandez’s DC K.O. #1.
Anne DePies, DC’s general manager, credited the decision to keep the universe in its own continuity as a big win, ditto its “fresh look that inverted the fundamentals of our characters, and it’s an update that surprised our fans. It’s not so overwhelming that we are changing everything at once. That made a big difference. We knew it was going to do well, but we didn’t know it would do this well.”
Even beyond Batman, the majority of Absolute books are reportedly doing better than 2011’s New 52 and 2016’s Rebirth relaunches. Those five specific books weren’t listed by THR, which is the only outlet to see those retail numbers, but it did note that Absolute Martian Manunter from Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez has gotten orders in the six figures, something remarkable considering Manhunter’s not high-tier like his fellow headliners.
That book will be ending soon, but the Absolute books will continue for apparently as long as its various creative teams want, so if a particular book’s caught your eye, go ahead and jump in.
Big events like New York Comic-Con give publishers a good reason to tee up some upcoming comics and big events to come throughout the next year. Marvel already revealed their 2025 lineup will include Doctor Doom ruling the planet and an all-new Ultimate Wolverine, but what’s going on with DC? We broke down five of the biggest announcement to come from the publisher, which includes fresh new stories and several returning fan-favorites.
Peacemaker is dipping into comics
Mitch Gerads/DC
Max’s Peacemaker is currently expected to come back for season two sometime next year. To tide you over until then, DC is releasing the show’s first-ever comic book spinoff, Peacemaker Presents: The Vigilante/Eagly Double Feature!. Tim Seely (Money Shot) and Mitch Gerads (Mister Miracle) will tackle the Vigilante stories, while Rex Ogle and Matteo Lolli handle Eagly’s tales. Set between the show’s two seasons, the Vigilante stories will see the goofy antihero tear his way through the criminal community based on the assumption that something bad’s happened to Peacemaker and Eagly when they’re not home. In Eagly’s story, we find out he and Peacemaker are on a “bromantic” trip to Alaska they forgot to tell Vigilante about, but things take a turn for the worse when their flight is hijacked by supervillains looking to hunt them and the other passengers for sport.
The five-issue Vigilante/Eagly Double Feature! kicks off sometime next year.
The Justice League will fight Godzilla fighting King Kong again
DC/Legendary/Toho
It was only last year that DC’s mightiest heroes were caught in the middle of a clash between Godzilla and King Kong. Come 2025, they’ll be back to do the kaiju dance again in Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong 2. Once again by Brian Buccellato and Christian Duce, the sequel sees the League hop over to the MonsterVerse when they learn some of their villains (Lex, Cheetah, and Harley, to name a few) have decided to try and weaponize Titans like Ghidorah and Rodan. You can guess how that’ll go, but hey, Wonder Woman or Batman riding on Mothra sure will be a sight to behold when the book lands in 2025.
Last week, DC’s new Absolute line of comics kicked off with Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta’s Absolute Batman. Kelly Thompson and Hayden Sherman’s Absolute Wonder Womanlaunches later this week, and Jason Aaron and Rafa Sandoval’s Absolute Superman arrives in November, but there’s more stories on the horizon: wave two of the line will feature Absolute Flash from Jeff Lemire and Nick Robles, Absolute Green Lantern by Al Ewing and Jahnoy Lindsay, and the newly announced Absolute Martian Manhunter from Deniz Camp and Javier Rodriguez.
Camp, writer of 20th Century Men and The Ultimates, described Manhunter as “the most radical Absolute reinvention so far.” The book centers on FBI agent John Jones, who has his mind repeatedly invaded by an alien consciousness that just uses “Martian” as a shorthand to describe himself. This is a psychological horror story, and John will “slowly go insane, but in a really fun kind of way. The book is about a complete outsider’s perspective on the world combined with a complete insider’s view of the world.”
As for Absolute Flash and Green Lantern, DC revealed some art from their respective books. The former stars a teen Wally West going up against classic Rogues like Captains Cold and Boomerang, while the latter is an ensemble piece featuring Jo Mullein, John Stewart, and Hal Jordan. All three Absolute books will release in 2025. Also on the docket for 2025 is some kind of crossover between the Absolute and prime DC universes: at the con, Snyder teased a “big, fun event” next fall that “brings a lot of this stuff together.”
Al Ewing said This will be an ensemble book featuring Jo,Hal,John and Guy Gardner! But Hal and Jo Mullein are the main ones in the book! pic.twitter.com/IGGXYnX0n1
At the “Jim Lee and Friends” panel, the artist revealed he and writer Jeph Loeb were reteaming on a sequel to Batman: Hush, which introduced Bruce’s childhood friend Tommy Elliot turned evil lookalike (and bandaged serial killer) Hush. A 20th anniversary re-release in 2022 featured a brand new epilogue, and Hush was recently adapted into one of DC’s animated movies, so a sequel felt almost inevitable. The duo will begin their sequel in March 2025 with Batman #158, seemingly confirming recent rumors that Chip Zdarsky and Jorge Jimenez’s current run would be wrapping early next year so the two could take over the main Bat-comic. But before that point, there’ll be a prelude story in November’s Justice League Unlimited #1 to help set the stage for Batman’s next saga.
Hush ain’t the only one making a comeback. The fan-favorite Vertigo imprint is being revived after being retired in 2019, with an emphasis on creator-owned projects. (DC Black Label, which effectively existed as its replacement, will seemingly stick to handling mature takes of the brand’s existing characters.) The first “new” Vertigo book will be a reprint of James Tynion IV and Álvaro Martinez Bueno’s The Nice House on the Lake, with upcoming issues of its current sequel series The Nice House by the Sea to be published under the imprint going forward. At the moment, this is the only book confirmed for the resurrected Vertigo, and executive editor Chris Conroy said more would be revealed in the coming months, along with some “surprises from the archives.”
