DC has announced “Superman: The Stranger,” a new six-issue DC Black Label series written and illustrated by Wes Craig, launching Sept. 2, 2026.
The series strips Superman’s mythology down to its Golden Age origins, setting the story in a 1938 Art Deco Metropolis drawn from the visual language of DC’s earliest comics and the Fleischer Studios Superman cartoons. In it, Clark Kent scrapes by during the day in a bustling, unequal city and becomes Superman after dark to fight for the people the city leaves behind.
“Superman is my favorite hero. Always has been,” Craig said. “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.”
Craig described a deliberate choice to pare the character back to his core.
“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,” he said. “That’s the story I want to tell.”
The series follows Superman at the very beginning of his journey, wrestling with the limits of brute heroism against systemic inequality. The rich keep getting richer, and the poor struggle to survive, and Superman isn’t sure he’s actually changing anything.
Colors are by Jason Wordie with lettering by Tom Napolitano. The debut issue will feature variant covers by Dave Johnson, Goran Parlov and Ethan Young, with all covers printed on cardstock. “Superman: The Stranger” no. 1 is priced at $4.99 and carries a DC Ages 17+ content descriptor.
“Superman: The Stranger” no. 1 arrives wherever comic books are sold on Sept. 2, 2026.
