36 Years Later, DC Will Finally Publish a Controversial Canceled Comic Where Swamp Thing Meets Jesus Christ | NYCC 2025

DC's "DC Vertigo" sheet astatine NYCC brought with it an announcement 36 years successful the making. Not lone did they unveil the caller lineup of comics that comprise the relaunched Vertigo imprint, but the steadfast besides revealed that a highly arguable Swamp Thing storyline that was canceled successful 1989 volition yet spot the airy of day.

A speedy past acquisition is successful order. In 1989, writer Rick Veitch and creator Michael Zulli were the creators connected Swamp Thing. DC balked aft their planned Swamp Thing #88 featured a storyline wherein the titular quality travels backmost successful time, meets Jesus Christ, and morphs into the transverse connected Calvary Hill. DC opted not to people the issue, a determination believed to person been motivated successful portion owed to fears of stirring up contention astatine the aforesaid clip Tim Burton's Batman was hitting theaters. Veitch walked distant from the bid successful protest, and incoming creators Neil Gaiman and Jamie Delano besides discontinue successful solidarity.

Art by Rick Veitch. (Image Credit: DC)

Now, DC volition yet people the remainder of Veitch's tally (Swamp Thing #88-91) nether the mature readers-focused DC Black Label imprint. While contented #88 features the precocious Zulli's archetypal artwork, the different 3 issues volition beryllium illustrated by creator Tom Mandrake and colorist Trish Mulvihill. These 4 issues volition initially beryllium released arsenic facsimile editions that mimic the presumption and format of the archetypal series. They'll besides beryllium included successful the forthcoming commercialized paperback postulation Swamp Thing by Rick Veitch Book Three: Time Upon a Once.

As for Vertigo, that beloved imprint is returning successful 2026 with nary less than 10 caller comics. The Black Label enactment volition proceed to diagnostic darker, adult-centric stories featuring DC characters, portion Vertigo volition absorption connected creator-owned bid and archetypal concepts. Though Vertigo fans volition spot 1 acquainted look successful this lineup, arsenic Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso are reuniting for a caller 100 Bullets bid called 100 Bullets: The US of Anger. Vertigo is besides becoming the caller location of James Tynion IV and Álvaro Martínez Bueno's The Nice House by the Sea, which started retired arsenic a Black Label book.

Scroll down to spot each the caller Vertigo books, on with their authoritative descriptions:

• Bleeding Hearts by Deniz Camp, Stipan Morian, and Matt Hollingsworth: A zombie named Poke discovers his bosom beating again, threatening his spot successful a nine wherever decease reigns supreme.
• End of Life by Kyle Starks, Steve Pugh, and Chris O’Halloran: A top-tier hitman returns to his Midwestern hometown to attraction for his dying father…and face his ain mortality.
• The Peril of the Brutal Dark: An Ezra Cain Mystery by Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips: A noir detective communicative that collides with magic, fascism, and a stolen artifact of unimaginable power.
• 100 Bullets: The US of Anger by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso: Lono returns to America and reignites chaos, taking the nation’s darkest impulses to their convulsive extremes.
• Black Tower: The Raven Conspiracy by Ram V and Mike Perkins: Wizard spies successful the UK navigate a planetary acold warfare implicit sorcery, revealing a hidden satellite of occult power.
• Necretaceous by Tom Taylor and Darick Robertson: Scientists effort to time-travel to halt a zombie virus, lone to onshore 66 cardinal years successful the past, among dinosaurs.
• Fanatic by Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer: A woman’s obsession with a comic publication spirals into a deadly parasocial fixation connected its creator.
• The Crying Doll by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell: A Jekyll-and-Hyde thriller astir conscionable however acold a young pistillate would spell to support her champion friend, who whitethorn (or whitethorn not) beryllium a killer.
• A Walking Shadow by Simon Spurrier and Aaron Campbell: Eight strangers aftermath up chained to a vessel successful the woods. No memory. No escape. No explanation.

The Vertigo enactment kicks disconnected successful February with the instrumentality of The Nice House by the Sea and the debuts of Bleeding Hearts, End of Life, and The Peril of the Brutal Dark, with the remaining titles to motorboat implicit the people of 2026.

Will you beryllium speechmaking Swamp Thing #88? Which caller Vertigo rubric caught your eye? Let america cognize successful the comments below.

In different comcis news, you'll ne'er conjecture which leader loses successful Round 1 of DC K.O., and we've got an exclusive preview of The Essential Peanuts.

Jesse is simply a mild-mannered unit writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intelligence thicket by following @jschedeen connected BlueSky.