Absolute Universe DC Comics made big news for Absolute Universe at the February 2026 ComicsPRO meeting. The company demonstrated that it is finished playing it safe. Instead, DC announced plans to overhaul how it produces comics across three distinct categories of books. These changes will be for both new readers and veteran Absolute Universe DC fans.

The conference was held February 19-22 in Glendale, California. This is the news that comic book stores get when they find out what the publishers hold for the next year. DC took the opportunity to prove it has a plan solidified for growth after sweeping changes in late 2024 and 2025. 

The Three Main Plans

DC has three ways to publish comics in 2026:

• The Absolute Universe – Familiar heroes but new takes, no complex backstory
• DC Next Level – Top talent reimagines obscure characters
• DC Vertigo – Adult tales.

Different strategies appeal to different readers. Taken together, they demonstrate that DC is intent on expanding its fans and fitting the hobbies of existing fans better. 

The Absolute Universe DC: Where Heroes Are Underdogs and Billionaires Are Prey

The Absolute Universe started as an experiment. The concept was straight forward: Take well-known DC heroes, and take away all of their advantages. Batman doesn’t have money. Superman was not raised in Kansas. Wonder Woman has no royal family.

This world has previously sold more than eight million copies. Readers love watching heroes rise from zero in a world where villains already rule.

The villains in ‘this world’ had their own “Justice League.” This team includes:

• Ra’s al Ghul
• Veronica Cale
• Hector Hammond
• Elenore Thawne
• A new version of the Joker

These baddies are on the lookout for newfound super folks through means of something called the “Mirror World.” They also take a few new recruits along. In this world, Lex Luthor is just a happy farmer. Hawkman betrayed his fellow heroes to the government in the 1950s.  

3 Biggest DC Comics Bombshells at ComicsPRO 

Absolute Green Arrow

Absolute Green Arrow debuts on May 20, “experimental” is a major understatement. Pornsak Pichetshote winner of The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country Eisner-pairs off with Rafael Albuquerque to deliver what DC is literally calling I Know What You Did Last Summer for billionaires. But somebody slasher isn’t the baddie here. Or is he?

Here’s the delicious twist: Oliver Queen is already dead. Murdered. The green-arrow wielding “Absolute Hunter” who eliminates corrupt billionaires could be a successor, an apparition, or who knows what. Dinah Lance is now reworked as an “executive protection specialist” as opposed to a costumed crime-fighter that must track a cadre of archers, all linked to the late Queen, through her list of suspects. No trick arrows. No fortune. Just urban horror and class warfare clothed in hunter’s green. 

Absolute Catwoman

Then it’s Absolute Catwoman on June 10th, and DC are just playing a whole different game. Batman and Superman are the underdogs in this world and Selina Kyle came out on top. She’s the “Absolute Apex Predator,” the greatest thief of all time and who has access to technology that makes Batman’s gadgets look like kid’s toys.Scott Snyder co-writes with Che Grayson and Selina is the establishment figure while Bruce Wayne is the guy living on the fringes. The reversal in power is so delicious it ought to be illegal. 

The First BIG Crossover Event 

Absolute Universe DC also revealed the first big event in the Absolute Universe. It is scheduled for release in late 2026. The story will be a crossover with Absolute Wonder Woman, Absolute Superman and Absolute Batman. 

The event is designed to be accessible without needing to buy other books. Fans have speculated the heroes may also create their own team to battle the villain “Justice League.” Some speculate they call themselves the Legion of Doom. This is the book most likely to be the big seller of the holiday season. 

DC Next Level: The B-List Becomes the A-Game

Condensing what the Absolute Edition was offering up to readers new to the material, “DC Next Level” = pure obsessiveness excellence. This is the victory lap for Scott Snyder and Joshua Williamson — a creator-firstline where talent gets to pick its characters, not the other way around. 

The idea is pretty straightforward: Let amazing creators pick the characters they love, even if those characters are relatively obscure. Snyder described these books as “big swings” and “passion projects.” 

The March rollout gave us a taste of this with Lobo by Skottie Young (cosmic violence meets psychological evaluation), Batwoman by Greg Rucka’s triumphant return to Kate Kane, and Deathstroke: The Terminator by Tony Fleecs. But the summer announcements? That’s where things get genuinely disruptive.

Barbara Gordon: Breakout

Barbara Gordon: Breakout may well be the most politically resonant superhero comic set for 2026. Mariko Tamaki (just fresh off her Eisner win) is sending Barbara to Supermax. Not as a visitor. As an inmate.

Commissioner Vandal Savage (let that title roll off the tongue) has constructed a prison for Gotham’s vigilantes and babs is trapped inside, without her tech and surrounded by criminals she helped capture. Orange Is the New Black meets The Shawshank Redemption as Oracle tries to make it through on brainpower. The survival thriller structure is so perfect for Barbara’s skill set that you wonder why no one did it sooner. 

The Deadman

Then there is The Deadman, which wins my subjective prize for “comic I am most likely to reread on the spot.” W. Maxwell Prince and Martín Morazzo, the creators of the existential terror masterpiece Ice Cream Man are now bringing their unique vision to Boston Brand in a six-issue miniseries about “ghostly derangement.” The DC K.O. event broke down walls between the living and the dead (comic book events have the best collateral damage), and now souls are stuck in spirals of spiritual turbulence. Deadman must inhabit humans and metahumans alike in a race to repair the afterlife before the fabric of reality tears apart. If you know Ice Cream Man you are aware that Prince writes horror that whispers in your ear long after the last page. 

Essentially DC saying: “Sure, we can do Vertigo-quality horror in the mainline universe.” 

A revamp of the Teen Titans 

Kyle Higgins and Daniele Di Nicuolo, the creator and illustrator team that revolutionized the Power Rangers comics are taking the franchise to a place it’s never been. Jason Todd runs the show meaning Red Hood is heading the Teen Titans. 

Not Dick Grayson giving wholesome guidance or Damian Wayne putting on a team-player front. This is Jason Todd lethal, traumatized, controversial investigating a plot surrounding disappeared superpowered teens and rounding up a team of “plugged-in, hyper-capable young heroes” to blow open systemic lies.

The lineup features Cheshire Cat, Flatline and Fairplay – as well as two mysterious new characters including what looks like a Gen-Z construction worker with powers related to building. 

This isn’t your nostalgia-bait Titans This is Absolute Universe DC realizing the coolest stories come from breaking the toys, then giving them to creators willing to play from a different place. 

The Return of Vertigo

Hiding in the big blockbuster announcements was possibly DC’s most culturally significant move and bringing back the Vertigo imprint in full. Not as a nostalgia line, but as a destination for mature readers with real creative freedom.

What is salient here is that Vertigo was not simply a label—it was a mindset. Sandman, Preacher, Transmetropolitan, Y: The Last Man — these were comics that showed the medium could be literature for grownups without the spandex. 2026 DC’s slate suggests they’re taking a page from that lesson. 

While no specific Vertigo titles were mentioned in the ComicsPRO presentation, the dedication to ”mature-reader demographics” and the hiring of talent such as Prince and Morazzo definitely signals intent. The Deadman mini-series is really Vertigo horror dressed up in DC costume. Look for announcements at San Diego Comic-Con that will get the literary comics crowd talking. 

How These Three Publishing Strategies Take DC to the Next Level

For years the publisher seemed caught between pursuing after Marvel’s cinematic synergy and placating a direct market that was terrified of change. The 2026 slate is a different animal—three distinct publishing strategies working in tandem, each with clear creative mandates and focuses.

Absolute Universe are the onboarding ramps: continuity-free, high concept, visually arresting entry points for readers who have lapsed from the mainline or for newcomers. DC Next Level is the love project nursery, where familiar creators can get weird with underutilized characters. Vertigo (or whatever the mature line transforms into) is your prestige level, your evidence that comics can hold its own with HBO dramas and literary fiction. 

A refined understanding that the direct market is not dying—it is just starving for more worthwhile products to collect. Those tiered prices for Absolute Catwoman aren’t greedy, they’re smart. They understand that comic book collecting is now experiential retail, where the tactile experience matters as much as the story on the inside.

All of this took its cues from the DC K.O. story arc. This concludes the five-issue mini-series of March 2026. A new “King Omega” will be established for this cosmic battle tournament to face Darkseid. 

The aftermath of that event is a shattered world of Absolute Universe DC Next Level. Spiritual realms are in disarray. Hero teams are fragmented. This allows writers to tell all kinds of new stories without negating what came before. 

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Conclusion

Absolute Universe DC Comics started 2026 with its intentions clear. The company has stopped waiting for Hollywood movies to make its characters popular. DC is producing comics worth paying attention to on their own terms.

From horror-tinged Green Arrow stories to prison survival tales with Barbara Gordon, from Jason Todd leading the Titans to Deadman fixing the afterlife, these books take chances. They trust readers to keep up with weird ideas.

DC’s three-tier approach is Absolute for newcomers, Next Level for fans, Vertigo for adults that suggests Absolute Universe DC knows its buyers. The company recognizes that its readers are not all the same. DC wants to do both — grow by adding to those disaffected consumers while keeping existing readers happy.

2026 may be the year when Absolute Universe DC demonstrates that audacious comics can capture massive audiences. The plans are set. The creators are hired. Now the books must deliver on these big promises. 

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Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is the second film in DCU’s Chapter One: Gods and Monsters set entirely in outer space. Supergirl will be flying on five different planets rather than saving people on earth, something quite new from repeatedly origin stories of superheroes for decades. Fans want something new and exciting and Gunn fulfilled fan’s wishes. 

Director Craig Gillespie confirmed at Supergirl launch event that the story unfolds across five different planets, and every planet has its own environment (atmosphere, alien species, and visual identity). As Gunn himself put it, they are planning to restructure the big DC universe.

That’s a bold swing. And Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow will be the first origin movie with a different narrative direction and an important bridge for Superman next movie. So — where does she go? What happens in each world? And why does it all matter for the future of the DCU? Here’s your complete travel guide to the five planets of Supergirl.

The Five Worlds of Kara Zor-El in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow

Krypton / Argo City– The world she never got to forget

Every Superman movie shows Krypton blowing up in the first five minutes and moves on. Supergirl refuses to let it go that quickly — because for Kara, it didn’t. Where Clark Kent was an infant rocketed away from a planet he never truly knew, Kara Zor-El watched her civilization die piece by piece, over years, while she was old enough to understand exactly what she was losing.

The trailers make this devastatingly clear. The trailer showed a moment where a large dome was formed over Argo City by Kara’s father. That Krypton shielded tiny protected city floated through space, its population clinging to survival on borrowed time. Kara’s mother, Alura In-Ze (Emily Beecham), is present in these flashbacks as well, though her role is a limited and haunting one — in the source comic, she dies from radiation poisoning before Argo’s final destruction, a consequence of yellow sunlight slowly changing the chemical composition of the rock beneath the city.

This is the version of Krypton’s destruction that the Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow showing, a prolonged, agonizing collapse rather than huge explosion. Kara firmly rejects the idea that Krypton died all at once when Ruthye questioned her homeland. It’s a line that reframes everything. Superman’s origin is tragic. Kara’s origin is traumatic. 

Eventually, Zor-El follows in his brother Jor-El’s footsteps, builds a rocket and sends Kara off into space. Kara left with a single piece of advice from her mother “be good.” Argo City sequences were filmed on the massive soundstages at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, where LED virtual production volumes recreated the dying Kryptonian cityscape with extraordinary detail.

Evely – Where Kara meets her unlikely companion

The planet Evely is where Kara’s actual story begins. Kara is living a directionless life ever since in this world, alone and drinking on her 23rd birthday, dancing by herself on Blondie’s “Call Me” to avoid her pain. Her life changes when a young alien girl named Ruthye Marye Knoll walks into her life.

Evely feels like a forgotten corner of the galaxy—rugged, worn down, and full of life that’s barely holding together. The teaser’s early shots of dirty streets and crumbling alien buildings seem to come from this planet, giving it the look of an old spaceport rather than a shining sci-fi city. It’s also where Kara is at her lowest point. This is where Kara is at her lowest, far from Earth, far from her cousin Superman, she is just surviving these days and trying not to die while her birthday feels like a reminder that she belongs nowhere.

It all begins when Ruthye’s father, Elias Knoll (played by Ferdinand Kingsley), is murdered by Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), the feared leader of the Brigands—a violent gang of space pirates and traffickers. Heartbroken and consumed by grief, Ruthye turns to Kara with one simple but dangerous request: help her hunt down the man who killed her father.

Ruthye isn’t asking for justice through any system, she wants direct, bloody revenge. And Kara, worn down and reckless, agrees. That decision sets both of them on a journey that will test their beliefs and change them in unexpected ways.

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The name Evely is a heartfelt tribute to Bilquis Evely, the artist who co-created Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow alongside writer Tom King. Her stunning artwork gave the comic its unique identity, blending breathtaking sci-fi worlds with deep emotional storytelling. By naming a planet after her, the filmmakers are paying respect to the artist whose visuals helped shape this story.

To bring Evely to life on screen, the production used Iceland’s dramatic black sand deserts and ancient lava fields. These real-world landscapes already look like something from another planet, making them the perfect backdrop for Supergirl’s cosmic journey.

Holzherr — The most visually spectacular world in the galaxy

If Evely is where Kara hits rock bottom, Holzherr is where the universe opens up. This planet, confirmed by set visitors from the Screen Rant press trip to Leavesden, orbits three suns — each a different color — casting its skies in an extraordinary, trichromatic light that makes the world look like something out of a painting. It’s the kind of planet that stops you mid-sentence and makes you look up.

The name “Holzherr” is another deeply intentional easter egg — it honors Brittany Holzherr, the DC editor who oversaw the publication of the Woman of Tomorrow comic and who reportedly influenced Tom King to make Supergirl the story’s protagonist rather than Lobo. Without Holzherr’s editorial guidance, the source material that inspired this entire film might have been a very different book. Naming a stunning alien world after her is a gesture of real gratitude from everyone involved.

Holzherr is also where the film’s visual ambition reaches its peak.Director Craig Gillespie filmed in real locations, including Scotland’s Highlands, and then used VFX to enhance them is the smart decision. The three-sun sky was achieved through a combination of on-location photography with visual effects that makes a breathtaking scene. 

Czarnia – Paradise lost by the man himself

Czarnia is where the story takes its sharpest tonal detour — and delivers its most outrageous character. In DC Comics lore, Czarnia was once a paradise planet: peaceful, prosperous, and entirely without war. Then Lobo was born. A single Czarnian committed genocide and killed every last member of his species expect himself. Only one man is responsible for this heartbreak killing is intergalactic bounty hunter with a wide grin and a steel chain who showed up in that January 2026 teaser.

Lobo’s connection to Czarnia is brought up in an official preview clip released just before the film’s release, where Kara and Ruthye cross his path at what appears to be an interplanetary rest stop. Ruthye’s description cuts right to it: “He’s an immortal with a god complex. Killed off his entire planet.” The scene is darkly comic — Ruthye is terrified, Kara is exhausted, and Lobo is delighted by both reactions.

Lobo was originally the protagonist of Tom King’s source comic — it was DC editor Brittany Holzherr’s guidance that redirected the story to center on Supergirl instead. Giving Lobo his own home planet and backstory is a smart storytelling choice. Czarnia represents a mirror image of Krypton. Where Krypton was destroyed by forces beyond anyone’s control, Czarnia was destroyed by one man’s choice. This emotional parallel makes a character more interesting and meaningful.

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The Hunt World – Where Vengeance and justice collide

Every road trip has to end somewhere. For Kara and Ruthye, it ends in a world where Krem of the Yellow Hills has taken refuge — and where their months-long chase across the galaxy finally reaches its violent, emotionally charged conclusion. This is the film’s climax, and the trailers suggest it is spectacularly realized: vast, frozen landscapes, the kind of terrain that makes every fight feel enormous.

The critical detail here, pulled straight from the source comic, is the red sun. Beneath a red sun, Kara loses her Kryptonian powers. No heat vision. No super strength. No flight. This is where the film gets honest about what kind of hero Kara actually is — not an invincible god figure, but a person who has already survived the worst thing imaginable and is still standing. When Krem steals her ship mid-journey and she arrives powerless on this world, she doesn’t fold. She adapts.

Iceland’s glacier fields served as the primary real-world filming location for these sequences, providing the kind of bleak, expansive terrain that communicates danger even before a single punch is thrown. The production finished in May 2025, giving ILM and the VFX team a one year time to polish practical landscapes which already looked like they came from another galaxy. 

The journey doesn’t end with Krem’s defeat. It ends with Kara understanding what “be good” actually means when there are no easy answers. Ruthye came looking for revenge. In this final world both characters get matured and become what they are meant to be. Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is more deeper than a simple revenge.

What she finds — and what she narrates for the audience throughout the film — is something more complicated, more honest, and far more lasting than simple vengeance. This final world is where both characters earn the people they’re going to become.

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Why Going Cosmic Was the Right Call

It would have been the safe, easy choice to bring Kara to Earth and let her share the screen with Superman in a familiar, grounded setting. James Gunn and Craig Gillespie made the exact opposite decision — and it’s the reason Supergirl has generated the kind of genuine anticipation that only comes when something feels genuinely new.

The DCU’s Earth-based stories have Superman, Batman (via Clayface, releasing October 2026), and the entire Green Lanterns mythology tethered to familiar soil. Supergirl gets the cosmos. She gets five worlds. She gets a story that unfolds like a space western written by someone who grew up reading both Ursula K. Le Guin and Walter Hill screenplays. That emotional toughness and adventure draws from Tom King and Bilquis Evely comic storyline and exactly what Gillespie set out to translate to IMAX.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow using real locations of Scotland and Iceland as alien worlds and enhancing with VFX rather than building everything from scratch in a computer makes the planet look more real and grounded than heavy CGI effects. You can feel the cold. You can feel the distance. When Kara screams into the void of space, you understand why she had to go somewhere the sound wouldn’t destroy everything she loves.

What These Five Planets Mean for the DCU

Every planet Kara visits in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is a building block for the DCU’s cosmic architecture. Argo City ties directly into the Brainiac mythology that Man of Tomorrow will explore in 2027. Czarnia introduces Lobo as a full-blown DCU character with room to grow. The alien civilizations glimpsed across Evely, Holzherr, and the Hunt World lay the groundwork for a universe that doesn’t revolve solely around Earth — one where Kara Zor-El is a hero of the galaxy, not just a backup to her more famous cousin.

James Gunn has already teased that Chapter One’s finale will involve a “much bigger story,” and it is increasingly clear that Supergirl will be at the center of it. She’s being set up not as an appendix to Superman’s story, but as a fully independent cosmic protagonist who has already seen more of the universe than any other DCU hero. 

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Conclusion

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is a cosmic adventure that uses five different alien worlds to shape Kara Zor-El’s journey. From Krypton to Hunt world, each planet adds a new layer of lesson for her. Instead of relying on familiar Earth-based settings, James Gunn embraces the emotional core of the film and focuses on stunning visuals to make it realistic for the audiences. If executed well, these alien worlds could make Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow one of the most powerful entries in the new DC Universe. 

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow opens in theaters and IMAX on June 26. 

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