Skottie Young Reveals His Take on New Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman Costumes in Absolute DC Variants

Fan-favorite artist Skottie Young has revealed a trio of joke-y “Absolute-LY” variant covers for the launch issues of DC’s upcoming Absolute line of titles. The titles, which feature reinvented versions of DC characters, will start rolling out in October as part of DC’s broader “All In” initiative, which launches with DC All In #1 next week. All-In, written by Snyder and Williamson, will be a flipbook, with one side drawn by Daniel Sampere and the other drawn by Wes Craig. In it, half the story will be told from Superman’s perspective, and some from Darkseid’s. These “Absolute” titles are from an alternate Earth shaped by Darkseid in the same way Doomsday Clock revealed the DC Universe was shaped by Superman.

Young shared these images — along with some photos and videos of his process in creating them — at his Substack. You can see that here.

“I had a hard time thinking of how to approach these,” Young wrote. “At first I thought about making them connecting covers. I quickly dropped that idea. Then I started looking around at all the wonderful variants that were already out there for these titles. They’re all so damn cool! That made me think. Similar to my thoughts on my TMNT cover, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to OUT-COOL all the other covers. So I’ll do what I do and just make myself laugh. When in doubt, joke it out. That’s what I always say.”

Young, who has the creator-owned I Hate Fairyland going at Image, is famous for doing variant covers and some sequential stories at Marvel featuring his distinctive take on the characters. In a crowded field of variants for the Absolute covers, Young’s will likely be the farthest from the “house style,” although his work certainly shares a kind of frantic kinetic energy with that of Deadly Class artist Wes Craig, who also recently came to DC and is contributing to All-In and the Absolute universe.

“What we came up with, along with a bunch of great creators — Mark Waid and everybody else working on the lead up to it — is that, during the events of AP, unbeknownst to the superheroes, Darkseid starts to realize that something has always been missing,” Scott Snyder said back when the project was announced. “He senses something in a special moment during Absolute Power that we don’t want to spoil. He senses something has changed, and once he realizes this, it sets him off on a quest that’s going to bring him into direct conflict with this new Justice League that Superman is setting up — this more robust Justice League. The collision between those two forces will reshape the DC cosmology.”

That’s what creates “a dangerous, wild new planet” — the Absolute DC Universe — where Snyder said they have brought in some of the biggest names in comics as well as some rising stars to kick off an epic story that will drive DC for years to come. If the main universe is “founded on Superman energy,” then the Absolute universe is “founded on Darkseid energy.” In it, the heroes are underdogs, and the world is darker, so (per Snyder) “They have to be tougher, they’ve got to be more resourceful, they have to shine brighter.”