15 exciting comic books coming out in summer 2022

Ahh, summer, when a superhero’s fancy turns to crossover events. But there’s much more to this summer’s comics than superheroes slugging it out with villains — and even the slugfests look pretty fun!

Looking out at the summer horizon, one can clearly see our long-awaited return to internet-favorite cartoonists. We also have brilliant comics that are now available in book format. Our favorite creators do new and interesting things. Many of our beloved characters get new life.

Read on for Polygon’s most anticipated comics releases of summer 2022.

Image: Mitch Gerads/DC Comics

2022 was the supposed summer of The Flash, the long-gestating, timeline-shattering adaptation of DC’s 2011 FlashpointThe storyline was a bit different than the original, but DC Comics remained on schedule despite scheduling difficulties at Warner Bros. Flashpoint Beyond returns to the company’s 2011 Flashpoint event, in which the Flash radically altered DC history by traveling back in time to prevent his mother’s murder.

Written by FlashpointGeoff Johns, writer, and several artists contributed work to the story. The six-issue issue follows Thomas Wayne (Batman of Flashpoint), as he attempts to solve the mystery behind why Flashpoint’s doomed timeline was supposedly reset at its end. Flashpoint, still exists.

Image: Daniel Warren Johnson/DC Comics

Jurassic LeagueThis miniseries contains six issues and is about a world in which the DC Universe’s heroes and villains are all anthropomorphic dinosaurs. It was inspired by Street Sharks, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Primal Rage Genndy Tartakovsky’s PrimalJames Groman’s horror-inspiring sculptures.

Batman can be found in it. AllosaurusWho walks as a man and whose parents are regular Allosauruses, who were killed in front him by sentients Dilophosaurus named Jokerzard. You should require no more explanation than this — except perhaps that it’s from the minds of Daniel Warren Johnson (Wonder Woman: Dead EarthJuan Gedeon and ).Venom, Doom PatrolThese people are very well trained to ensure that this concept doesn’t collapse under the weight of its own pomp.

Image: Ryan Browne/Image Comics

This is the one-sentence pitch Eight Billion GeniesCharles Soule is the author.She-HulkRyan Browne (author of many Star Wars comics and Ryan Browne as the artist)Curse WordsThe resulting chaos is when every single one of eight billion people on the planet gets their own genie and only one wish.

The problem is that TwoThe sentence pitch might say the story centers on a group of people who are trapped in a bar as it happens. And how that affects the world over the next 8 minutes, 8 hours, etc… For eight issues. We’ll be tuning in.

Image Credit: Artyom Topilin/Image Comics

A horror/comedy series This Place is a Slap! (formerly Fake This PlaceThe hilarious Kyle Starks wrote the following:Six sidekicks to Trigger KeatonThe story is written by Artyom Topilin (artist), and centers on a queer couple that inherits a very haunted farmhouse. If it’s half as funny as Starks’ previous work it will still give me multiple out-loud HAs per issue.

Image: Daniel Sampere/DC Comics

“Dark Crisis” might sound like a parody of a DC Comics event, not a real title, and when you realize that it begins with the deaths of the entire Justice League, it might simply underscore the absurd point. But Justice League writer Joshua Williams has set a lofty goal: A “crisis event” that’s More DC’s history of crisis events, and how they’ve warped the lives of the setting’s heroes. Comic book events are defined by huge deaths, but this is not the end. MoreWhat superheroes think about living in a world with death as a daily routine. The event’s first issue drops on June 7, and we’ll be keeping an eye on it.

Image: Robyn Smith/Chronicle Books

Said Rosie Knight in our 2022 comics preview:

“Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith expand on their award winning minicomic Wash dayChronicle Books presents this graphic novel. Kim, Tanisha and Cookie are best buddies. Wash Day Diaries Follow them as they live their everyday life in Bronx through five stories that are interconnected. Smith’s charming and inviting art invites comic book readers old and new to lose themself in this joyful and touching celebration of Black joy and sisterhood that cements the duo of Rowser and Smith as one of comics most powerful creative teams.”

Image: Nazuna Saito

Offshore Lightning is the first major Western release from Nazuna Saito, whose manga career didn’t truly take off until well into her middle age. Drawn & Quarterly presents both Saito’s early work and two more recent novellas grappling with subjects of aging and death, in English for the first time.

Image: Tillie Walden/Image Comics

Said Rosie Knight in our 2022 comics preview:

“Bringing the star of the Telltale Games Walking DeadThis is no simple task. Skybound has made one of most innovative and thrilling choices for the YA trilogy. It begins with The Book of Clementine. Tillie Walden is an award-winning cartoonist who is also one of the most respected comics artists. ClementineThe story centers around the protagonist as she navigates through the zombie-infested landscape to find a group teenagers who are trying to build a Walker-free settlement. It sounds like the kind of emotionally driven sci-fi that Walden excels at.”

Image by Russell Dauterman/Marvel Comics

As promised last year, the Hellfire Gala is now an annual mutant event, where everymutant who’s anymutant gets a dope couture look and hobnobs it with the rest of the Marvel universe. Last year, the showstoppers were the reveal of a new team of X-Men — happening again this year — and also the X-Men terraformed Mars. It’ll be hard to top that, but you can bet the X-Men bullpen is going to try.

It’s a new era for the Dark Knight: Writer Chip Zdarsky takes the helm of DC’s biggest title, with artist Jorge Jiménez and a long-term plan to put Batman through his paces. Zdarsky will be taking the next step in the long-standing Daredevil to Batman pipeline. This is where creators that excel at one character move onto the other, and they continue to write guilt-ridden vigilantes with steel principles. Considering that Zdarsky’s DaredevilHis Batman is a great example of good work.

Image: Dustin Weaver/Marvel Comics

Similar Dark Crisis, Marvel’s A.X.E crossover — subtitled Judgment Day — comes off as the latest entry in the well-trod path of superhero on superhero dustups. You remember Avengers vs. X-Men? Well this brings in *checks notes* the Eternals, to make it Avengers vs. X-Men vs. Eternals. Massive yawn.

But, wait!! The X-Men actually haven’t been this hot in a couple of decades, with writer Kieron Gillen fueling Krakoa’s attempts to establish mutants as Earth’s dominant species. And the Eternals might actually be the most interesting they’ve ever been in Gillen and artist Esad Ribic’s series. Jason Aaron’s Avengers have been putting pen to paper, and are still looking down at the Eternals as their human heroes.

The fact is that these three groups have no reason to be beefy with one another, and they are driven by stellar writers. In other words: We’re genuinely enthused about A.X.E.A.X.E..

San Diego Comic-Con, July 21-24

Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images

OK, so it’s not a comic, but this summer (barring global catastrophe, presumably) marks the first in-person San Diego Comic-Con since 2019. Who will be there? It’s still unknown. Are they going to be big or small? Or have corporations become used to making waves at their online events, like DC Fandome, Star Wars CelebrationOr D23? We will only know in time! But you can bet that many eyes in the comics industry and beyond will be on the new status quo of the U.S.’s largest fan convention.

Image: Bilquis Evely/DC Comics

Supergirl: Woman of TomorrowThis is a beautiful, well-written, and heartbreaking fantasy travelogue that explores the world of pulpy space travel. Supergirl, 21 years old, rents a spaceship in order to search for a red star that will drain her power and allow her to go to bars to get drunk. She is soon drawn into the story of Supergirl’s loquacious and witty narrator. This farm girl embarks on an epic revenge mission across the stars. This story is about loss, revenge, heroism and power. It also features a whole issue that’s based on public transit.

Artist Bilquis Evely and colorist Mat Lopes put everything they have on the page, and in this writer’s opinion, it’s the best thing writer Tom King has done since Mister Miracle. This summer, it’s finally collected in a single book for the first time.

Edge of Spider-Verse, Aug. 3

Image: Josemaria Casanovas/Marvel Comics

After four years away from the wall-crawler, writer Dan Slott is returning to the world of Spider-Man for one last ride, the promised “end” of Spider-Man’s multiverse, Spider-Verse is over.

But not before EndA new era is upon us Edge of Spider-VerseThis is a chance for creators and artists to create new Spider-Man multiverses in much the same manner that Spider-Gwen/Ghost Spider or Peni Parker were created. In this miniseries of five issues, new Spider-Persons will be available, including Night-Spider and Hunter-Spider.

Image: Kate Beaton/Drawn & Quarterly

Hark! Hark!’s Kate Beaton was once one of the internet’s most prolific, memetic, and adored cartoonists when she officially stepped away from the webcomic in 2018. This fall Beaton returns with her first long-form graphic novel, a memoir of her time working in the exploitative, remote world of Alberta’s oil sand industry. Followers of the cartoonist will know she’s been contemplating a longer piece on her experiences for close to a decade, and it’s exciting to finally see those ideas take flight.