By Zack Quaintance — Writer Tom King and artist Chris Burnham will team-up for an event tie-in comic this July called Dark Crisis: Worlds Without a Justice League #1. The book is spinning out of the Death of the Justice League story slated to appear in Justice League #75, which itself is a prelude of sorts to Dark Crisis. As the title implies, it will tell the story of what happens to the world when there is no Superman.

In addition, as a back-up story this same one-shot comic will feature a similar concept based, just with Aquaman in the lead role. That story will be written by the team of Brandon Thomas and Chuck Brown, with artwork by Fico Ossio. The comic is due out July 12, spanning 40 pages with a price tag of $4.99. In addition to illustrating the main cover, Burnham will be drawing a 1:50 foil variant. The book will also get a 1:25 variant cover by artist Steve Beach.

This marks the first collaboration between King and Burnham. While nothing has been officially announced yet, one imagines all the mainstays of the League will be getting this type of one-shot feature as the Dark Crisis summer event unfolds. You can read more about in the press statements from the creators below, but if I had to guess, I’d imagine these stories will give the various DC Comics mainstay heroes the It’s A Wonderful Life treatment (surely a reference that all our young readers will get…).

You can find the full preview info complete with creator quotes from DC Comics below, following the jump…

Dark Crisis: Worlds Without a Justice League - Superman #1

DARK CRISIS: WORLDS WITHOUT A JUSTICE LEAGUE - SUPERMAN #1
Written by TOM KING
Art and cover by CHRIS BURNHAM
Backup written by BRANDON THOMAS and CHUCK BROWN
Backup art by FICO OSSIO
1:25 variant cover by STEVE BEACH
1:50 foil variant cover by CHRIS BURNHAM
$4.99 | 40 pages | (All covers card stock)
ON SALE 7/12/22
When Pariah and his forces of the Great Darkness laid waste to the most powerful superheroes of all time, all hope was lost…with the Man of Steel suffering the same fate as that of his comrades, join us for a look at a world of dreams he would never have thought possible while alive. Where there’s life there’s hope, and with that hope comes a deeper unraveling of the tapestry of DC Universe’s biggest event of 2022!

Writer Tom King had this to say:

"Superman is maybe my favorite character to write, and Chris is one of my favorite artists in comics, whom I've been dying to work with for years, so this project is an absolute joy. It's an important and emotional story about what Clark missed when he missed Jon's teenage years, the pain and the glory of seeing your boy grow up."

And artist Chris Burnham added:

“I’ve been a fan of Tom since his days on Grayson, so although he’s probably better known for his 12-issue ‘war-is-hell’ epics, I still primarily think of him as writing fun formalist done-in-ones. I’ve got two young boys who haven’t quite figured out what a knucklehead their old man is, so it’s fantastic to be drawing a story about Superman trying to live up to the high standards of his own father. I loved drawing the adventures of Batman and Robin in Batman Incorporated, and it’s been extra fun to draw Superman with a Robin-esque Superboy”

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He has written about comics for The Beat and NPR Books, among others. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.