Garth Ennis and John McCrea Reunite for a Very Bloody Hitman Christmas

Tommy Monaghan is coming back for the holidays, and he's bringing the body count with him. DC's December 2026 solicitations confirm that Garth Ennis and John McCrea are reuniting on Hitman for the first time in 25 years, teaming up for the 48-page one-shot Hitman: It Was the Nineties Special #1, out December 9.

The lead story drops Tommy back into the murky continuity of the Hitman series' 1990s heyday, where he's hunting down nothing more dangerous than a Christmas tree topper while a small army of assassins tries to put him in the ground first. A backup feature pairs the demon bartender Baytor with one of DC's World's Finest heroes for a lower-stakes holiday rescue, though DC is keeping the specifics under wraps.

Ennis and McCrea's original Hitman run became a cult favorite for mixing gallows humor with genuine pathos, and any reunion between the two carries weight with longtime readers even outside the newly relaunched Vertigo imprint. The standard $5.99 issue will also get a $6.99 cardstock variant and an $8.99 foil variant for collectors chasing something shinier under the tree.

No creative statement has surfaced yet explaining what brought the pair back together after a quarter century, but for Hitman diehards, the reunion alone is the headline.