Sam and Dean Winchester are officially returning to Supernatural in a brand-new spinoff that looks set to shatter one of the original show’s core tropes, pushing the Winchester brothers into a path of brutal angst and devastating consequences. On the bright side, this spinoff could also serve as a soft launch for the fan-requested Season 16 of Supernatural.
Following the success of Dynamite Entertainment’s ongoing Supernatural series by Greg Pak and the recently released Supernatural Special: Castiel by Preeti Chhibber, the publisher has announced SUPERNATURAL: WAYWARD SPECIAL #1, which promises to “take Supernatural to a new level.” Set for release on September 2, 2026, the 48-page oversized issue will be available for $5.99 at local comic shops and will be brought to life by the creative team of writer Paulina Ganucheau and artist John Amor.
Supernatural: Wayward Special features a PREMIUM MYSTERY BLIND BAG, which contains three limited editions of the issue selected randomly from a range of variant covers exclusive to this offering. Please note: The number of Blind Bags is limited. Allocations may occur. One book blind bag.
Below, fans can get a first look at some of the cover art featured in the issue, including photo variant covers starring Jensen Ackles’ Dean Winchester and Jared Padalecki’s Sam Winchester. These nostalgic variants make the issue feel like a true return to the CW series. However, the official synopsis teases that this essential reading will introduce one major change to the status quo of Dean and Sam’s monster-hunting adventures.
Everything We Know About Sam and Dean’s Return in SUPERNATURAL: WAYWARD SPECIAL (So Far)
Main Cover by John Amor for Supernatural: Wayward Special #1 (2026)
Marketed as leading into “the next big event for the franchise,” Supernatural: Wayward Special will serve as a major fork in the road for Sam and Dean, as their usually unbreakable bond is put to the test when something mysterious begins to drive them apart. The official synopsis teases: “The split starts here – in a shocking one-shot issue that sets the table for the explosive event to come! Sam and Dean Winchester are bound by blood and purpose – so what horrible, hellish forces could drive these brothers to travel separate roads? You’ll find the answers here…”
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This teaser suggests that the two brothers will experience a break in their relationship that sends them down different paths, ultimately marking a major shift in the status quo established by the TV series, where Sam and Dean were, for the most part, always tied together in their mission. Even when separated, at least one of them would always be trying to find the other. However, this spinoff seems to tease a mutual split between the brothers, truly giving “Carry On Wayward Son” a new and heartbreaking meaning as they “carry on” separately.
Despite Dynamite currently advertising Supernatural: Wayward Special as a one-shot, the opening line of the synopsis, “The split starts here,” suggests that the divide between the brothers may only just begin in this issue and will continue to be explored in future releases.
Supernatural: Wayward’s Place in Canon and Its Potential Soft Launch of Season 16, Explained
Photo Cover Variants for Supernatural: Wayward Special #1 (2026)
It is also important to note that, thus far, Dynamite’s Supernatural stories have remained within established continuity and are treated as official canon. Because of that, it’s reasonable to assume Wayward will also be canon and placed somewhere within the broader timeline of the series, even if its exact position has not yet been confirmed.
That said, there is a strong possibility that Wayward could function as a soft launch for Supernatural Season 16, particularly if it is set after Season 15. This is supported by the teaser that the story follows Sam and Dean as they travel separate roads, and as fans know, the clearest example of the brothers being split in the TV series comes in the Season 15 finale, when Dean tragically dies and goes to Heaven, while Sam lives out the rest of his natural life on Earth before eventually reuniting with Dean in Heaven.
With that in mind, Wayward could potentially explore, or at least set the stage for exploring Dean’s time in Heaven and Sam’s life on Earth during their separation, filling in one of the most requested missing chapters of Supernatural and possibly laying the groundwork for Season 16, whether that continuation ultimately unfolds in comics or even on television.
From Lawrence to Lebanon · Eight Questions How Well Do You Know Supernatural? “Saving people, hunting things — the family business.”
Baby’67 Chevy Impala
The TrenchcoatCastiel, Angel of the Lord
Demon BladeRuby’s knife
John’s JournalHunter scripture
Wayward SonThe Road So Far
01
Supernatural premiered on The WB on September 13, 2005, and ran a record-breaking 15 seasons / 327 episodes through November 2020 across The WB and The CW. The series creator and original showrunner — who’d later create NBC’s Timeless and develop Amazon’s The Boys — pitched it as a road-trip horror anthology before two brothers took over the centre of the show. Name him.
✓ Correct! Eric Kripke. He’d originally pitched the show to Warner Bros. as a tabloid-reporter anthology titled “Tape” before reformulating it around two brothers. Kripke ran the show through Season 5 (the original planned ending), then handed off to Sera Gamble, Jeremy Carver, Andrew Dabb and Robert Singer over the next decade. The Boys (2019–) is essentially Kripke processing the same superhero/horror genre concerns at a much higher budget.
✗ Wrong showrunner. The answer is Eric Kripke. Greg Berlanti is the Arrowverse / DC superhero TV mogul (Arrow, The Flash). Joss Whedon was the Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Firefly creator whose work clearly influenced Supernatural but who has no credit on it. Bryan Fuller did Pushing Daisies and Hannibal. Kripke is the one who took the show from a Vancouver pilot to a fifteen-season behemoth.
02
Dean Winchester — the older, classic-rock-loving, demon-blade-wielding brother who introduces himself with “hey, Sammy” and a leather jacket and ends the series in a pickup-bed funeral pyre — was played by an actor whose pre-Supernatural CV included Days of Our Lives (as Eric Brady), Dark Angel (as Alec) and Smallville (as Jason Teague). Name him.
✓ Correct! Jensen Ackles. He’d actually originally auditioned for Sam, the younger brother, before being moved to Dean opposite Jared Padalecki. Ackles directed six episodes of the series himself (his first was Season 6’s “Weekend at Bobby’s”). Post-Supernatural he reunited with Eric Kripke to play Soldier Boy in Season 3 of The Boys, and headlined the short-lived prequel The Winchesters (2022–23) as a narrating older Dean.
✗ Wrong Winchester. The answer is Jensen Ackles, who plays Dean. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is John Winchester — the brothers’ father, who originated the lead-by-a-grizzled-cowboy energy Negan would later inherit. Misha Collins is Castiel. Jared Padalecki is Sam, the younger, taller brother. Ackles plays Dean — the shorter, leather-jacketed, classic-rock-quoting older one.
03
Across all 327 episodes, the brothers’ constant other than each other was their car — a 1967 Chevrolet model affectionately known as “Baby,” inherited from their father John, with army-men in the ashtrays and Sam and Dean’s initials carved in the back seat. Eric Kripke wrote an entire Season 5 episode (“Swan Song”) from the car’s perspective. Name the model.
✓ Correct! 1967 Chevrolet Impala — specifically the four-door Sport Sedan, originally chosen by Kripke because its trunk was big enough to hide a body. The production wore through more than two dozen Impalas across the run, since the car gets demolished, dunked, dropped from cliffs, and possessed regularly. Jensen Ackles bought the “hero” Impala used in the final season after the show wrapped in 2020.
✗ Wrong Chevy. The answer is the 1967 Impala, four-door Sport Sedan. The Camaro is too sporty — Kripke specifically wanted a body-in-the-trunk family sedan. The Chevelle SS is a muscle car, and the Bel Air is closer to ’50s-cool than ’60s-menace. The Impala is “Baby” — chosen because, in Kripke’s words, “it could fit four people and a body in the trunk.”
04
The Winchester brothers grew up on the road after their mother Mary was murdered — pinned to the ceiling and burned alive by the yellow-eyed demon Azazel — in Sam’s nursery on November 2, 1983. The family lived in a Midwestern college town the show returns to repeatedly across the run (most notably in “Home,” S1E9). Name the city.
✓ Correct! Lawrence, Kansas. Kripke chose the town in part because of its Wizard of Oz adjacency and the “Bleeding Kansas” historical resonance — Lawrence was sacked in 1856 during the pre-Civil-War conflict over slavery, an act of evil literally seared into the local geography. Mary Winchester’s nursery fire on November 2, 1983 is the show’s foundational trauma; the date and the ceiling-fire image recur all the way to the finale.
✗ Wrong Midwestern town. The answer is Lawrence, Kansas. Sioux Falls, SD is Bobby Singer’s hometown and salvage yard. Pontiac, IL is where Dean digs himself out of his own grave at the start of Season 4. Lebanon, KS is where the Men of Letters Bunker is hidden — you may want to remember that one. Lawrence is the home of the fire — and the show’s foundational trauma.
05
In the Season 4 premiere “Lazarus Rising,” the show pivoted from monster-of-the-week into Heaven-and-Hell mythology by introducing an angel of the Lord — wearing a beige trenchcoat over the body of a Pontiac, Illinois religious tax accountant named Jimmy Novak — who pulls Dean out of Hell and becomes the brothers’ near-permanent third. Played by Misha Collins, name the angel.
✓ Correct! Castiel — named for Cassiel, the Jewish-mystical angel of solitude and tears. Misha Collins was originally signed for a six-episode arc; Castiel ended up in 145 episodes across twelve seasons, including the controversial Season 15 “Despair” love-confession episode. The trenchcoat (a Burberry knock-off) became so iconic that fans send Collins replicas at conventions, and his on-screen vessel Jimmy Novak became its own minor character.
✗ Wrong angel. The answer is Castiel. Gabriel turns up later as the Trickster (Richard Speight Jr.). Uriel is Cas’s Season 4 angel partner, who gets killed off as a Lucifer sympathiser. Balthazar (Sebastian Roché) is Cas’s snarky friend introduced in Season 6. Castiel is the trenchcoat-wearing tax-accountant-vessel angel who pulls Dean out of Hell — and the show’s third lead from Season 4 onward.
06
Supernatural famously opted not to use a proper title-card theme — instead, every season finale opens with a “The Road So Far” recap montage scored to the same 1976 prog-rock track by an American band who, in a happy coincidence, share their name with the brothers’ home state. Name the song.
✓ Correct! “Carry On Wayward Son” by Kansas, off 1976’s Leftoverture. Eric Kripke chose it for the Season 1 finale and made it a tradition every finale thereafter. Kansas frontman Steve Walsh said in interviews that Supernatural’s use revived the song so completely it now makes more annual royalties from streaming than the band did from its 1976 release. The song also closes out the series finale “Carry On” (2020).
✗ Wrong classic-rock cue. The answer is “Carry On Wayward Son” by Kansas. Renegade, More Than a Feeling and Don’t Fear the Reaper are all Supernatural-vibe tracks from the same era and several appear in episodes — but the season-finale ritual is reserved for Kansas’s track. Wayward, Kansas, brothers… Kripke layered every available pun into the show’s signature musical cue.
07
The brothers’ surrogate father — a gruff, trucker-hat-wearing, Sioux Falls salvage-yard owner whose phone line is in every fake FBI agent’s wallet, who calls the boys “idjits,” and who takes a shotgun to a Leviathan in the Season 7 episode that finally kills him — is played by an actor who in HBO’s Deadwood played Whitney Ellsworth, the kindly miner who marries Alma Garret. Name the character.
✓ Correct! Bobby Singer, played by Jim Beaver. Eric Kripke literally named the character after his Supernatural co-executive-producer Robert Singer — in part as a gag, in part as a dare to write a self-aware character around the joke. Bobby dies at the end of Season 7’s “Death’s Door” (E10) but returns repeatedly in flashback, alternate universes, and in the show’s last few seasons as a parallel-Earth Bobby. Beaver’s Deadwood role is Ellsworth, who marries Alma and is shot dead by Hearst’s men.
✗ Wrong hunter. The answer is Bobby Singer. Rufus Turner (Steven Williams) is Bobby’s old-friend rival hunter. Garth Fitzgerald IV (DJ Qualls) is the goofier hunter who later turns out to be a werewolf. Jody Mills (Kim Rhodes) is the Sioux Falls sheriff who becomes a found-family figure. Bobby is the salvage-yard idjit-caller, named for Kripke’s own co-EP Robert Singer.
08
In Season 8 (“As Time Goes By,” E12), the brothers discover their grandfather Henry Winchester was part of a secret academic-magic order, and inherit its abandoned base — a 1950s steel-and-concrete bunker hidden under an unassuming Kansas town’s main street that becomes their home for the rest of the series. The town has fewer than 250 people and is geographically near the centre of the contiguous United States. Name it.
✓ Correct! Lebanon, Kansas. Population fluctuates around 218 and a stone marker near town claims it as the geographic centre of the contiguous 48 states — perfect for an organisation hiding from the supernatural. The Men of Letters Bunker becomes the closest thing to a home base the brothers have ever had: kitchen, library, dungeon, garage. The real Lebanon’s Main Street has become a Supernatural pilgrimage site since the show ended in 2020.
✗ Wrong Kansas town. The answer is Lebanon — population 218, near the geographic centre of the contiguous US, perfect for a hidden order’s bunker. Topeka is the state capital. Wichita is the largest city. Manhattan is home to Kansas State University. Lebanon, with its tiny Main Street and middle-of-nowhere geography, is where the Men of Letters Bunker hides — and where the brothers finally have a home.
The Hunt · Family Verdict Your Winchester Standing
/ 8
Top hunter — or red-shirt vessel?
SUPERNATURAL: WAYWARD SPECIAL #1 from Dynamite Entertainment will be available to read on September 2, 2026!
