Sam and Dean are back on September 2 — but there's a catch: for the first time ever, the Winchesters split up

Fifteen seasons, two finales, one Impala, and the brothers never really went their separate ways. Dynamite is about to fix that, and fans are already upset.

The central premise of "Supernatural," for fifteen seasons and 327 episodes, was that Sam and Dean Winchester do not split up. They die, they go to Hell, they go to Heaven, they get possessed, they get resurrected, they fight about it in the car, but they do not drive off in different directions and stay gone. It's the one rule.

ScreenRant reports that Dynamite Entertainment is about to break it.

Wait, back up — they're in comics now?

Yes, and it's been going well. After the CW series wrapped in 2020, the brothers returned in 2025 in Dynamite's "Supernatural" comic, a monster-of-the-week run set between Seasons 1 and 2 of the TV continuity. That series ends on August 26 with issue #10, by Greg Pak and Dan Scalzzi.

A week later, on September 2, the new era starts with "Supernatural Special: Wayward" #1, a 48-page one-shot by Paulina Ganucheau and John Amor. And the official pitch for "Wayward," per ScreenRant, is a question: what hellish forces could drive brothers bound by blood and purpose down separate roads?

That's not a tease. That's a statement of intent.

The two roads

"Wayward" sets up two separate ongoing series, both launching October 21, 2026:

• "Supernatural: Sam Winchester" #1 — writer Paulina Ganucheau, artist Kendall Goode. Per the solicitation, Sam has done something to his brother he can't take back, and finds himself drawn to a mysterious farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.
• "Supernatural: Dean Winchester" #1 — writer Chuck Brown, artist Rapha Lobosco. Dean is in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, hurt and alone, trying to close a case his father never could. To do it, he might have to kill a god.

The solicitation for Dean's book opens with what may be the most Dean Winchester sentence ever written:

"He's hurt. He's alone. It's Mardi Gras."

The two titles stay interconnected, and Dynamite's guidance is to read "Wayward" first, then follow each brother on his own. It's a choose-your-Winchester situation, which the fandom has been informally running for twenty years anyway.

What Sam did

We don't know. The Sam solicitation says he did something to Dean he can never take back, which in this family could mean anything from "made a deal with a demon" to "let him die again" to "scratched the Impala." Given that the split is framed as hellish, I'm assuming it's closer to the first two. The mysterious farmhouse is not a reassuring detail either.

Where this fits, canonically

ScreenRant notes the solo series are canon and set during the early years of the original show, which makes them effectively a missing season of "Supernatural" — a stretch of time the TV series never covered, in which the brothers were apart for an extended period. The exact placement hasn't been revealed.

For those keeping a timeline on the wall with string:

• August 26: "Supernatural" #10, end of the current run
• September 2: "Supernatural Special: Wayward" #1, the split
• October 21: "Sam Winchester" #1 and "Dean Winchester" #1, the two solo series

The fans are not okay

The comments on the news are exactly what you'd expect. One reader says the brothers are better together and that's what made the show work. Another says comics aren't the same as the screen and wants the series back on TV. A third simply asks when this gets a TV adaptation.

Twenty years in, "Supernatural" fans have survived two finales, a prequel, and an anime. What they cannot survive, apparently, is Sam and Dean in different zip codes.

Which is, let's be clear, the point. The most reliable way to make a Winchester story feel dangerous is to take away the one thing that's never been taken away. Dynamite knows it. The fandom knows it. Sam, presumably, knows it too, and did whatever he did anyway.

September 2. Bring tissues and a grudge.