Dan Mora (Daniel Mora Chavez) is a Costa Rican artist who broke out at BOOM! Studios with Klaus (2015, with Grant Morrison), which earned him the Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award in 2016, then with Once & Future (2019, with Kieron Gillen, 30 issues). At DC, he forms with Mark Waid one of the most consistent duos of the decade: Batman/Superman: World's Finest (2022), Shazam! (2023), the Absolute Power event (2024) and Justice League Unlimited (2025). On October 28, 2026, with Justice League: Dark Realm Special #1, he signs his first script at DC, devoted to the origin of Cadejos, a Costa Rican hero he co-created with Waid and who draws on a figure from Central American folklore.
Some artists are recognized by a line, others by a way of moving. Dan Mora belongs to the second category. His pages are full of bodies in motion, snapping capes, groups of ten heroes fitting in one panel without the reading getting muddled. In a decade, he went from an independent publisher to DC's most visible series, and his covers have become one of the publisher's selling points.
October 2026 marks a new step: for the first time, he writes a story published by DC himself. It is a good moment to look back at his career, his collaborations and what to know about his issues when you start collecting his work. This site already ranks him in its tier list of the best artists; here, we tell his career.
A child who has drawn since the age of three
Dan Mora comes from a family where people draw. His first memories of drawing go back to age three, when he accompanied his mother to her classes. His father draws and paints, professionally as well as for pleasure. It is he who brought home Spider-Man and Batman comics, as well as fantasy illustration books.
Among his influences, he names first Bruce Timm, the designer of the 1990s Batman and Superman animated series, then Greg Capullo, Chris Samnee, Ryan Ottley, Mark Bagley and Simone Di Meo. The list says a lot about his style: Timm's legibility and economy, the energy of the superhero artists of the 1990s and 2000s, the suppleness of recent generations. You find in him this ability to simplify a face or a silhouette without losing expression, inherited from animation.
BOOM! Studios: Klaus, then Once & Future
Klaus
Grant Morrison imagines a superhero origin for Santa Claus, and entrusts the art to Dan Mora. The seven-issue miniseries appears in 2015 and 2016. The two creators then return each December with a large-format special issue, modeled on the Christmas episodes of British TV series. Four specials are published.
Once & Future
A horror series around the Arthurian legend, written by Kieron Gillen, drawn by Mora and colored by Tamra Bonvillain. A monster-hunting grandmother drags her grandson into a war against a resurrected King Arthur and his knights. The story plays freely with the versions of the legend, which critics praised.
These two series already show the qualities that will make his success at DC: mastery of action scenes, clarity of layout, and a taste for stories that revisit myths known to everyone, whether Santa Claus or the Round Table.
DC and Mark Waid: a long-haul duo
From the 2020s, Mora becomes one of DC's flagship artists, and most of his work is done alongside writer Mark Waid. The duo chains together series bringing several heroes together, an exercise where Mora's ability to handle crowded panels works wonders.
Batman/Superman: World's Finest
Waid and Mora take up the two heroes' historic pairing, whose landmarks you find in our Superman key issues, in adventures set in the past of continuity, with a resolutely classic tone. It is in this series, at #21, that a first version of Cadejos appears.
Shazam!
The duo relaunches Shazam!, a hero whose 2019 film and comics we compare elsewhere, with a first issue scripted by Waid and drawn by Mora. The character's humor and lightness suit the energy of his line well.
Absolute Power
DC's big event of 2024, where Amanda Waller goes after the superheroes. Waid writes, Mora draws. #3 introduces the current version of Cadejos, a Costa Rican hero who refuses to believe the anti-hero propaganda and fights Waller's forces in Central America, with his partner Rana Dorada.
Justice League Unlimited
In the wake of the event, Waid and Mora launch a series, not to be confused with the animated series of the same name, where the Justice League becomes an organization open to all heroes. Cadejos is part of it. The series reaches its #25 on November 25, 2026.
October 2026: the first script
On October 28, 2026, DC publishes Justice League: Dark Realm Special #1. Dan Mora signs his first script at the publisher there, and the story is devoted to the origin of Cadejos. The choice is coherent: Cadejos is a character he co-created, who comes from his country, and whose name refers to a figure of Central American folklore, the cadejo, a supernatural dog called precisely "el Cadejos" in Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
In the comics, Cadejos is a hero with a monstrous appearance, with a beast's claws and fangs, who flies and whose body constantly produces infernal flames he resists. His anchoring in a local legend is rare among the superheroes of the big American publishers, and that is probably what makes him a natural subject for a first script.
What we do not yet know, as these lines are written, is the reception the issue will get, nor whether DC will then entrust Mora with other stories as a full creator. This special is a first step, and it will be interesting to see whether an artist this in demand can free up time for writing.
What makes Dan Mora's style
The legibility of groups. Few artists know how to place a dozen characters in the same panel without the eye getting lost. Mora does it by ranking the silhouettes and directing the gazes. That is why his series are almost all team series.
Movement. His heroes are rarely still. The poses, capes and drapery indicate a direction, and the reading follows the gesture from one panel to the next.
Assumed classicism. His Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman have the heroic bearing of the best-known versions, with no dark reinterpretation or deconstruction. Combined with Mark Waid's writing, this classicism yields series you can give to a beginning reader as well as to a reader of forty years of comics.
The covers. Mora draws a great many covers, main and alternate, for his own series as well as others. For a collector, it is both a stroke of luck and a trap: his name on a cover does not guarantee he drew the interior.
Collecting Dan Mora
Start with the complete series
Klaus and Once & Future read from beginning to end, and their first issues are the starting pieces of a collection devoted to the artist.
Distinguish interiors and covers
Note, for each issue, whether Mora drew the interior, the main cover or only an alternate cover. They are three different objects for an artist collector.
Follow Cadejos
World's Finest #21, Absolute Power #3, then the October 28, 2026 special form the character's chronology. It is Mora's only creation that has a real continuity at DC today.
Do not speculate on the special
A first script is an interesting moment in a creator's career, not a guarantee of value. Buying the issue to read it, at cover price, remains the soundest decision.