The headlines were unanimous: after 16 years, Bryan Lee O’Malley is finally making a new Scott Pilgrim comic. That is true, and it is also incomplete. The new Scott Pilgrim comic, Scott Pilgrim EX: Dawn of Metal Scott, arrives in shops on November 11, 2026 from Oni Press — but the 16-page story inside it went online back in February, and a lot of the coverage has the release date wrong. Here is what is actually in this book, what you have already seen, and whether it is worth buying twice.
What Is Scott Pilgrim EX: Dawn of Metal Scott?
Scott Pilgrim EX: Dawn of Metal Scott #1 is a 24-page one-shot written, drawn and covered by Bryan Lee O’Malley, with colors by Nathan Fairbairn. Oni Press publishes it on November 11, 2026 for $3.99. It is a prequel to the Scott Pilgrim EX video game, and it introduces a robotic Scott doppelganger called Metal Scott.
Oni announced the one-shot during San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday, July 23, 2026. Here is the full spec sheet:
| Detail | Confirmed |
|---|---|
| Title | Scott Pilgrim EX: Dawn of Metal Scott #1 |
| Format | One-shot |
| Writer / artist / cover | Bryan Lee O’Malley |
| Colorist | Nathan Fairbairn |
| Publisher | Oni Press |
| Page count | 24 pages (16-page story + extras) |
| Price | $3.99 |
| On sale | November 11, 2026 |
Fairbairn is not a random hire. He is the Eisner-winning colorist who converted O’Malley’s black-and-white originals into the Scott Pilgrim Color Editions across 2012 to 2015, so the one-shot will match the palette most newer readers associate with the series.
The game it feeds into, Scott Pilgrim EX, is a side-scrolling beat ’em up released March 3, 2026 across PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and PC. It comes from Montreal’s Tribute Games, developed under license from Universal Pictures — and that studio choice is not a coincidence. Tribute’s team includes developers who worked on the original Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game at Ubisoft in 2010 before the studio went on to make Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. So while the comics went quiet for 16 years, the games did not — that 2010 beat ’em up returned as a Complete Edition in January 2021 — and EX reunites a chunk of the original talent rather than starting from scratch.
The New Scott Pilgrim Comic Already Came Out in February
This is the part almost every outlet skipped. The 16-page story at the center of this one-shot is not new. O’Malley posted it online back in February 2026, ahead of the game’s March launch, and franchise records date that release to February 13.
Three separate things point the same way. First, Oni’s own solicitation is carefully worded: it promises never-before-seen extras, not a never-before-seen comic. Second, Wikipedia’s entry on the game notes that O’Malley put out a prequel comic to promote it. Third — and most concretely — the interior pages archived on the Scott Pilgrim wiki all carry a February 13, 2026 upload timestamp, which is only possible if the pages were already public that day. The scans even preserve the muted-audio icon from the social post they were captured from.
Treat the exact day as fan-documented rather than publisher-confirmed; Oni has never put a date on the digital version. But that the story predates the announcement is not really in question.
None of this makes the November release pointless. What Oni is selling is the first print edition of that story, in a floppy single issue, with Fairbairn’s color, bonus art and a look at O’Malley’s process. That is a legitimate product. It is just a meaningfully different pitch from “O’Malley returns after 16 years,” and if you followed the game’s launch closely, you may have read the main event already.
Get the Release Date Right: November 11, Not November 15
A number of write-ups, including CBR’s, list the on-sale date as November 15, 2026. That date cannot be right, and the reason is structural rather than a judgment call.
North American comic shops receive new issues on Wednesdays. November 11, 2026 is a Wednesday. November 15, 2026 is a Sunday. Single issues do not ship to shops on Sundays. Oni Press and Gizmodo’s announcement exclusive both say November 11, and the publisher’s own page is the authoritative record for its own solicitation. If you are marking a calendar or placing a pull-list order, use November 11.
Who Is Metal Scott?
Metal Scott is a robotic duplicate of Scott Pilgrim, built with a bolted-together chrome body, a glowing yellow eye and a flame-shaped version of Scott’s hair. The name is Scott’s own coinage inside the story, and the design lineage is not subtle — Gizmodo, which ran the announcement exclusive, framed the reveal as Scott Pilgrim going full Sonic. Metal Scott is a fairly direct riff on Metal Sonic, down to the name.
The story itself is deliberately low-stakes. Scott and Ramona are together and happy, the Evil Exes have moved on, and the plot is essentially one long setup: Scott gets ambushed on a quiet Toronto street by something that moves too fast to see, bursts into Sex Bob-omb practice insisting a robot version of himself just attacked him, and gets met with total skepticism from Kim, Stephen, Knives and Young Neil. Ramona is unconvinced too, though she notices the thing apparently has his hair.
O’Malley himself set expectations low. He said he agreed to the minicomic without thinking it through, and called the result “only a trifle” — though he added that returning to Scott’s Toronto “really did feel like coming home.”
Is It Really the First Scott Pilgrim Comic in 16 Years?
Yes, with one clarification worth making. The original series ended with Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour on July 20, 2010, which puts this at 16 years — so the “15 years” figure floating around in some headlines undercounts it.
The clarification is that O’Malley never actually went away — he just stopped making Scott Pilgrim comics specifically. The Color Editions reissued the existing books between 2012 and 2015. Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World landed in August 2010. And O’Malley wrote Netflix’s Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, which premiered November 17, 2023 and rewrote the premise wholesale. So the drought was specific to new comics pages, not to the franchise.
Should Collectors Buy It?
Buy it to read it. Do not buy it as a speculation play.
We say that because the specifics work against scarcity in every direction. A $3.99 one-shot from a well-distributed publisher, attached to a property with a Netflix series and a genuinely well-received game behind it — Scott Pilgrim EX holds a 78 out of 100 on Metacritic, with an 8 out of 10 from IGN — is going to be ordered heavily. Heavily ordered books almost never become scarce. More importantly, the story inside has been freely available online since February. A key issue derives its value from being the only place to get something, and this is explicitly not that.
There is one genuine long-term angle, and it is the final page. The comic closes on a teaser lineup — a red-haired swordswoman, a hulking green creature, several shadowed figures — standing behind a kneeling Metal Scott. If any of those designs graduate into a larger Scott Pilgrim project later, this becomes their first printed appearance. That is a real if-then, not a guarantee, and it is the only reason we would tell anyone to grab a second copy.
If you do want a clean copy, the mechanics are the same as any modern first print: bag and board it the day you buy it, and keep it flat and out of sunlight. Our guides on comic collecting basics and comic book storage cover the details, and if you are weighing this against actual investment-grade books, our list of the best comics to invest in for 2026 is a more realistic place to put your money.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does the new Scott Pilgrim comic come out?
Scott Pilgrim EX: Dawn of Metal Scott #1 goes on sale November 11, 2026 from Oni Press, priced at $3.99. Some outlets list November 15, but that date is a Sunday and comic shops receive new issues on Wednesdays.
Do I need to play Scott Pilgrim EX to understand it?
No. The one-shot is a prequel to the game and works as a standalone introduction to Metal Scott. Playing Scott Pilgrim EX gives you the payoff to its setup, but the comic assumes only that you know who Scott, Ramona and Sex Bob-omb are.
Is Dawn of Metal Scott canon?
It is a direct prequel to the Scott Pilgrim EX game, so it belongs to that continuity. How it sits against the original six graphic novels is deliberately vague, and Oni leans into the joke — its own solicitation shrugs that various other media may or may not count. Fan references generally file it outside the main comics canon.
Can I read the Dawn of Metal Scott story for free?
The 16-page story was posted digitally in February 2026 to promote the game, so it has circulated online since then. The November one-shot is the first print edition and adds bonus art and process material that were not part of that release.
Is Bryan Lee O’Malley making more Scott Pilgrim comics?
Nothing further has been announced. O’Malley described this one as a small side project rather than a return to the series, so treat any talk of an ongoing Scott Pilgrim revival as speculation until Oni Press says otherwise.
The Bottom Line
The new Scott Pilgrim comic is real, it is by O’Malley, and it is worth $3.99 of anyone’s money in November. It is just not the event the announcement cycle turned it into: it is a charming 16-page trifle that has been online since February, getting a proper print edition with color and extras. Mark November 11 — not November 15 — and go in expecting a short, warm visit to Toronto rather than the start of a new saga.
We track this kind of thing continuously — which new issues actually matter to collectors and which ones are just loud. If that is useful to you, our free Key Issues Watchlist rounds it up.
