In his words
AI doesn’t dream. It doesn’t feel. It doesn’t make art. It aggregates it.
Not now, not ever, as long as Anne DePies and I are in charge.
Biography
Jim Lee (born 1964) is a Korean-American comics artist whose hyper-detailed 1990s X-Men run produced the best-selling comic book of all time, who co-founded Image Comics, and who rose to become President, Publisher, and Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics — making him both a superstar draftsman and the executive steward of Batman and Superman.
Drawing the line at DC
DC’s AI reckoning arrived in June 2024, when artist Adi Granov publicly flagged apparent generative-AI artifacts — including a mangled Superman shield — in variant covers by Francesco Mattina. DC pulled all of Mattina’s solicited covers across Action Comics, Superman, and other titles, replacing them wholesale. The episode forced the industry’s biggest publisher to decide where it stood.
Lee answered from the main stage of New York Comic Con in October 2025: DC will not support AI-generated storytelling or artwork, “not now, not ever,” as long as he and CFO Anne DePies run the company — a declaration met with cheers. “People have an instinctive reaction to what feels authentic,” he said. “We recoil from what feels fake. That’s why human creativity matters.”
His argument was ultimately a brand thesis: anyone can draw a cape, but “Superman only feels right when he’s in the DC universe. Our universe, our mythos. That’s what endures.” For Lee, DC’s century-long value rests on the “fragile, beautiful connection between imagination and emotion” — something he insists cannot be aggregated. The pledge aligned DC with the human-authorship rules the Grammys’ Harvey Mason Jr. wrote for music, and it stands as the most absolute anti-AI commitment by any major entertainment publisher.
Where they stand in the war
Who backs them up
Sources & further reading
Canonical record: https://battlelines.ai/topic/jim-lee