Absolute Attack – Comic writer Scott Snyder and collaborator Ray Fawkes built a one-off Attack on Titan story set in San Francisco in 2030—where a doctor hunts for the return of extinct whales, only for Titans to crash into the ocean’s surface. After the series finale’s graveya
A new wave of comic buzz is building around Absolute Batman—DC’s re-imagining of Bruce Wayne and Gotham City that’s been driven by writer Scott Snyder and artist Nick Dragotta. But the story that’s starting to travel further than expected isn’t about Gotham at all.
Snyder previously created his own version of “Absolute Attack on Titan,” and it arrives with a premise that feels both oddly tender and brutally frightening.
The one-off story was published as part of an Attack on Titan anthology: a 2016 release designed to give comic legends space to tell their own tales inside Hajime Isayama’s universe.. The anthology brought multiple creators to the project. including Evan Dorkin. Sam Humphries. Gail Simone. Paul Pope. and Michael Avon Oeming.
Snyder’s contribution teamed him with writer Ray Fawkes and artist Rafael Albuquerque. Snyder had worked with Albuquerque before on the horror comic American Vampire, and this short keeps that horror energy—only it shifts the setting and the dread.
Instead of focusing on Eren Jaeger’s world—Marley and the island of Paradis—Snyder and Fawkes place their story in San Francisco, 2030.
In this alternate future, the world looks like it’s coming apart.. Dr.. Price, and his assistant, are making a single attempt they believe could still save mankind.. Price isn’t chasing a scientific breakthrough to halt humanity’s collapse.. He thinks peace will come from something else entirely: he believes motion is beneath the ocean’s depths. and that whales are returning to the surface after being thought extinct.
To document the whales, Price and his cohort hitch a ride on a helicopter, trying to film the moment rising above a war-torn civilization.
But the plan doesn’t hold. The pilot is unwilling to risk flying as civilization unravels around them. Then the confrontation that follows changes everything on the page. The ocean isn’t shaking because of whales.
Skinless Titans emerge and crash to the surface, turning the future Price wanted to record into a new kind of nightmare—one that suggests the Titans can exist anywhere, even inside a completely different world.
That’s where the biggest debate kicks in.
There’s a case that Snyder’s Attack on Titan story is simply an alternate reality. But there’s also an argument that the timeline might connect to the main universe.
In the Attack on Titan series finale. viewers watch humanity lose eighty percent of its population. and Eren Jaeger dies while fighting his former friends.. The ending leaves war looking inevitable. and in the final moments. a newcomer stumbles on Eren’s grave—seemingly beginning the cycle of Titans again.
Snyder’s short could fit that cycle. The story doesn’t just show death and destruction ahead; it depicts cities “much like our own” rising up before falling to war. From there, it’s possible to read the one-off as a prequel to the world readers and viewers recognize.
In that version of events, Snyder’s take might be canon—though the chances of Hajime Isayama ever confirming it appear slim.
So the question isn’t only what Snyder wrote, but where it belongs: a separate sandbox built for the anthology, or a hidden piece of the larger spiral that Attack on Titan never really stopped.
If you’ve read it, or even if you’re just watching the debate grow, the conversation is already moving—because this is the kind of twist people can’t ignore. Where do you think Snyder’s “Absolute Attack on Titan” truly lives: outside the main timeline, or one step inside it?
Scott Snyder Absolute Attack on Titan Ray Fawkes Rafael Albuquerque Attack on Titan anthology 2016 release Dr. Price San Francisco 2030 skinless Titans Eren Jaeger grave series finale