Can’t Wait for Comics | New eras for ‘Firefly,’ ‘Monstress’ and more

New comics arrive this week from John Ridley, Giuseppi Camumcoli, Steve Wands, Mark Russell, Steve Pugh, Gene Yang, Greg Pak, Pius Bak, Dustin Weaver, Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda and more.

Welcome to Can’t Wait for Comics, your guide each week to what comics are arriving in comic book stores, bookstores and on digital.

This week brings another wave of DC’s Future State, as well as the second issue of The Other History of the DC Universe. New story arcs for Firefly and Monstress debut, while Marvel wraps up Shang-Chi.

You know the drill — check out a few recommendations below, or visit ComicList for this week’s full list of new comics arriving in stores, and the comiXology new releases page for what’s available digitally.

I really liked the first issue of The Other History of the DC Universe, the comics/prose mash-up series by John Ridley, Giuseppi Camumcoli, Andrea Cucchi, Jose Villarrubia and Steve Wands. Wands, BTW, is the letterer, and deserves his name on the cover as much as anyone. The words and how he’s placing them are just as important here as anything else. Anyway, end soapbox; this second issue will spotlight two members of the Teen Titans past — Bumblebee and Mal Duncan, who, like Black Lightning, have always been more on the fringe than actually accepted as a core part of the team.

A new week brings another round of DC’s Future State titles, with the debuts of Legion of Super-Heroes, Suicide Squad, Aquaman, Superman/Batman and Superman vs. Imperious Lex. We also get a second issue of Dark Detective. Mark Russell and Steve Pugh, the team behind AHOY’s Billionaire Island, are the creative team on the Imperious Lex title, so that one should be fun. We also have Robbie Thompson making his debut on Suicide Squad — he’ll help kick off a Suicide Squad title in June — and Gene Yang takes on Superman/Batman.

Speaking of Yang, this week brings the final chapter in his Shang-Chi miniseries with artists Dike Ruan and Phillip Tan. This has been a fun miniseries, expanding the mythology around Shang Chi and giving him a new, interesting status quo in his extended “family.”

Firefly #25 from BOOM! Studios marks a new direction for the title, as Greg Pak and Pius Bak jump forward in time to after the events of the 2005 Firefly film — an era that has never been explored on the screen or in the pages of a comic. They’re also sending the crew to Earth, another first for Firefly, so fans of the Firefly mythology will want to check this issue out.

With new episodes of Riverdale back on the air, it’s the perfect time for Archie Comics to release Riverdale Presents: South Side Serpents, a one-shot featuring Jughead and his biker gang from the show. It’s by writer David Barnett with art by Richard Ortiz, Matt Herms and Jack Morelli, and it focuses on F.P. Jones passing the torch to Jughead to lead the serpents.

Batman: Black and White #2 arrive sthis week and is stacked with talent — it features stories by Dustin Weaver, David Aja, Gabriel Hardman, Corinna Bechko, Sophie Campbell, Tom King and Mitch Gerads — an impressive line-up.

The hit series Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda returns this week with a new storyline. It will focus on repercussions against Maika for involving herself in the battle of Ravenna, as well more political intrigue at the Dusk and Dawn Courts.

I believe Savor, the new graphic novel by Neil Kleid, John Broglia and Frank Reynoso actually arrived in comic shops last week, but since I totally missed it and it just seems to be arriving on digital this week, I’m going to go ahead and list it here. It’s an all-ages graphic novel about a warrior chef who must face the demons who have opened up restaurants on her island home. Soup’s on, demons!

(Hopefully she has a better catch phrase than that).

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