New Firefly Series Announced And It's About The Unification War

Image: Boom! Studios

It's been more than a decade since the Firefly series ended but there are still passionate fans who have been craving for a new story. Although we'll probably never see the original cast return for a revival, there are a lot more stories set in Joss Whedon's sci-fi universe coming, and Boom! Studios will release a new Firefly comic book series that will focus on The Unification War and the experience of Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Alleyne Washburne during those battles.

The new stories will explore the history of the war that took place between the Alliance and the Independents. Fans of the show would recall that Mal and Zoe fought on the losing side.

Mal Reynolds (played by Nathan Fillion in the original series) always saw the space-faring life as an escape from his past battles, but the new series will find him and his loyal second-in-command Zoe (originally played by Gina Torres) hunted by Unificators, mercenaries deputized to hunt down war criminals.

Image: Boom! Studios

The new comic book series is written by Greg Pak with art by Dan McDaid. Whedon will serve as a consultant for the comic.

Here's what Whedon told EW in a statement:

"It's high time we got to see the full story of Mal and Zoe's meeting and mission in the War of Unification — the good and bad that the pressure of war brings out in them, and the unforeseeable consequences."

Pak went on to talk about the comic's story:

"Our story will reveal key experiences for Mal and Zoe during the Unification War that you've never seen before. And we'll introduce entirely new corners of the star system with characters, organizations, and subcultures that are absolutely true to all the world-building you know but absolutely brand-new at the same time.

"It's a huge tribute to the creators of the original show that their rich, intriguing world and hilarious, compelling characters could inspire so many additional stories. We've gotten the incredible go-ahead to do something particularly special in this new series — we're digging deep into the Unification War, the galaxy-shattering event that shaped so many of our central characters. Many of the show's central themes revolve around the way everyday people handle the threat of tyranny, the trauma of war, and the danger of falling into villainy when resisting a world run by villains. We're getting the chance to reveal essential truths about our heroes' pasts and put them through experiences in the here and now that they've never fully dealt with before. As a fan of the show who adores these characters, I can't wait.

Boom! Studios Editor Jeanine Schaefer talks about Boom! acquiring the rights to the sci-fi franchise, which has been with Dark Horse comics for years:

"Fireflyspoke to so many people at the time because of the themes it dealt with and the way it allowed characters to deal with them, and those themes are even more relevant today: found family, identity, and the emotional toll of resistance, to name a few. Our job is to craft stories that will be exciting and rewarding forFireflyfans that have been with these characters from the beginning, but also to introduce it to a new audience. We want to cement Firefly as a pop-culture touchstone, enduring yet modern, in the tradition of other perennial sci-fi epics that are still teaching us about ourselves."

Firefly #1 will be available this November.

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