Firefly

Joss Whedon, director of the upcoming SF movie Serenity, told fans that he will oversee a three-issue Dark Horse series of Serenity comics as a prequel to his upcoming SF movie of the same name, based on Fox’s canceled SF western series Firefly. "Dark Horse is putting out a three-issue prequel to the movie Serenity that will sort of bridge the show and movie for some people," Whedon, an avowed comic fan and creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, told an audience at WonderCon in San Francisco on Feb. 19. "That’s going to be coming out starting in the summer. ... It’s going to be written by Brett Matthews [who authored Dark Horse Angel comics] from a story we’re working on."

Whedon added that each issue will have three variant covers drawn by different prominent comic artists, featuring all nine principal Serenity characters. "The first of which, of course, is John Cassaday, who will be drawing Mal [Nathan Fillion]," he said. "I have seen just a few of the covers. I called basically my dream team of artists. Nobody turned me down, and I’ve seen a few of them, and they’re extraordinary."

Whedon also screened a clip from Serenity with footage from the film, featuring cast members Fillion, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau and Gina Torres, and showing a robbery that is interrupted by the arrival of the show’s feared villains, the Reavers. Serenity, to be distributed by Universal Pictures, opens Sept. 30. Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.

Meanwhile, Whedon announced that he has signed on to write a second year of 12 issues of Marvel Comics’ Astonishing X-Men. After finishing the current run of 12 X-Men issues, he said, "We’re going to take a brief respite after that and come back with another 12 and then finish up with our own giant-size ... Astonishing X-Men annual number one," Whedon said with his X-Men artist, Cassaday.