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It’s time to return to a fairy tale world where all is not as audiences might remember… and where the hero of the story really isn’t who you might expect. Christopher Cantwell’s Briar is coming back at Boom!, with a new artist, a new chapter… but the same savage take on a familiar story that thrilled fans the first time around.

The series, at once a retelling, and a reimagining, of the Sleeping Beauty story, originally debuted in late 2022 as a four-issue miniseries, with Boom! Studios announcing the following year that it would be expanded into an ongoing monthly series due to the success of the first four issues — and, this May, Briar returns for a fifth issue as filled with mayhem and mystery as ever.

“Briar focuses on people who have fallen out of the grander story, or feel they have no place in it at all,” Cantwell - who also writes Thanos for Marvel, and Star Trek: Defiant for IDW - said in a statement from the publisher. “This book is what happens when the entire fairy tale comes apart, and only a few, fringe characters are left to pick up the pieces, having to forge their own radical destinies instead of being handed happy endings.”

Joining Cantwell for the new run is artist Alex Lins, who added that the book is “for anyone with heart: it is visceral, it is poetic, and the protagonists go much deeper than most heroes do.”

The series returns with Briar #5 on May 15, but if that feels like too long to wait — understandably, given that the previous issue came out back in early 2023 — don’t worry; Popverse has an exclusive extended preview of the opening of the issue, accompanied by the three covers for the issue by Lins, Jenny Frison, and Fábio Moon. Take a look in the gallery below to take a look.

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