Griffin’s Picks for the week of 3/25/2026
1: Flash #31 - DC
Flash #31 is the first issue from the new creative team comprised of Ryan North and Gavin Guidry. I also want to point out Adriano Lucas’s colors in this book because they definitely caught my eye
After embarking on some standard Keystone City heroics, including a battle with an errant tornado from one of Weather Wizard’s wands and rescuing a woman plummeting to her death from the top of a building, Wally returns home to find a disconcerting ad in the newspaper. Someone is paying people $10,000 each to get videos of themselves being saved by the Flash, therefore incentivizing the people of Keystone City to put themselves in harm’s way and even crazier? They’re more than willing to do so. After Wally’s initial investigations, it turns out that monetizing the videos of his rescues is more profitable than the initial investment but is there something more nefarious going on?
This first issue is definitely a return to a more familiar Wally West story in comparison to the Simon Spurrier run that started in 2023 so if you’re a fan of the Jeremy Adams or Mark Waid Flash, I would pick this one up. It’s fun, light hearted and is a great sign for things to come from Ryan North’s run on the Scarlett Speedster. Not to mention that it pulled off the feat of feeling modern without anything that made me want to roll my eyes into my skull.
2: Statues - Viz
Statues is the newest short story collection from Junji Ito, probably one of the most famous mangaka especially when it comes to the horror genre. If you have any interest in horror comics and you haven’t checked out his work, this is a great place to jump in.
As with any anthology, there are going to be varying degrees of enjoyability when it comes to the different stories. My two favorites here are “Hornet Nest” and “Statues”, with the former being about a boy that’s obsessed with collecting hornet nests and a younger boy who has an uncanny ability to soothe the hornets in order to add to his nest collection. The titular “Statues” revolves around a sculptor who doesn’t add faces to his statues in order to make them more malleable in the eyes of the audience. I know I’m being vague in the synopses of these stories but they aren’t very long and I don’t want to run the risk of spoiling anything.
While it’s not my favorite of Junji Ito’s short story collections (that would be Shiver of course), it’s still a fun way to spend a couple hours especially if you’re a fan of horror. On that note, if you haven’t read any manga before but enjoy the genre, you’re doing yourself a disservice by not picking up some of Ito’s work. If you read this and are looking for other horror manga, I highly recommend PTSD Radio by Masaaki Nakayama, available at Time Warp.
3: Superman / Spider-Man - DC / Marvel
I know this may be the third Superman/Spider-Man pick of the year but what makes this one different is that it’s actually new!
I know I just said it with the previous pick, but anthologies are really a mixed bag. The highlight of the 2026 DC iteration of this team-up is the first/primary story by Mark Waid. It features a villainous pairing of Doctor Octopus and Brainiac attempting to dump a computer virus into the brains of the citizens of Metropolis that doubles as a commentary on AI’s effects on the public. Waid has a great understanding of both of these characters and my only complaint is that I wish his section was longer.
Everything else in this issue is kinda standard hit or miss super-hero fare, nothing to write home about. Some of the better stories feel constrained by the confines of page limits while others feel like they miss the mark just a little bit, but regardless, I’ll be looking forward to their next team-up because I’m a sucker for both of these characters.