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Strap in and get ready to break Atmo! The crew of Serenity is back!

Jeepers, I love Joss Whedon. His television shows, his films (hey, I loved “Alien Resurrection”) and now his comics. The one project of his that I seem to keep coming back to, moreso than Buffy or even Angel (which is my favorite TV show of all time), is Firefly/Serenity, and I think the reason for that being is that there is so much mythology to that series that is still shrouded in mystery and makes for some great exploration. And thankfully, we now have more exploration of the Firefly ‘Verse in Serenity: Better Days #1.

These events, unlike the events of the previous Serenity comic mini-series, don’t bridge between the show and the film, but instead take place before those events even. The whole crew is there (and still alive), and as usual, they’re doing crime. Mal, Zoe, and Jayne are stealing some art with the assistance of Simon and during their escape, they are pursued by a remote robotic badass, which is part of a demonstration that someone (we don’t know who, but we know he really doesn’t like Mal) is trying to sell this merchandise. We get all the great fun of the show in this sequence: Jayne shooting VERY big guns; Zoe being a daredevil behind the stick of their trusty ‘Mule’ hovercraft, and a final surprise that reveals the true nature of their heist. And it has some great character moments, particularly with Inara, who is fantazising about making sweet sweet love to Mal while she’s servicing one of her clients; with Kaylee, who continues to pine over Simon while doing the most complicated of jobs; and of course Jayne, who has that uncanny knack for always saying something that is either right on the money or so wrong that it’s just hilarious. Of course the biggest surprise is saved for the last moment of the issue, and for the crew of Serenity, it’s definitely something very unexpected.

Of course, Whedon and co-writer Brett Matthews have a knack for the one-liners and the great big action and the smaller character moments and you gotta love them together. The only real problem here, as with almost any live-action to four-color adaptation is the attempt to make the characters look just like they did on-screen. That’s not to say that I don’t like Will Conrad’s art, because I do and it does look good. But it’s just good. I’d have preferred if they actually got cover artist Adam Hughes to do the interiors because he’s got a great eye for detail and I’d LOVE to see how he’d draw Inara. Yum.

Either way, any further exploration into the mythos of Serenity and its crew headed up by Whedon is a good one, and this comic just further illustrates what master storytellers Whedon and Matthews are.

One word of warning, though, and this is my other problem: If you don’t know the show or the film, don’t expect to know what’s going on. You’ll just end up doing a lot of head-scratching.

Serenity: Better Days #1
Story by Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews
Art by Will Conrad
Colors by Michelle Madsen
Letters by Michael Heisler
Cover by Adam Hughes

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