Hello, old friend.
Creative Staff:
Story: Chris Roberson
Art: Georges Jeanty
Inks: Karl Story
Colors: Wes Dzioba
Letters: Michael Heisler
What They Say:
The ’verse is a complicated and dangerous place, and Malcolm Reynolds and his outlaw crew aboard the Serenity are ever experiencing tough times. When tensions rise among the crew, a call for help becomes a welcome interruption: they must track down a missing friend and the answers to the mystery surrounding her disappearance.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
In many ways, life goes on as usual for the crew of Serenity: thievin’, runnin’, stayin’ two steps ahead of the law and three steps ahead of creditors. Mal and his are running steady—even if the payoff isn’t always the most glamorous.
But moving steady doesn’t necessarily mean moving forward. The crew is locked in an inertial loop: unable to move forward unless some outside force prods them. The funny thing about the situation is that quite a bit has changed: Wash and Book are dead, Zoe is now a single mother, River is no longer insane, Inara has given up her life as a companion and has taken up with Mal, Simon and Kaylee are together. The only constants are Mal and Jayne, who pretty much remain the same. Essentially, the tune changed, but the song remains the same.
That is until an outside force prods them. Iris (an old friend? Acquaintance? Ally? It’s unclear) calls the crew, asking for help. Iris’ lover, Bea, went missing. The two hoped to join the new resistance, and Bea went to scout out a fringe terrorist group called The Peacemakers. Mal and Zoe recognize the name instantly—they were a group of Browncoats who kept fighting after the Unification War who grew more and more desperate until finally turning to terrorism. The crew follows the clues of Bea’s last known whereabouts and land themselves in a whole mess o’ trouble.
Like many a Browncoat, I rejoice at being able to return to the world of Firefly. The characters, the world, and the atmosphere are just as familiar, unique, and compelling here as they were in the television show and movie, making this feel like a visit with an old friend. This issue mainly serves to establish where the characters are right now and set up the story going forth, and it does it well, starting with a heist, moving into various character moments, and building inter-crew tension before getting to the actual inciting incident.
I will say that I’m unsure who Iris and Bea are. It’s been over a year since I last rewatched the show, so I could simply be forgetting them. It’s also possible that the characters showed up in a previous Firefly comic. Either way, I feel like I should turn in my Firefly badge for not recognizing them.
And speaking of not-recognizing: although Georges Jeanty does an otherwise fine job of drawing the setting and the action, some of his characters look decidedly off model. The men fair better than the women, but Inara, River, and Kaylee don’t often look like the actors whose likeness these illustrations are based upon. Zoe also escapes this, but I’m not sure why. It’s not a huge deal, but it does distract from the story at times because the characters are so clearly stamped in my mind and there’s a half-second moment of translation when I realize “Oh! That’s Inara!”
In Summary:
Art quibbles aside, Serenity: No Power in the Verse #1 starts off solidly, taking me back to a place and to characters that I care for deeply. The comic doesn’t set the world on fire or anything, but it’s fun and it rides the nostalgia wave well. Dr. J gives this a….
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: October 26th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
