Story by: Joss Whedon and Brett MatthewsArt by: Will Conrad
Colors by: Michelle Madsen
Letters by: Michael Heisler
Cover by: Adam Hughes
Company: Dark Horse
You know what kills me? If I hadn’t started reviewing comics for The Nexus, I would probably have no idea that Joss Whedon is now involved in no less than five different comics, including three from the Buffyverse.
Man, that would’ve sucked.
However, “Serenity” always struck me as a bit of an anamoly in Joss’s world: even I, one of the larger Buffy fans on the planet, heard “cowboys in space” and decided “Umm – maybe not for me.” Now, of course, I know I was being an idiot: but thankfully, that’s what they make TV on DVD for.
This storyline, “Better Days”, takes place sometime after the pilot, but before the events in the movie (I won’t spoil the movie for anyone by saying why it’s rather obvious as soon as you see the book). There isn’t anything about the plotline that jumps off the page immediately, though you probably will find yourself asking yourself, “Art? Since when is there a market for that out where Mal and crew float around?” (In fact, Simon asks much the same question above.) But, of course… well, just keep reading.
However, I did feel somewhat disappointed over the issue, though that’s entirely possibly because my expectations for this were so freakin’ high. Plus, this is just the first issue, so the entire plotline has to get introduced. This can be especially frustrating to those fans that tend to think of each issue as equivalent to an “episode” — which obviously they can’t be, since most of them are going to be cliffhangers. But even then, I felt too much time was being given to action sequences, including a chase sequence that makes up most of the first half of the book. But there are certainly enough individual scenes and one-liners (the food and water of the true Whedon fan) to make the book memorable.
The cover art is rather stunning, also: Wash and Zoe look like photographs, rather than pencils and ink. And, in a bit of twist on the multiple Buffy covers, the three covers on this run actually make up one large portrait of the entire Firefly crew (something I didn’t realize until reading the letters page).
Rating: 7 out of 10
