By Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad & various (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-59582-162-1
Just like the TV show and movie, comics about the crew of the Firefly Class 03-K64 trading ship Serenity are remarkably good and pretty addictive. This slim tome collects second 3-issue miniseries Serenity: Better Days, continuing in rip-roaring style the unlikely exploits of a nomadic semi-piratical bunch of lovable yet lethal scofflaws in a world not unlike our own…
After they used up Earth, Humanity migrated to the stars and settled another star-system packed with hundreds of more or less hospitable planets and satellites. Now it’s the 26th century and mankind is living through the aftermath and reconstruction period of a vicious internecine conflict known – by the victors – as the Unification War.
This still-fresh, tender and, for far too many, unfinished system-wide conflagration saw the Outer Colonies crushed after attempting to secede from the authoritarian Alliance of first-settled Inner Planets. Captain Malcolm Reynolds fought valiantly and passionately for the Rebel/losing side and now spends his days eking out a living on the fringes of an increasingly repressive and dangerous universe: a fiercely free agent skippering a small cargo vessel filled with surprisingly capable misfits and odd sorts.
Hopefully work means just shipping cargo and people from world to world whilst trying to avoid the ever-expanding Alliance’s oppressive representatives and security forces, but occasionally survival means bending the law a mite….
It’s hard, risky work: often illegal and frequently dangerous – especially since the outer regions are where the insane cannibal berserker savages dubbed Reavers restlessly prowl.
Life changed forever after Serenity gave passage to fugitive Alliance doctor Simon Tam: on the run after stealing/rescuing his apparently psychic sister River from a top secret research project.
The Government spared no effort or expense to get her back, hounding the fugitives from pillar to post until one day Mal and his crew finally pushed back. After too many close shaves and at the cost of too many friends, Reynolds and Co at last uncovered the horrific secret the Alliance were so desperate to keep hidden in River’s head and broadcast it to the entire ‘Verse…
Before that moment, however, and for this saga, the restless voyagers are back at the daily grind of making money without getting killed. Without preamble scripters Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews, illustrator Will Conrad, colourist Michelle Madsen and letterer Michael Heisler launch right in, revealing how a simple heist goes explosively wrong and the merry mob are once more running for their lives with a dangerous chunk of ambulatory weapons tech.
Life being what is they get away with the loot but still get stiffed…
Their long-term paying passenger Inara the Companion is busy with a client whilst all that shooting is going on, learning from former militia man Ephraim of the rebel terrorists known as “Dust Devils†who retaliated against the Alliance long after the War ended. He has been tasked with routing out and eradicating their last remnants but for the moment has more pleasant actions in mind…
Stuck with a weapon they don’t want, the Firefly crew grudgingly accept a tip from the client who fooled them once already. He tells of a vast amount of money just waiting to be picked up by the right team. All they have to do is get the forgotten fortune out of the fully occupied temple where it was stashed by the thieves who first acquired it…
Incomprehensibly, the raid goes off without a hitch or even any weapon being fired by or at them. Before long the astounded spacers are sharing increasingly bizarre daydreams of what they’re going to do with their share of more money than they ever dreamed existed…
As they all kick back, Inara questions Mal about Dust Devils and gets the uncomfortable impression that he has first hand knowledge of their activities, but doesn’t push the matter as the ship is about to land on Pelorum, resort world of the mega-rich.
As the windfall-drunk crew start splurging, however, elsewhere a certain arms dealer has at last located down the bandits who swiped his favourite death-machine and Ephraim prepares his hand-picked taskforce for the moment they bag themselves a vile terrorist Dust Devil…
The Serenity crew’s strangest caper continues as they become acclaimed and feted heroes to the filthy rich after stopping a planet-wide heist, but the unlikely afterglow of the approbation only puts Malcolm off-guard long enough for Ephraim to spring his trap…
With his prize brutally in tow, the hunter prepares to escape but there’s a slight snag. There is indeed a dreaded former Dust Devil aboard Serenity, but it isn’t Malcolm Reynolds…
Moreover before Ephraim can get his head around that faux pas a very ticked off death-merchant and his private army turn up, looking for revenge but happy to just kill everybody and let God or Accounting sort it out…
Proving the hard – but extremely entertaining – way that money doesn’t buy happiness or even an ounce of security, this power-packed digest-sized rollercoaster romp is supplemented with stunning cover/chapter breaks of the crew from Adam Hughes and a crisply hilarious Introduction from Adam (don’t call him Jayne) Baldwin.
Crackling with fun and attitude, blackly sardonic and riotously daft between bouts of breathtaking action and delivering a thrilling, scary and supremely satisfying resolution, this is space opera of the very best kind.
Flash forward, go above and beyond and get lost in Space with this magical taste of things to come…
Serenity: Better Days © 2008 Universal Studios Licensing. The movie “Serenity†is ™ and © Universal Studios. All rights reserved.