Serenity: Better Days miniseries Review

This review was submitted by Hero 004
Publisher: Dark Horse

Writer: Joss Whedon/Brett Matthews

Artists: Will Conrad- Pencils, Michelle Madison-Colors

Serenity is one of my favorite movies. It's one of those films that I suggest to everyone, even if they're not into science fiction. It takes watching the fantastic preceding TV series, Firefly, to truly appreciate the cinematic level that Joss Whedon takes his genre-Defying story with the feature film. Serenity is so one of a kind, in fact, that the chances for a sequel look very dim. So when a three issue comic miniseries taking place in between the Show and movie, written by Whedon himself, and containing 150 pages shows up as the likes of Serenity: better Days, I am very much down for some satisfaction of my craving for more story.

Review

At the start of Issue one, we find Mal and crew on a typical job robbing a museum, before being bombarded by an alliance-built , artificially intelligent roadster/robot and at the crew finds themselves in a freeway chase. With some gun work from Jayne and a sneak attack from Kaylee, the weapon is shutdown and in the Serenity crew's hands. Meanwhile Inara is having sex with a client, but picturing Mal. The Client ends up being an Alliance War veteran and hunter of "Dust Devils", independent terrorists who were radical about their views even after the alliance won. The crew decides to sell the weapon to a guy who tips them off to a hidden stash of money within a Buddhist temple as payment. When they get there, they find that there is a lot more than they expected: they're rich.

Issue two picks up with some comedic fantasies from the crew on what they're going to do with they're wealth. They end up kicking it off with a vacation, checking into a high class hotel. The Client that Inara was within the previous issue finds out that Mal was a Dust Devil and asks for another night with her in order to get to him. Meanwhile the alliance has found Serenity's location through tracing microchips that were scattered onto the crew's bodies by the weapon. When Malcom goes to check on Inara, he's knocked out by the Dust Devil Hunter and the crew finds out that someone is after them.

Issue three begins with Mal getting the crap beaten out of him by the hunter. Zoe being the first mate is now in charge of the ship with Mal captured and she reveals to the crew that she is in fact the Dust Devil that the hunters are after, not Malcom. Despite reluctance from the rest, Zoe transmits a message across the whole planet revealing that she is the Dust Devil and orders them to bring Malcom back to Serenity. They show up with guns and Jayne is as always up on a cliff sniping. However, an explosion none of them were expecting throws them all off as they're all being attacked by the Alliance. Mal and the hunter have to team up in order to pull off a way to destroy the Alliance ship. They succeed, but the Dust Devil hunting crew ends up making off with all of the Serenity crew's new found wealth. The conclusion features a classic talk between Inara and Malcom. She confronts him on the fact that the whole crew is upset about losing the money except for him. Inara figures out that Mal purposely hid the money poorly so that it would be stolen with fear that the wealth would split the crew up and ruin what he considers a perfect life already captaining Serenity.

Thoughts

I absolutely loved reading this, it felt just like watching an episode of Firefly. The robot stuff at the beginning threw me off a bit at first, but it ended up leading into the bigger story very quick in the same format as the TV series/film. Everyone is in character the whole way through, reading the dialogue can put a smile on any Brown Coat's face as it takes you right back to the charm of each individual member of the crew. In Better Days they are put in a very different scenario with getting rich for a while, but they react to things just as they always do and in new ways that are just as exciting. The ending was so perfect to me. What Mal did with the money is a perfect example of the brutal presentation of his soft side. Conrad's art is awesome, a clean comic style showing the beautiful futuristic scenery of Joss Whedon's universe. What can be really appreciated is his accurate depiction of the characters. They look perfectly transitioned in his close ups while fun and comic booky in between. You'll find that Better Days feels more like a sequel to Firefly than a prequel to Serenity, putting them in another adventure rather than leading into the film. This is the second Serenity miniseries; I certainly hope Whedon and Dark Horse give us another. There is character development in this book, but I'd also like to see more that flows into the movie's. Inara has left Serenity by the time of the movie, and it's talked about at the end of the show, maybe another series will focus on her leaving. Wherever Serenity flies from here, I am phenomenally happy with this miniseries. A+