User Profile

After hearing about the bad reputation for the comic series once BOOM! got a hold of the Firefly licence, I was hesitant to dive in. Remarks like "Did Greg Pak even watch the show first?" were very concerning. But after a long wait and liking this glorious series too much to ignore indefinitely, I'm reading these stories.

First of all the title is rather unfortunate. It would make any fan think this is a prequel story to cover events during the war between the Alliance and the Browncoats. That's not what this is. This story arc is named after a squad working for the Alliance known as Unificators, so the name is still appropriate, but the uninitiated will always misinterpret it. Obnoxious, but has no bearing on the quality of the story or its role in the franchise.

Overall the plot was good and interesting, making a well-paced, exciting journey through all twelve issues to read it to the end, with all crew of the Serenity present in the story, although some more than others much like episodes of the original show. Everyone's personality was captured more or less relatively well and the issues and misfortune facing the team felt so fitting.

There were minor details that felt strange though. No Chinese dialogue feels off. There were plenty of opportunities for the characters to blurt out obscenities in Chinese, which both the Dark Horse Serenity comics persisted properly as well as the Titan novels, but not here. The comic felt less genuine with this oversight. Additionally, of the dialogue River had across all issues, it was surprising how much of it was plain and coherent, but she did have that crafty poetic feeling cryptic vibe elsewhere... Perhaps the writing for her was just fine after all.

There is also a specific detail about Mal's and Zoe's past which servers as a major plot mechanism, and it enriches the overall story.

Lastly this volume includes a one-shot story dedicated to Saffron and filling in some backstory for her, revealing events of her life as a young girl and showing how she did end up joining a companion guild for training -- something confirmed in the original show by Inara. "Yosaffbridge" was a very complex character with a lot of talent and curious past, much like Book, so it's not a surprise there's a story dedicated to her.

SPOILERS HEREAFTER

First a few good tidbits. Ma Reynolds and Boss Moon are both interesting and contribute to expanding the Firefly lore. Some may not like one or both of them too much, but it shouldn't be said that they were undermining things either. The dynamics between Mal and Boss Moon as the story goes on were part of what made Mal's predicament feel like a genuine Firefly story, reminiscent of Saffron even.

It was entertaining to see actual Browncoats having quite a presence, rather than constantly being a reference to a thing of the past.

Now for the negative points that cost this the fifth star for the review.

Early in the story Zoe needs to embark on a mission with Mal that Wash clearly objects to due to the risk and danger. To emphasise her point, Zoe shoots him. Yes, she puts a bullet into her husband's leg. Now from the show, the married couple's dynamics are clearly biased toward Zoe, with Wash often backing down quickly from an argument. For more heated debate, perhaps Zoe would get a little physical. But to shoot him outright with little resistance beforehand - this is surely contraversial. In a way it's humourous and could be said to be fitting but is it really that believable? Not to mention that he shoots her back and adds, "Love you too." Gunshot wounds are serious even if clearly non-fatal, especially right before Zoe ventures out.

The bugs. Very, very large bugs. So this one is plausible. Many alien planets in the 'Verse, with the possibility of wildlife that would be foreign to Earth. One might quickly object entirely anyway because Wheadon never intended to have aliens in the show, and confirmed as such in an interview. But that doesn't preclude the possibility of eventually encountering different lifeforms that are variations of known types of animals from Earth. Slightly contraversial, but definitely surprising.

Leonard. Having a new character work with the crew and stick around a while is not a problem. It's just as believable as the passengers joining the crew right at the beginning of the show, surely. But the flirting and spontaneous romantic undertones with Kaylee? Isn't she fancying Simon to make this rather less believable? Does that mean this story happens earlier in the show's chronology -- but if so, River wouldn't be making any sense yet -- and it would make the rest of the episodes fit poorly since Leonard didn't exist in the show. This is awkward, and matters are further complicated when an arbitrary character mentions Miranda. How would anyone know about Miranda yet, a well-kept Alliance secret? If the story happened much later, Book and Wash wouldn't be in the story...

(Am I the only one that compared Ma Reynolds to an older Linda Hamilton?)

The problem is the story doesn't show what happens to Leonard. Does he leave? Thinking critically about this is obviously a dilemma.

Nevertheless these flaws or potential flaws are entirely within the realm of being tolerable and mostly forgiveable, so in the end, I think 4/5 was quite the fair assessment.