Serenity: Leaves On The Wind #5 - A Review

In previous reviews of this series, I called it a good story hampered by bad artwork. I will not be doing that this month. Oh, not because the artwork has gotten better. It hasn't. If anything, Georges Jeanty's atwork is getting sloppier and more inconsistent by the month. No, this month I can't say it because I'm no longer sure if I'm reading a good story.


I was fully prepared to deliver a rant about how poorly served the female cast of this series are served by Zack Whedon's script.  How Zoe is completely absent from this issue and has been reduced to the princess to be rescued.  How Inara doesn't have a single line in this issue and has been marginalized into Mal's girlfriend/Zoe's nanny.  How Kaylee does get to do one awesome thing but it involves recycling one of Wash's old plans and that he gets more lines in one flashback than Kaylee does in the whole issue.  And how River gets her ass kicked by a male reader until Mal gives her a hypodermic needle full of sedative to use as a make-shift weapon.

I was ready to rant about all of that... until I realized how badly served the male cast was by the same script.

Simon has been just as useless as Inara for the better part of this series and also goes without a line in this month's issue.  Jayne has been recast in the role of total comic relief.  And Mal... well, Mal is the big damn hero who finally gets a plan to run smooth at the cost of making Bea - the rabblerouser trying to recruit him to lead a new Browncoat movement - look even more incompetent at the revelation that The Alliance has been funding her movement from the beginning as part of an effort to organize the agitators so it would be easier to get them all in one place and kill them.


I'll give this one more issue to see if something can be salvaged from this wreckage.  That's it.

Serenity: Leaves On The Wind #4 - A Review

This will probably be the last issue of Serenity: Leaves On The Wind I'll be reviewing.  I enjoy the book immensely but it occurs to me that there is little point in my writing about it.  To speak the plain truth, this book doesn't hold much for anyone who isn't already a card-carrying Browncoat.  And despite the first two issues doing a good job of playing "catch-up" for anyone who hadn't seen Firefly or Serenity already, this issue - and the previous one- haven't been as accommodating.

The plot has Mal tracking down The Operative - the bad guy from Serenity - in order to secure his help in breaking into a secure Alliance facility and rescuing a dozen other psychic combat bunnies like River.  Why?  So they can help them break into an even more secure Alliance facility to rescue Zoe.  Of course Mal's plans never run smooth and complications arise, starting with everyone else on the crew having objections to one degree or another about accepting The Operative's help.

Confused?  Then you're probably not a Browncoat and this comic is not aimed at you.


A larger problem with this series it hat it has leaned heavily on some the more action-oriented (and, coincidentally, male) members of the crew.  True, Zoe does get a fight scene in this issue but it seems to be tacked in so there's some action somewhere in this chapter.  The more non-combat oriented characters - like Simon and Kaylee  - aren't given much to do except stand in the background.  This is marginally better than Inara, who has had nothing to do in this story but bed down with Mal and take care of Zoe's baby.  Granting that she's probably the one person on the crew best equipped to handle taking care of a newborn, greater care could have been taken to make it clear that she's taken the role on because of her Companion training.


I also have little to say about Georges Jeanty's artwork at this point beyond the fact that I don't like it.  There's little consistency from panel to panel.  Jeanty can capture an actor's likeness perfectly in one moment and then render them off-model in the next.  His mid-range characters lack any definition at all, and if it weren't for such cues as skin-tone and clothing it would be hard to tell who is who in the far-shots.

Serenity: Leaves On The Wind #3 - A Review

There is a certain futility to my reviewing Serenity: Leaves On The Wind.  This series is directly aimed at the obsessive army of fans known as Browncoats and while it is possible for those unfamiliar with the world of Joss Whedon's Serenity to read this book, it isn't recommended they do so.  As such, it hardly seems worth my time to cover this book as those familiar with the show are likely to buy this book regardless of my comments and those who aren't fans of the show won't bother with it.

That is why this month I've elected to aim this review at that small portion of Firefly fans who - for whatever reason - don't read comics and can't be arsed to give a comic book based on a show they like a chance.  Maybe they think it can't be as good because Joss' brother Zack wrote it.  Maybe they just don't like comics.  It doesn't matter.  All that matters is that there are two moments in this book that I think will make every Browncoat say "I have to read this book just to see how THAT happened!"  With that in mind, I leave you with these two scenes.


1. Jayne Cobb trying - honestly trying - to play the sensitive caring man role.





2. Kaylee shows just how much the past few years have changed her.

Serenity: Leaves On The Wind #2 - A Review

Considering how involved Firefly was as a series, Serenity: Leaves On The Wind #2 is surprisingly easy to get into.  While some familiarity with the series Firefly and the events of the movie Serenity are necessary, your average Browncoat could jump in on this issue without having to worry about having missed the first part.  The events of the previous issue is explained easily enough in both the action of this issue and a blurb on the title page.

As this chapter opens, Captain Malcolm Reynolds is a doubly wanted man.  The Alliance wants him for his role in exposing the truth about their crimes on the planet Miranda and a burgeoning rebellion wants him to be their fearless leader.  The latter group has tracked down Jayne Cobb - a mercenary who used to serve on Reynolds' ship - and hired him to lead the way to their would-be leader, little knowing that an old enemy of the Serenity crew is on the trail as well.


Mal, as usual, has bigger concerns than playing "the big damn hero".  First Mate Zoe has just given birth to a beautiful baby girl and while newborn Emma is doing fine, her mother is bleeding out slow in a way that ship's doctor Simon can't fix.  This means a trip to someplace civilized to get Zoe healed and that means risks the fugitive crew shouldn't be taking but can't help avoiding.


Zack Whedon does a fine job capturing the essence of his brother's characters.  This comic reads just like an episode of Firefly or a scene from the long dreamed of Serenity sequel.  The only real problem with the script is that much of the ensemble cast is given little to do and there's too few of the character moments that made the show so memorable.  Kaylee and Inara suffer the worst here - perhaps because so much of their personal drama was built around "will they?/won't they?" relationships that have now been resolved.

A larger problem lies in the artwork.  Penciler Georges Jeanty does some good caricatures of the established cast but their looks from panel to panel can differ greatly.  Another oddity is Karl Story's inks, which are layered-on heavily in the close-ups on various characters yet oddly sparse in medium and long range shots.  Thankfully, none of the artwork is glaringly bad enough to distract away from the story - just odd without being off-putting.