The crew of Malcolm Reynolds’ elderly ship returns for more adventures, but will The Alliance finally catch up to our band of criminals and malcontents? Your Major Spoilers review of Serenity: No Power In The ‘Verse #1 awaits!
SERENITY: NO POWER IN THE ‘VERSE #1
Writer: Chris Roberson
Penciler: Georges Jeanty
Inker: Karl Story
Colorist: Wes Dzioba
Letterer: Michael Heisler
Editor: Jim Chadwick
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Previously in Serenity: No Power In The ‘Verse: “In the Unification War, the Alliance cemented their dominance. They crushed the Browncoat resistance and have succeeded in suppressing any opposition that followed. The Serenity, a Firefly-class vessel, is captained by former Browncoat Malcolm Reynolds, and among the crew are first mate Zoe Washburne, her baby Emma, mercenary Jayne Cobb, mechanic Kaylee Fry, former Companion Inara Serra, physician Simon Tam and pilot, psychic, genius and former Alliance experiment, River Tam…”
HEIGHTENED VISIBILITY
As we open, the crew of Serenity is in mid-job, and unlike many of their thieving adventures, successfully pull off the heist, bringing home the cargo. The bad new is, with their connections all dead or under the thumb of The Alliance, they have to deal in lower-value items rather than go through criminal channels, meaning that they’ve just heisted several palettes of toilet paper. Jayne shoots off his mouth, Mal stalks away, and things on the ship are very tense. With eight crew members and/or crew member babies on board, there’s a lot of interpersonal moments in this issue (Kaylee and Simon are starting to have issues with their different backgrounds; Inara wants to tell Mal about why she left the Companions; Jayne finds the solitude of his own jackassery to be oppressive.) The plotting is very well-handled, revealing a little something about everyone in a very natural fashion before receiving a call for help from Iris…
THE CONTINUING ADVENTURES
For those not in the know, Iris is another of the experimental humans like River, as seen in the previous Serenity mini ‘Leaves In The Wind.” Worse, her partner Bea has gone missing, seemingly in league with former Browncoats-turned-terrorists. As with his work on Buffy, Georges Jeanty does a good job with likenesses while keeping the character faces expressive and consistent, and the storytelling on display is impressive. (Of particular note is River’s acrobatic save of toddler Emma, Zoe and Wash’s daughter, from a hard fall in the cargo bay.) There’s a couple of things percolating that, if the previous series is any indication, will explain bits of Serenity/Firefly lore, but there are enough new characters s in play that it doesn’t feel pointless or overly referential. Roberson also nails the speech patterns of the crew, which isn’t true of all the comic book adventures of Reynolds and crew.
THE BOTTOM LINE: SHINY. (THAT’S MY ONE.)
In short, this issue picks up from where the previous miniseries left off in style, introduces a LOT of characters effectively and sets up for a pretty dangerous cliffhanger ending where Mal is probably gonna die… again. Serenity: No Power In The ‘Verse #1 balances the problems of an adaptation well, delivers on action, suspense, character and art, and makes me interested in seeing how this all plays out, earning 3.5 out of 5 stars overall. If this ends up being as good as Zoe’s final showdown with The Operative in ‘Leaves In The Wind’, it should be a heck of a ride…
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