Review: FIREFLY #9
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Creator: Joss Whedon
Writer: Greg Pak
Artist: Dan McDaid
Colorist: Marcelo Costa
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Reviewer: Tony Farina
Summary
Firefly #9 begins on planet Shadow where we meet Mal’s Mother. Seriously.
Meanwhile on Seven Beta Niner, Mal is trying to fight and escape and run, like he does, but little does he know, until she calls him to tell him, that Inara has found a way for the whole crew of Serenity to be pardoned. Of course, he doesn’t like to do things the easy way, so he and Boss Moon make a run for it.
Zoe is trying to get the rest of the independents and brown coats to gather together with the…gasp…unifiers to help them save Mal. That goes about as well as one can imagine it would.
Positives
Did you miss the gang from Serenity? I did. Do you think that cover might be perfect? I do too. The best thing about a rebooted Firefly means more fun with the Big Damn Heroes. The pacing of this issue is perfect. The way that Pak set it up for crash cuts just like the show is just what we want. He also captures the tone of the characters just as we would want them to be. When Zoe calls Mal and tells him not to trust Boss Moon and then Mal just does it any is spot on. There is a challenge to writing in the Whedonverse. He has a specific tone that is hard to capture and yet this works.
Dan McDaid has other kinds of heavy lifting to do. He has to make these characters his own, while keeping them recognizable as actual actors but not so much that they are any copyright infringement. When we see Zoe, we see Zoe. We see Jayne, and Inara and Mal. It is like watching a really good cover band. You don’t leave mad that they were playing someone else’s songs, you are just happy that the songs were being played. See for yourself:
Negatives
You know how you have that great feeling when you see a good cover band? Well, what happens when the cover band doesn’t end with Freebird, but only plays Freebird? That is the problem with the Whedonverse in comics. We are used to 60 minutes of glorious chaos and silliness. Here, the story is confined to 24 pages. It is not as though things do not move along, but we feel like we are watching the A block Firefly and we have to wait through a month of commercials until we find out what happens in the B block.
Verdict
I will take anytime on Serenity that I can get. Firefly #9 is just one small glimpse, but just remember that this is better than the nothing you would have had to read if not for Boom! Studios. If nothing else, you can posterize that cover.
