Serenity

Serenity 1-3

Serenity: Better Days 1-3

Much like the Buffy comic, I bought these while I (and the world) was living in that period of Whedon-mania, where everything he touched was can’t-miss, whether it was good or not.  In retrospect, most of his comics (with the notable exception of Astonishing X-Men) fall in the not-so-good camp.  So much of what makes his characters sing come from the superlative performances of the almost uniformly spectacular actors in his shows.  No matter how good the writing or art, there’s always going to be something missing on the page without Sarah Michelle Gellar or Nate Fillion to give it that ineffable punch.  As with Kingman, I will never choose to read these over watching the show.

The covers are gorgeous, though.

Jo Chen

Joe Quesada

Josh Middleton

Regret buying: No (Yes for Better Days.  I should have known better by then.)

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Didn’t suck (Cutting)

Serenity: Float Out

Patton Oswalt is legitimately one of my favorite wordsmiths. No one can better string together words into the perfect sentence.

It’s not that he fails entirely here.  The sentences are all there, but they don’t form an interesting story.  The three flashback stories don’t say anything new about Wash. Zoe’s pregnancy’s the only item of note, and Dark Horse didn’t need to get Oswalt to write that last page.  

Regret buying: Yes

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Boring (Cutting)