With each new world, Whedon devises an ominous authority well-met to the needs of the story.

The Alliance is not Wolfram Hart, nor is it the mysterious corporation sending teens to their death in Cabin in the Woods.

And yet, his nefarious structures of control are never repetitive. We see Whedon’s signature distrust of centralized power - a motif that runs through all his finest works. And yet, in the scene that follows, that tidiness becomes sanitary, and we learn the dark side of the Alliance. We learn about The Alliance and their conquest of the planets, we see through the all-to-clean ethereal quality of River’s school their vision for a beautiful, peaceful world. But this isn’t just an exercise in stylistic flourish, it’s a storytelling opportunity that establishes the unique world of Serenity in a mere matter of moments. The universal logo dissolves into “Earth That Was”, which opens up to reveal River's childhood history class, which turns out to be a dream she's having in captivity, which in turn is a hologram of her escape. Watching Serenity now, it's impossible not to marvel (no pun intended) at the level of craftsmanship on display. Whedon's first feature film, Serenity, demonstrated all those skills, and then some. Marvel needed the right person to lead the charge on their revolutionary approach to cinematic storytelling, and that required a vast and varied skill set – a gift for ensemble, an eye for action, an ear for dialogue, but most importantly, the ability to take all the worlds that were built in the preceding films, combine them, and in the process build a new shared universe in which they could all thrive. This isn't about what he achieved with Marvel it's about the road he traveled to get there, and why it's the right time for him to step off the massive MCU helicarrier and plant his feet firmly back in original content.Ĭertainly, Whedon's passion for comic books and his ties to that industry landed him the gig as a major architect of the Avengers franchise, but Marvel doesn't just hand out the keys to their mighty castle because someone is super smart and likes the subject a whole lot. Overall, it's a fantastic set-up that's bound to make readers lament the fact that it's just a mini-series.I could sing the praises of how well Whedon accomplished that insurmountable feat for pages, but that is a different piece all together.

Likewise, Jeanty captures the claustrophobic feel of life aboard the ship, although consistency in character depictions is a bit uneven.

It feels like only yesterday that River took the controls of the ship, and Whedon nails each character's voice perfectly, from Mal's lovably grouchiness to Kaylee's unflagging optimism. Serenity came out years ago, so one would think it would be hard to slip back into the feel of Firefly, but the issue fits like your favorite pair of jeans. The man at the center of that debate is Malcolm Reynolds, who's on the run, along with his crew, while everyone and their dog on both sides of the divide hunts him down for their own purposes. The back-and-forth between pundits is immediately accessible, for we, the readers, live in a world where one man's hero is another man's terrorist. The book opens with the familiar sight of pundits arguing, viciously and vociferously, about the veracity of the claims made about the doomed planet experiment, Miranda, and whether or not the people who released the message are in the wrong. Whedon (brother of Firefly creator Joss Whedon) and Jeanty take a good hard look at how the events of Serenity have impacted the 'verse, and to do that, they examine the situation from multiple perspectives. The long answer is this: while it would have been nice to watch Firefly continue on the small screen, complete with actors like Nathan Fillion and Morena Baccarin, the medium of comic books allows for a wider scope of storytelling, which is a boon to the overall narrative.

Serenity leaf on the wind comic