Serenity, Vol. 1: Those Left Behind (Paperback)

~ (Author), (Author), (Author) "AFTER THE EARTH was used up, we found a new solar system, and hundreds of new Earths were terra-formed and colonized..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

With the war between the Alliance and the independent Browncoats over, Mal Reynolds, captain of the Serenity, and his crew of misfits, fugitives, and would-be outlaws work the frontier. Defeated and directionless, their goal has become simply to keep flying, and Mal is willing to take any job, in- or outside the law, to achieve it. Although their willingness to flout rules has occasionally played to their favor, they may be in over their heads in taking aboard Simon and his damaged sister, River, secretive fugitives from the Alliance. Mal and his crew may not know it, but the hunt is on, and the Alliance is right behind them. Whedon elaborates on his Firefly universe in this small prequel to the movie Serenity. If this story doesn't have much in the way of plot or background, an aura of character study suffuses it, enlightening Serenity newcomers while warming the hearts of fans. Will Conrad's slick and fluid artwork captures the essence of how the film actors realized the characters without losing comic-book feel. Tina Coleman
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Product Description

Penned by Whedon and Brett Matthews, who wrote several episodes of Firefly as well as Dark Horse's final Angel comics series and the animated Chronicles of Riddick feature "Dark Fury," Serenity follows a ship full of mercenaries, fugitives and one law-abiding prostitute in their pursuit for fast cash and a little peace along the fringes of space. The ragtag crew of Serenity take on a scavanger mission with the hopes of earning enough dough to disappear for a while. Only too late do they realize the whole gig is orchestrated by an old enemy eager remake their aquanitance with the help of some covert-operatives known only as the Blue Gloves. Artist Will Conrad (Marvel's Elektra and Witches) and colorist Laura Martin (Astonishing X-Men and The Ultimates) paint a rough and wild world of adventure across a strange and dangerous universe, in this not-to-be-missed tale straight from the brain of pop-culture mastermind Joss Whedon!

Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Paperback: 104 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse; illustrated edition edition (February 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593074492
• ISBN-13: 978-1593074494
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (103 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,274 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

327 of 356 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Hard even for a Browncoat to enjoy, February 6, 2006

By	Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Well, I unfortunately have to add my negative review to the other disappointed FIREFLY/SERENITY/Whedon fans below. Like many of the others reviewing here, I am a huge fan of both the series FIREFLY and the film SERENITY, so I was eager to enjoy a new adventure of Mal and his crew. I ordered this with great excitement and finished it with considerable sadness. I had hoped that this might equal in quality some of Whedon's other projects on Dark Horse, but this was easily one of the weakest. The problem isn't the artwork. It is gorgeous to look at and the characters all look quite like the real life models (not that that is a necessary measure of quality). The problem was the utterly uninspiring story.

Here is my suspicion: I'm guessing that the novel partly arose from an unfilmed, partially scripted episode from the television series, and a not terribly good episode at that. Many of the scenes seem to merely mimic scenes to be found in the series and the film, while the scenes that are completely original simply aren't very inspired. The story is also very unbalanced. If you read writing guides on how to write a TV script or a film script or a short story one rule of thumb is that a script needs to have three to five acts (depending on the writing coach). This graphic story feels as if Act One takes up the first two thirds of the book, with too little space devoted to the climax, and an act or two missing. To be honest, it doesn't feel like a completed story at all.

So does the book have any redeeming values? As I stated above, it is a well-drawn story. The problem is entirely the story, not the art. Storywise, it does provide some filler between the end of the series and before the start of the action in the movie. That is not a small thing, but the problem is that there just isn't much of a story. In fact, the whole thing feels more like an outline of a story rather than a story.

Do I recommend this to fellow Browncoats? I guess I don't. Now, if someone had told me not to get it, I would probably have ignored him or her and gotten it anyway, so I won't blame any FIREFLY fan wanting this as well. But while the series and the movie are things I treasure, this is a story I may never look at again. So while I don't recommend it, any real fan of the show is going to want to own it. Then we can all be disappointed together while we await word as to whether the DVD sales of the movie will be sufficient to bring about a made for TV movie or mini-series.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A useful bridge, February 2, 2006

By	K. Watson "Browncoat Librarian" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This graphic novel serves as a useful bridge between the final episode of "Firefly" and the film "Serenity." As a Browncoat, I've found it especially useful for showing new fans of the series because it answers the questions that they'd have from the last episode and the film (which starts everyone off on a different note than they were left in the show). For instance: "When and why did Book leave the ship?" This book isn't going to take the place of the television show for the fans that want to see our Big Damn Heroes played by the actors themselves, but it serves as the final episode that they were never able to make.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Perfect filler between TV series and movie, August 23, 2006

By	Philip W. Allen (Murphy, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Quick admission: I'm a huge fan of the Firefly TV series and "Serenity". I think both were horribly underappreciated, and can't understand why they weren't more successful.

This graphic novel was penned by Joss Whedon, so the dialog, tone, and timing are dead on. In many ways, reading Serenity: Those Left Behind is like watching an unaired episode of the TV show. The story deals with the events that take place after the final episode of Firefly: Objects in Space, but before the movie. All of the Serenity crew are in fine form, and even several characters from past episodes show up.

The only reason I can't give this book a 5 is the art. I'm not a big fan of the artist. While I can definitely understand the difficulty of drawing a comic based on real people, I've seen better.

All in all, a great story, and a must-have for all Firefly/Serenity fans!