Serenity, Volume 2: Better Days

Better Days is the second and most recent comic series released in the Firefly universe, taking place before the first, and telling more of a stand-alone story. It feels more or less like a normal episode of the series, as it should being penned by two of its writers. It's a little bloodier than the show, but you can get away with that on paper. Conrad's art is on the same attractive level, and the story rushes by pretty quickly, again leaving it feeling a bit too short. It's a fun heist story with a few detours and connections to things like the war and a few more hints at an obscure subplot with Inara, making it feel a little meatier than it would have been. It's another situation where it's really just some more laughs and excitement for fans of the series, although it's probably friendlier to new people than the first volume. There's a third series supposedly coming soon that will finally reveal Book's backstory, and that's something I'm very interested in reading.

Serenity, Volume 1: Those Left Behind

Having recently watched Firefly again and finding it remains one of my favorite series ever despite its tragic brevity, I decided to read the comics based in the universe, the first volume of which ties directly into the Serenity film which ends the story. The trade paperbacks are a bit thin for my tastes, but they do provide some solid content at any rate. Brett Matthews has worked with Whedon on a bunch of his stuff, and wrote the script for this himself, although they both made the story. It should probably only be read by people already familiar with the characters and setting, and I could see it working as either a preview to the movie or a way to fill in some gaps after seeing it.

The comic itself basically plays like an episode of the series, with some decent action scenes and returning familiar faces to accompany the standard plot and uniquely flavored dialogue. The art by Will Conrad is pretty good too. He doesn't perfectly nail all the actors' faces, but they're fully recognizable, and he can handle the different demands of a unique western/sci-fi hybrid setting like Firefly's pretty well. The color work really helps everything pop, too. It's a little too short to be a really meaty story and would only be an average episode (although the standard for a Firefly episode is very high), but definitely worth checking out for fans.