No Power in the Verse - New 6 Issue Comic Series
POSTED BY: ecgordon
UPDATED: Saturday, September 16, 2017 08:53
VIEWED: 31351
PAGE 6 of 9
I was wondering about that myself. Nothing like waiting a month to find out... *sigh
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I like small details, like the same t-shirt Jayne wore in OiS:
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I love these characters and so desperately want to be back in that world, but the comic book isn't quite working for me. Part of it is that I don't think characters are being written consistently with the show, but part of it is also that there are in-Verse reasons for making it challenging for the authors to be spiritually true to the series.
These are what I see as the major obstacles for the writers:
1. Some things are sacred. When Joss Whedon was creating Firefly, the audience had no expectations. He had the freedom to take the story wherever he wanted (Fox execs aside). If the series had continued on, we probably would have seen some story lines not just develop but totally change directions. Looking at Buffy for comparison, Angel was clearly originally written to be the the major love interest but for most of the show, he's a minor side note. Xander likes Buffy. Then Cordelia. Then briefly Willow. Then Anya. In Firefly, we kind of hold sacred relationships as they were when the show ended. Or look at Willow's arc, where she becomes the major villain for a season. Would we accept that kind of character shift in the comics? I'm not so sure.
2. Loss of major characters. Wash and Book are part of what made Firefly Firefly. We love that family, and part of it is gone now. I think their voices were crucial to the ensemble, which leaves the comic book writers with a hell of a vacuum.
3. Tonal shift. Joss Whedon wrote this about Firefly: "I wanted to play with that classic notion of the frontier: not the people who made history, but the people history stepped on --the people for whom every act is the creation of civilization. Then again, there's also gunfights and action." The tone of the TV show (and early movie to some extent) is a found family trying to scrape by. When Joss wrote the movie, he clearly felt the need to shift tones to something more "cinematic." Their story changes in scope so that they're now integral to an event that affects the entire verse, basically the exact opposite of the original concept of the series. It has to be tough for the authors to honor the series while still dealing with the events of the movie.
Here is where I think the writing could use some work:
1. Minimal wit. The series is so insanely quotable. Dialogue is quick, clever, and impactful. There is very little in the comic books that I think is on the same level. I recently read Astonishing X-Men (Joss Whedon's run), and to me it felt so much more like Firefly dialogue.
2. Loss of character voice. To me, it feels a little like the writers don't totally understand the characters, especially River and Jayne. In the show, Jayne is pretty menacing. From the very first episode, we're worried he's going to turn on the captain. We learn he turned on Stitch in Jaynestown. He turned on Marco in Out of Gas.. He turns on River and Simon in Ariel. We're still supposed to love him, but if he's written as just a crude but sweet guy, I think part of his character is missing. And I get that River is especially hard to write, but this dialogue just doesn't sound like her voice at all to me. In this last issue, River says, "Let me go. Whatever you're doing here has nothing to do with me." I just can't hear Summer Glau as River saying those words.
3. Not a family. I love Joss as an ensemble writer, and I think he used that gift to create a great sense of found family in Firefly. In general, I feel like the comics are doing a really solid job of showing where that's been lost. I loved the scene where Jayne is seeing Book's ghost. Zoe clearly misses Wash. But I feel like we're not getting any sense of where it's still there. The scenes in Firefly where they're playing that basketball type game, or sharing stories about the natty thing, or eating apples that Jayne bought, or playing tall card, or just otherwise hanging out being a fam
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Oh! And yes, MUTT999, I thought the same thing about Iris maybe hitting on Kaylee.
I can't think of anything definitive in the show, but I think Kaylee probably wasn't written to be bi. She seems fairly open about sex (she didn't seem shy when talking about vibrators on Beaumonde or when caught having sex in the engine room or when saying "Have great sex!" to Inara), and I think someone who is comfortable talking about sex is more likely (though I suppose not guaranteed) to have a good handle on their orientation. Her reaction to the Councilor (in War Stories) being a woman reads to me like a heterosexual person from a heteronormative culture to whom it hadn't occurred Inara's client might be female.
So nothing concrete. And I'd be happy to see better representations of other orientations in the Verse. But I think it would be a break from character.
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Quote:What is missing in Jayne is his greediness. Until this comic, you could get Jayne to do anything for money. He was the guy who put the “me” in mercenary.
Originally posted by Mudd:
2. Loss of character voice. To me, it feels a little like the writers don't totally understand the characters, especially River and Jayne. In the show, Jayne is pretty menacing. From the very first episode, we're worried he's going to turn on the captain. We learn he turned on Stitch in Jaynestown. He turned on Marco in Out of Gas.. He turns on River and Simon in Ariel. We're still supposed to love him, but if he's written as just a crude but sweet guy, I think part of his character is missing.
Bea understood Jayne. A suitcase full of cash made Jayne want to help Bea find Mal in Leaves on the Wind in 2014. Now it is 2016 and nobody is paying Jayne. I do not understand why Jayne remains on Serenity.
The Jayne I am familiar with would leave when the money was gone in 2014. But in 2016, Bea is not paying Jayne. Neither is Mal. Somebody has taken our self-interested Jayne away and replaced him with a kinder, gentler Jayne who is no longer motivated solely by money. It must have happened between the end of one comic in 2014 and the beginning of the next in 2016. But how did it happen? I want the old, greedy Jayne back!
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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So, as to this red haired companion. Someone on another site thinks it's Ceres, the companion mentioned in issue #1. Inara's rival. Makes sense:
(panel from current issue)
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Second:
Exactly. I'd be okay with that being Jayne's arc. I think he was going to have to eventually realize the crew was family or he was going to turn on them. I like that either could work for me. I genuinely didn't know which way he'd go. But we needed to see how we got there. I kind of feel the same about Mal and Inara. The movie ends with them on the verge of an important moment, and then we jump over it to them being together.
Mutt:
That does make sense. Clearly we need to get back to Ceres at some point. But the comics have also been good about bringing back characters from the series. I feel like YoSaffBridge is too much of a fan favorite to not bring back eventually. Maybe Ceres has info on her? Out of curiosity, what's the other site?
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Damn! How did I miss this?
Doctor Who #4!!
Found this on Reddit, posted by Nerrolken.
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Whedonesque tweeted about that! Apparently the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler appeared in Buffy Season 8 #6.
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