So, Joss Whedon’s TV-to-movie bridging mini series, SERENITY wrapped up this week, and it’s kind of a mixed bag. If you’re picking this series up without ever having watched “Firefly,” then I imagine some aspects of the story are somewhat confusing. The characters and their various relationships and personal quirks were all established over the course of 13 episodes of television, and there’s really nothing more than the most basic exposition in the book to bring newcomers up to speed. To be fair, nothing is so convoluted that one would be lost if they hadn’t seen the show, but most of the “big events” that take place in the comic definitely wouldn’t seem like much to the uninitiated, and I’m willling to bet that some of them probably wouldn’t register to the non-fan at all.

But is this really a problem? Even as a “failed” series (and I use the term “failed” loosely), “Firefly” has more fans and viewers per week than any single comic book does today. If one makes the likely presumption that 90% of the people that picked the comic up in the first place are already Whedon fans, then my entire opening paragraph is full of moot points.

And for those fans, SERENITY accomplishes it’s goals quite nicely. All of the show’s regulars and a few other recurring characters are accounted for, with some of the regulars actually seeing some genuine character/story progression. This, especially, was a bit of a pleasant surprise for me. I expected more of a Jay and Silent Bob sort of deal here, where we saw everyone get from point A to point B without actually changing or affecting the status quo at all. In giving the characters room to grow rather than artificially forcing them to stay in developmental stasis, Whedon and co-writer Brett Matthews actually manage to make this little story necessary reading for “Firefly’s” rabid fanbase.

Artwise, the books are strong as well. The action scenes are a little bit stiff at times, but whenever you’re dealing with likenesses of real people, this tends to happen. Still, for the most part Will Conrad manages to pull it off, maintaining remarkable consistency with both character and vehicle models from panel to panel, much less page to page. Sometimes the storytelling gets a little choppy, but that probably has as much to do with the script as anythnig else. You get the feeling from time to time that this may have originally been written as a TV episode and retrofitted into a comic instead.

Conrad’s artwork is ably enhanced by Laura Martin’s colors which add to the overall positive look of the comic. The use of color to set mood, flashbacks, etc. is as important a storytelling tool here as it was in the TV episodes, and Martin’s one of a handful of colorists working today that I feel is able to effectively execute this sort of direction. The book takes on a painted look at times, and is consistently beautiful to look at with the shot of Serenity going into full-on firefly mode being exceptionally striking.

Ultimately SERENITY is what it is. It’s a story that exists to ease the transition of the characters from the small screen to the big. What’s nice about it is, as I said previously, there’s an actual sense of importance to the events and happenings in the book. Whedon and crew could have easily treated this mini as a cash grab, telling a story that, while entertaining, really had nothing to do other than fill some space between the “real” stories. Luckily for the fans, there’s no milking of the cash cow here. Rather, SERENITY smooths the transition from one medium to another via a third, while making none of them feel less important than any of the others.

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