Trade Tales! - Serenity: A Shepard's Tale

Next up for the month is a return to the Firefly franchise. Outside of the TV show and movie, I haven’t ingested other Firefly material. I think part of it just has to do with the fact that I got other stuff to do. It is out there if you look. There are novels, Dark Horse Comics has had the license to do stories with most of Joss Whedon’s properties and Firefly is one of them. Whedon’s even been involved with a few. I ended up coming across this somewhere and something about it really struck my fancy: Shepard Book.

Derrial Book (played by the late Ron Glass) was the Serenity’s holy man. He’s a Shepard which is a priest or pastor in the Firefly universe. While he was a man of God, he seemed to do well with the pretty shady crew of the Serenity. Even he had some shades himself especially if you remember his little moment with “kneecaps.” We never found out more since the show got cancelled. When he was brought back for a bit in the movie, he met an unfortunate end. Since he was pretty popular, the Whedons (Joss and Zack) decided to do a graphic novel surrounding his origins.

Serenity: A Shepard’s Tale was released in 2010. Joss provided the plot while Zack handled the story and dialogue. Chris Samnee, who I know from his run on Daredevil, handled the artwork. The colors were done by Dave Stewart. The letterer was Michael Haesler. Finally, the awesome cover art was done by Steve Morris. So, what did this Shepard get up to in his youth?

SYNOPSIS

The story is pretty much all about Shepard Book’s past. We start out during the events of the movie, Serenity. He’s in the movie but he relocated to a mining colony on the planet, Haven. We then see what led to his death. The Alliance attack the colony (looking for River Tam and the Serenity) and Book does his best to protect the miners. He’s even able to shoot down the attacking gunship. Unfortunately, he’s gravely injured. As he begins to slip away, he starts to reminisce on his life.

What is up with that shirt on Jayne?

After this, we pretty much get a series of memories from his past. We end up going backwards in time, and that was a change of pace.  We get a bit of the familiar with a memory from his time on the Serenity. We even see when he first left Southdown Abbey and found Kaylee in the first episode. After this, we start to see unknown memories. We see him as a straggler getting roughed up and eventually finding the abbey he eventually calls home. We also find out something only hinted at on the show:  he was once a part of the Alliance.

We then flashback six years earlier where he was an officer in the Alliance. This was during the Alliance/Browncoat war that Mal and Zoe once fought in. He apparently botched an operation that caused the I.A.V. Alexander to get captured. He was then stripped of his rank and thrown into an escape pod. He ends up landing on a planet somewhere bruised and bloody. Our next memory comes a few years before the incident with the Alexander. He saw that he was an up and coming officer in the Alliance and that he was pretty ruthless with interrogating prisoners.

We then find out in another flashback that he wasn’t always this way with the Alliance. It turns out that he was an undercover agent for the Browncoats. He even got a new cybernetic eye that sent back information on the Alliance’s plans. We also find out that Book isn’t his real name. He actually killed a random man on the street and took his identity. His real name is Henry Evans. We then flash back to a time before he joined the Browncoats. He was a criminal and he saw them as a way to get out of that life. Our final flashback is of him running away from home  as a young boy. He leaves his abusive home and goes out to forge his own life.

OPINION

So, what do I think of this pretty sparse GN? I thought that was good for the most part. There is a lot to like about it, but it has some issues. First off, it was cool to see what Book’s (or Henry’s) origins were. He was a character that was shrouded in some mystery. All we really knew of him was his devotion to God and a few other things. Outside of knowing he has no problem with shooting kneecaps, I don’t think any of the crew would’ve expected this… well, maybe Mal would’ve expected it. It was also interesting to see how he developed into the man we met on the show. I especially liked how the memories were placed by showing us the familiar before going into the unknown stuff.

The artwork is fine for the most part. While I do like Chris Samnee’s work on Daredevil, it’s fine here. He tries to get the likenesses down but he adds his own flair to it. He does provide some nice scenes like when Book “found God in a bowl.” The action we got was pretty nice as well. It’s not bad artwork, but it could’ve popped a little more for me. Also, I was wondering what was up with Book’s looks in one of his flashbacks. He had those braids looking too tight! Black hair doesn’t do that! That’s just a nitpick, though.

As for the dislikes, there’s really just one big thing: I just wish we got more. With it being a graphic novel, you kind of have free reign to do what you want. With all the stuff he’s seemed to have done, it could’ve been longer than what it was. Maybe the Whedons didn’t have the time or the space to really spread this out. Other than that and some spotty art, this was good. It’s definitely for the Firefly fans.

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In the end, this Shepard’s story was a nice one to read. While I’m not ready to jump back into the Firefly universe, this has given me a bit of an interest to check the rest of Dark Horse’s stuff out. Well, I’m outta here. Peace, God bless, and be careful out there. Oh yeah, the GN did miss one memory: the time where Book accosted Carl Winslow from Family Matters.