Created By: Joss Whedon
Written By: Greg Pak
Illustrated By: Dan McDaid (with inks by Vincenzo Federici pages 28-34)
Colored By: Marcelo Costa
Lettered By: Jim Campbell
Covers By: Nimit Malavia, Christian Ward & Caitlyn Yarsky
Publisher: Boom! Studios
Available: September 30, $3.99
“R2-D2, you know better than to trust a strange computer.”
Mal Reynolds is settling in to his new job as sheriff of the entire Georgia space sector in his own inimitable style. Valuing the wide(ish) open sky and the wherewithal to assert his more reasonable brand of frontier justice, the former captain of the smuggling ship Serenity is finding his groove—while his former crew find their own groove in a…less strictly legal capacity.
Blue Sun Corp’s engineers, however, have their own ideas…
Available tomorrow from Boom! Studios is the double-length Firefly: Blue Sun Rising one-shot. Set between Firefly numbers 20 and 21, Blue Sun examines Mal Reynolds in his new role as Sheriff, and Blue Sun Corporation’s increasingly aggressive involvement in local governance.
Having found his groove, Mal discovers fairly early into the job that he’s already on the fast track to replacement by his own partner…a shiny new robot. A clunky, poorly-adapted, socially inept robot relying on AI that seems programmed with a Commodore 64. No big, right?
Yeah well, turns out Blue Sun’s a bit more sinister than that…
Greg Pak and Boom! Studios continue to expand and develop the Firefly universe and mythology, and Blue Sun Rising offers an excellent sidebar/segue into a new direction for the Big Damn Heroes…as well as a growing, sinister, Alliance-esque big bad without all the happy shiny responsible government sparkly bits. Pak continues to maintain the voices and personalities of the core characters, while integrating a host of new friends, foils and fiends. And a fun plot to boot.
McDaid’s linework does a yeoman’s job presenting the characters in a recognizable fashion to us persnickety fans of the source material, though in a more stylized manner than the original Georges Jeanty renderings of the early iterations of the comic. His style generally works well in capturing the characters themselves but also the vasty expanse of the Firefly universe, the melded sci-fi/western mashup at the series’ core.
Aiding in that work is Marcelo Costa’s colors, which offer us the full range of the Firefly experience, highlighting the high tech of the ships and ‘bots as well as the dusty glare of the Boros skyline.
Jim Campbell gets to play a little bit with the lettering in Blue Sun Rising, with no shortage of varying sound effects to integrate into McDaid’s art. The characters’ dialogue is clear and flowing, and is blended seamlessly into McDaid and Costa’s work, offering strong flow to the book as a whole.
If you haven’t stayed abreast of the ongoing exploits of Mal and his merry band of misfits, Blue Sun Rising would be a good rejoinder point (or even a nice launch point if—GASP!!!—you’re unfamiliar with the property altogether).
So, giddy on up to your local LCS or log on to Amazon or ComiXology and treat yourself to this double-sized bonanza of trouble!
11/13
Review by Andy Patch
Contributing Editor, thePullbox.com
