I feel like I’m starting to become a broken record.  Great writing, beautiful cover….really, really crappy art.

Let me go back a second.  I think Georges Jeanty can produce nice art–and anyone who opens this comic and takes a look at the last page will see what I mean.  But I’m remembering what Christina Strain (who colored Spiderman loves Mary Jane) told me once–in comic books, you have to be at least two out of three: you have to be nice, you have to be good, and you have to be fast.  My guess is that Jeanty is a really nice person and he’s really fast–if you want him to be really good, he has to slow down.  Like I said, the last page is very well done, but the rest?  Not so much.

There are a couple of surprises in the writing here.  It’s less so with the plot–it’s a bit predictable.  Zoe’s been captured, and River’s been delving into her own brain for more Alliance secrets that might help them out.  The predictability isn’t what River finds, but where Mal turns for help.

One point in this comic really surprised me, though.  Readers of issue #2 know that Jubal Early had found his way back to the ship.  But Kaylee’s method of dealing with Early took me aback a bit.  We all know that Miranda changed everyone on the entire crew, but for some reason, I think, I always believed that Kaylee’s innocence remained essentially intact. To see Kaylee take a turn toward the cynical and bitter shows, better than anything else, just how serious matters are, and it’s enough to leave Firefly fans more than just a little apprehensive about where the story’s going to go next.