It’s New Comic Book Day, and Dark Horse seems to release everything at once, so naturally, all our reviews come out at once.  Today, the last installment of Serenity: Leaves on the Wind releases and keeping things spoiler-free, here’s what I have to say:

Aw, comic, no.

I’m not going into the substandard art again, but if there’s been one thing I have enjoyed about this series, it’s been the writing–until now.  And I understand that this comic is setting up for whatever the next Serenity comic mini-series is going to be, but the end of this comic very, very quickly took a turn for both 1) a (second) rehash of an old plotline and 2) a WTF spin on the level of Buffy Season Eight.

If you’ve bought the other five comics in the mini-series, buy this one to complete the set.  But if the next mini-series continues off this arc, rather than telling stories like The Shepherd’s Tale or Better Days, I’d be just a little bit wary of investing money in it.

Action!  Action action action action action!  For all the set-up in Serenity #4, Serenity #5 is all action, and yes, you will need to go back and read the previous issue to catch up and understand exactly what is happening in this issue, because there is so much action switching between enough perspectives that it takes a read or two to figure things out.

Basically, though, this is where the excrement meets the cooling machinery.  The crew (plus the Operative) has gone to rescue the other River-like girls, only to discover that they’ve been completely brainwashed, leaving River to fight them.  And everything goes nuts here, until the end, when there’s a horrible realization that what’s left of the Browncoat resistance are those left on Serenity–because the Alliance has used all of this as a trap.

But Malcolm Reynolds has one thing he has left to do–and that’s to save Zoe.  And he’s going to do whatever it takes.

Art – cue my normal complaints and my normal WOW about the cover.  Writing – not up to its usual standards here, but that’s because this is action action OMG all the action.  Still, comic writers are responsible, in part, for laying out the pages and the panels and what’s happening in them, and this was the first time I really wasn’t all that impressed.  Still, overall, it’s a good story, and I’m not sure how all the ends are going to get tied up in one issue next month.