Shiny, indeed!

I don't care, I'm still free...

Despite Fox' best efforts I watched Firefly in 2002, when it first aired, in its weird anarchic order.  I bought the dvd box set basically as soon as it was released.  I dragged every friend I had to see Serenity in theatres, on multiple occasions.  I own both the regularly and collector's edition of Serenity.  I've read Those Left Behind, and Better Days, and The Shepherd's Tale.  I even know what Inara's secret needle kit was going to be.

So you can only imagine how thrilled I am by this announcement:

"Dark Horse Comics has provided some sustenance to the space-western-starved fans with several short stories exploring the characters', but when it came to the further adventures of the crew of Serenity, Browncoats have been forced to rely on their own imaginations. 

This will all soon change, however, once Dark Horse sets out on a new adventure with Mal, River, Wash, Zoë and the rest. Following the model established with its "Buffy" line of books, the "Serenity" series will pick up where the 2005 film ended, and, as revealed exclusively to CBR News, will feature "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" artist Georges Jeanty."

I was burned enough by the last two seasons of Buffy that I never bothered to look up the Season 8 comics, but by all accounts they've done some solid work.  Angel: After the Fall, however, was excellent, taking the purposefully-unresolved ending of the series and going in a pretty interesting direction with it, taking full advantage of the fact that they no longer needed to worry about SFX budgets, unconvincing effects or requiring huge casts and special guest starts and stuntmen.  The track record for Whedon properties adapted into comics is pretty reassuring so far, and I'm more than willing to give Dark Horse the benefit of the doubt.

Heck, let's be honest.  Even if there was only a small chance of this being good, I'd still be psyched.  Serenity was a pretty great movie, but it was at least as much set-up for the future as actually a complete tale in itself, and I cannot wait to find out just what the future is.  Will the Alliance give up hunting River, after all?  Or has Mal simply put Serenity onto even more government radar screens?  Will the Operative's murdering of all their contacts continue to haunt the crew's attempts to do business?  And just how much less crazy is River, after all?  Did expelling the Miranda secret bring her back towards borderline, or was it just a temporary reprieve at the end of the film, and she's still seeing guns as sticks and refusing to wear shoes?

My only real concern is Simon and Kaylee.  Joss put them together in Serenity because I think he knew that might well be his last kick at that particular universe's can, but in an ongoing series, are they going to fall prey to his silly 'happy couples can't be interesting' phobia?

Run, Nathan!  Run and never look back!

Well, I guess we'll just have to wait until Serenity re-launches, a date that has not yet been announced, to find out...