A review by catsobvi
Better Days by Brett Matthews, Joss Whedon
3.0
I'm happy for any excuse to visit this universe, so I found this mostly enjoyable. The dialogue and often the art are both true to the characters. The story would make a passable Firefly episode. I enjoyed seeing the crew's fantasies about what they would do with their riches. Especially River's & Shepherd Book's. Though there was little character development (it's a Serenity prequel, but we could flesh them out a bit, right?), I appreciated Inara's ever-perceptive observation at the end about Mal letting their stash get stolen because, while everyone else might move on and actually do other things with their lives, Mal was doing what he wanted with his, and he didn't want things changing.
However, the story was underdeveloped and crammed full of stuff. I was confused by what exactly was happening on more than one occasion. The art work and organization were not very clear. I had to look back over some things a couple times to get what was happening. The characters felt underused, if that makes sense. Outside of being conduits for the action and sharing their wealthy fantasies, they didn't do anything. Did River even speak at all? And it seemed like some events (Simon & Inara's business arrangement?) came out of left field and were never explained.
Better Days didn't advance the characters or the mythology. It didn't really add anything to what we have. But it had a few shining moments and was a decent way to pass half an hour.
However, the story was underdeveloped and crammed full of stuff. I was confused by what exactly was happening on more than one occasion. The art work and organization were not very clear. I had to look back over some things a couple times to get what was happening. The characters felt underused, if that makes sense. Outside of being conduits for the action and sharing their wealthy fantasies, they didn't do anything. Did River even speak at all? And it seemed like some events (Simon & Inara's business arrangement?) came out of left field and were never explained.
Better Days didn't advance the characters or the mythology. It didn't really add anything to what we have. But it had a few shining moments and was a decent way to pass half an hour.