Malcolm Reynolds

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Serenity Under the Stars: How Browncoats Held a Charity Screening During a Global Pandemic

Posted by Chris Tobias on April 24, 2021
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(The following was written for Can’t Stop the Serenity at the request of CSTS Global Chair Matt Black in order to provide global event organizers with ideas for holding events during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Since I felt it might be of interest to Browncoats in general, I’ve decided to publish it here as well.)

image courtesy cantstoptheserenity.com

Not even a global pandemic could stop the Rivers & Bridges Brigade of the PA Browncoats from holding Pittsburgh’s 15th annual Can’t Stop the Serenity charity screening!

The Steel City’s 15th annual CSTS charity screening of Serenity was scheduled to take place in early July of 2020 at the Parkway Theater in McKees Rocks, PA, where we had held a successful event in 2019.  We had reserved the bar and movie theater for a Sunday matinee screening, but as the COVID-19 pandemic forced more and more shutdowns across the state, it became increasingly apparent that we were not going to be able to hold our event as we had planned it.

Our city has held a CSTS screening every year since the event’s inception in 2006, and global pandemic or not, as the current cap’n I was not keen on the idea of having Pittsburgh’s streak of CSTS events end on my watch.  A Zoom meeting was organized in late April, and the seven regular members of our CSTS Pittsburgh planning committee (a.k.a. “the crew”) met to discuss whether or not we could hold an event safely, and if so, what changes would have to be made in order to do so.

The crew expressed their concerns that the venue would not allow for social distancing, and even if we were able to enforce social distancing and mask regulations, the reduced capacity of the theater would not allow for a large enough crowd to bring in any real sizeable donation for Equality Now.  In addition, the Firefly- and Serenity-themed carnival-style games that had become a tradition at our events would only encourage attendees to gather in groups and pass game pieces like dice and rings from one person to another, which was definitely not sanitary given the situation.  It didn’t take long before we determined we were going to have to cancel the event as it was scheduled and look for other options.

Our first thought was a drive-in theater, but the vast majority of area drive-ins weren’t that close to the city, and most of them were still closed anyway, with no clear reopening date.  On top of that, word had begun to circulate that drive-ins were going to be considered as an alternative during the lockdown period not only for movies, but also for live events like concerts and comedy shows, and the feeling was that any drive-in that was open would not be willing to rent us space at a rate we could afford.

That’s when we came upon the idea of an outdoor screening in one of the county’s parks.  An outdoor screening had its advantages.  Social distancing would be much easier, and the general consensus of health experts was that outdoor gatherings were intrinsically safer than indoor ones anyway.  We also quickly discovered that renting a grove in one of Allegheny County’s parks would cost only a fraction of our regular rental fee at the Parkway Theater.  This was important because we really couldn’t be sure what kind of attendance we would have, and reducing the event’s overhead would serve to increase the amount that we’d be able to donate to charity (and mitigate any potential losses) in a year in which attendance and donations might be down.  Our CSTS Pittsburgh events had been held in the South Hills of Pittsburgh since 2013, so we decided that we would reserve a grove in Allegheny County’s South Park to serve as 2020’s alternate screening site.  My youngest brother Michael, who lives in South Park Township and has been on my crew for as long as we’ve been organizing CSTS events, agreed to scout locations for us, and we were eventually able to find a grove that was adjacent to a field where attendees could watch the film on blankets or lawn chairs and have plenty of personal space.  We reserved the facility for Saturday evening, September 5.

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Boom! Studios’ “Firefly: Brand New ‘Verse” Foreshadows Everything That Could Go Wrong with a “Firefly” Reboot

Posted by Chris Tobias on March 29, 2021
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by Chris Tobias

Last week Boom! Studios debuted a new Firefly spinoff series, Firefly: Brand New ‘Verse. Issue number one was written by Josh Lee Gordon, with pencils by Fabiana Mascolo and colors by Lucia DiGiamarino. The story in this ongoing comic picks up 20 years after the events of the original Firefly TV series and the motion picture Serenity, and while it may feature the same beloved ship and include a couple of the characters fans have come to know and love, harcore Browncoats may find it difficult to accept that this is where Serenity’s journey is destined to lead.

Firefly: Brand New ‘Verse #1 cover art (image: Boom! Studios)

In this new tale, Serenity has a new captain, none other than Zoe Washburne, who is now repeatedly referred to as Zoe Alleyne Washburne for some reason (even though she never felt the need to emphasize her maiden name in any of the original episodes of Firefly or the movie Serenity). Zoe has a completely new crew, as none of the original cast of characters whose chemistry made Firefly so special is still aboard Serenity. Instead, the ship is now run by a crew of four, all of whom are persons of color. Emma Washburne, daughter of Zoe and the late Hoban “Wash” Washburne, is Serenity’s new pilot/first mate, and her boyfriend, a young Asian man by the name of Lu Bao, serves as the ship’s mechanic. Rounding out the crew is Salo, a rather imposing fellow who speaks softly and likes to meditate yet still looks as if he could wield a big stick if he had to. Salo is no doubt meant to be an amalgam of Jayne Cobb and Shepherd Book, even though filling the shoes of just one of those two characters would be a gorram near impossible task.

From the onset, the story trots out every trope it can to make Browncoats feel at home– a ship in peril because of some mechanical failure, the humor and irony of a bickering crew frantically try to resolve the problem, disrespect for authority and an overbearing Alliance presence– all in the first nine pages of the book, as if the creative team wants to make sure it checks every box on the list and doesn’t forget anything.

The dialogue is a little too full of exposition and can at times be downright painful. Zoe and Emma refer to each other as “captain” and “first mate,” as if readers won’t be able to figure that out on their own, and the two characters spend most of the book bickering because Emma is upset that she’s not Serenity’s captain yet and she resents the fact that Zoe thinks she (and her boyfriend) still need looking after, while Zoe doesn’t think Emma takes her responsibilities to the ship and its crew seriously enough. The other two crew members spout out mostly throwaway lines, and Lu Bao’s contributions in particular make him sound like a clone of Kaylee Frye, albeit one that lacks her charm. When Inara Serra makes a brief appearance later in the story, even she reminds Zoe, “They call me priestess now.” I don’t recall Inara ever feeling the need to flaunt her status like that to any of the crew in the original series or film.

One positive aspect of the dialogue in Brand New ‘Verse that is lacking in Boom! Studios’ main ongoing Firefly comics series is the inclusion of Chinese in the dialogue, but even here this book falls short in its execution. That is because the Chinese dialogue is written in actual Chinese characters, and is therefore indecipherable to anyone who is not fluent in Mandarin! For the life of me, I can’t figure out why Gordon didn’t use a phonetic spelling of the Chinese words instead, which would certainly have been more readable and also more familiar to fans who were used to hearing certain phrases in the show and the movie. While it is a small nod to authenticity to include the Chinese at all, doing so in the form of characters that are nothing but random symbols to most readers comes across as somewhat lazy writing, in my opinion.

The young Ms. Washburne does two very questionable things in this issue, the first of which is intended as the catalyst for an action sequence yet nonetheless borders on far-fetched stupidity, and a second that is meant to show her independent spirit and initiative but instead has the effect of making her a little less likeable. Neither of them really does anything to move the plot along, though the reader is led to believe that the second will affect the story in issues to come.

It is actually Inara who provides the intel that leads the crew to work (though it appears she blatantly violates the client-confidentiality rule of a companion in the process), and the job involves actual piracy– something we never saw Serenity’s original crew engage in during the TV series or the motion picture, although it was hinted at from time to time. Zoe and Salo sneak aboard a Blue Sun cargo hauler and steal a container of Blue Sun loot right from under the noses of the ship’s skeleton crew, but when they open the crate, they’re met by a surprise that’s more than they bargained for– a revelation that sets the stage for the second issue while at the same time borrowing a bit too much from a certain big reveal in the original TV series.

Overall, Brand New ‘Verse is a Firefly story with all of the trappings but none of the charm of the original source material. Unlike Boom! Studios’ recent original graphic novel Firefly: Watch How I Soar or the series of original Firefly novels from Titan Books, this story doesn’t really demonstrate a solid understanding of the characters on the part of the writer, and what’s more, there never seems to be any real attempt to address the elephant in the room– why Zoe is the only original member of the crew who is still aboard Serenity.

Browncoats know what happened to Wash and Shepherd Book, and we see Inara at a companion house in the story, but what about Mal, Kaylee, Simon, River and Jayne? It is particularly difficult to believe that Captain Malcolm Reynolds would ever leave his ship willingly, and Kaylee Frye also had a special relationship with Serenity. (She thinks of the ship as “her good girl,” after all). I honestly can’t see Kaylee or Mal ever willingly handing Serenity over to the care of anyone else. Can you? So where are they? Are these characters all dead? Mal is mentioned a couple of times in passing, but the others are never even given so much as a thought. And that’s a shame too, because as I read Brand New ‘Verse, I found myself missing the old Firefly ‘verse and its characters with every turn of the page, and I had to ask myself why I would want to spend $4.99 a month to read Firefly stories that won’t even include over two thirds of Serenity’s original crew.

The one bright spot is the artwork, which is some of the cleanest and most realistic of any Boom! Studios Firefly book to date. The cover art by Qistina Khalidah is especially shiny, and features a realistic painted image of the crew. (And if you’re willing to invest the coin and the time to track them down, there are several variant covers available in limited quantities that are even more gorgeous.)

When all is said and done though, I’m not sure what Boom! Studios meant to accomplish with this spinoff. Are they hedging their bets in case the day arrives when they feel they have no more stories to tell in the flagship Firefly series that takes place between the events of the TV series and the movie, or are they just trying to capitalize on the recent trendiness of “woke” pop culture? Personally, I hope they do not intend this series as an eventual replacement for their original ongoing Firefly series, because if the first issue is any indication, Brand New ‘Verse will likely find itself on the drift before too long. I can honestly say without hesitation that it is the most disappointing Firefly comic I have read, and it represents everything that could go wrong with a reboot of the original series if the wrong storyteller were allowed to slide into Serenity’s pilot’s seat. This Browncoat gives it a D-.

Firefly: Brand New ‘Verse #1 is currently available at your local comics shop. The cover price is $4.99.

(And speaking of local comics shops, I’d like to thank Impossible Dreams Comics in Bridgeville, PA for lending me a review copy of Firefly: Brand New ‘Verse #1. If you’re in the South Hills of Pittsburgh and looking to buy comics, please consider stopping at Impossible Dreams. They are a long-time supporter of Can’t Stop the Serenity Pittsburgh, and the owner, Lou Saut, has been a Browncoat since the days when Firefly was first on the air.)

Boom! Studios “Watch How I Soar” a Surprisingly Fitting Tribute to Serenity’s Pilot

Posted by Chris Tobias on March 24, 2021
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by Chris Tobias

I have a confession to make. When I sat down to read Watch How I Soar, the latest original Firefly graphic novel from Boom! Studios, I was expecting to be disappointed. The last Firefly OGN from the publisher, 2019’s The Sting, had fallen short on many levels as far as I was concerned, and lately I haven’t been too thrilled with the direction that the most recent story arcs in their ongoing Firefly comics series have gone either (a topic which I may choose to explore here in the near future). On top of that, the company had just announced a new ongoing comics series, Firefly: Brand New ‘Verse (set to debut next month) that appears to have jettisoned all of the original characters with the exception of Zoe, a move so implausible that it borders on blasphemous. There was a time when Joss Whedon would not allow any story about Serenity and her crew to appear anywhere in any medium without his personal approval, but whether it’s because of the recent controversy that has surrounded him or just simply because after nearly 16 years he is finally learning to let go, that is obviously not the case anymore.

That said, if you’re expecting to read a review about a self-fulfilling prophecy, you’ve got another thing coming! Firefly: Watch How I Soar is a collection of tales that properly reflect the character they spotlight– dynamic, at times whimsical, with plenty of quirky and intelligent humor and just a touch of philosophical melancholy– and all in all it is a very fitting tribute to Serenity’s pilot, Hoban “Wash” Washburne.

Cover Art from Firefly: Watch How I Soar (image: Boom! Studios)

My inner Browncoat got his first pleasant surprise on the contents page of the book, which is attractively adorned by a field of stars that gives way to the outline of an apatosaurus, a nod to Wash’s fondness for playing with toy dinosaurs on Serenity’s bridge (a character trait that is treated to its own origin story in one of the book’s six tales). On that page it is revealed that this OGN is not one long story, as The Sting was, but rather an anthology written by five different writers and illustrated by six different artists. (In fact, four of the six of the stories were also illustrated by their writers.)

The opening story, “Windfall” by Jeff Jensen (the only writer who contributes more than one story to this volume) is loaded with Easter eggs and references to the series and the movie. The story’s very premise seems to be a reference to the conversation Wash has with Zoe in the series’ pilot episode, in which he expresses a desire for some time alone with his wife away from Serenity and her crew and tries to sell Zoe on the idea of, “… you with the bathing… me with the watching you bathe.” The story oscillates between humor and morbid foreshadowing, and ties nicely to the final story in the book, which is also penned by Jensen.

The second tale, “The Land,” written and illustrated by Ethan Young, is an endearing tale about a young Wash and his travels with his father, Hoban Washburne, Sr., aboard a beat-up old ship called a “turkey.” When father and son are forced to land for some necessary but uncomfortably expensive repairs, young Wash passes the time exploring the town while his dad scrapes together the credits they need to get their boat fixed. This leads the boy to a place called “Dino World” that is part amusement park, part museum. And of course it is this experience that explains to the reader not only the origin of Wash’s fondness for dinosaurs, but also how the miniature dinos ended up on Serenity’s console and how the concept of “sudden but inevitable betrayal” became part of Wash’s lexicon.

This story segues cleverly into the third installment in the book, “Born for the Stars,” written and illustrated by Jared Cullum. It’s an action-packed tale that involves the Alliance and showcases Wash’s natural talent for flying, making it clear that he was already destined to be a hotshot pilot even before he attended flight school. I was delighted to learn in the author bios that Jared Cullum resides in my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA. I’ll be keeping my eyes open for an opportunity to have him autograph my copy of Watch How I Soar at a local convention once this pesky global pandemic is over.

“Take the Sky Away” is unique among the stories in this book in that it’s the only one that features a mustached Wash in his early days as Serenity’s pilot, before he and Zoe were a couple. The fourth tale in the collection, written and illustrated by Jorge Corona, has Wash returning to his homeworld to do a job with Serenity and her crew, although he is none too happy about it. It turns out the cargo he has to smuggle offworld in one of Serenity’s shuttles is actually the three daughters of the man who’s hired them (a fact that Wash discovers in a manner that is somewhat reminiscent of River’s unusual entrance at the end of the first hour of Firefly). With a combination of luck, fancy flying and sacrifice, Wash and his “cargo” are able to break atmo and rendezvous with Serenity, where Wash’s favorite view of the stars awaits.

Most of the stories in the book tend to focus on Wash and Zoe, with the other members of Serenity’s crew barely getting a glance, if they’re involved at all. The one exception is the fifth tale, “Home,” written and illustrated by Giannis Milonogiannis. This story finds Serenity being pursued by crew of bandits who are hellbent on “recruiting” Wash, whom they regard as the best pilot in the ‘verse– and they’ll do it by any means necessary. It’s the only story in which other crew members besides Wash and Zoe play significant roles (in this case Mal and Kaylee share in the adventure), and it also marks the only time in the book when the reader sees the majority of Serenity’s crew (minus Simon and Inara for some reason) together at all at once.

Jeff Jensen’s contributions bookend this volume, and the final story, “The Flight Lesson,” spins out of a comment that Wash made in Jensen’s earlier story that opened the book. It is what DC Comics used to call an “Elseworlds” tale, or one that takes place outside of the canon of the ‘verse. In this story, an older Wash and Zoe have retired and given up their life of crime. Wash is a charter seaplane pilot, and Zoe is a guide for mule treks. Wash decides to give his teenage daughter Emma a spaceflight lesson, and together they fly to Hera and visit the grave of Malcolm Reynolds, who in this version of reality was the one who didn’t survive Serenity’s exploits. Jensen, who covered Firefly when it was on the air for Entertainment Weekly magazine, mentions in his bio that he was actually inside Serenity and even sat in Wash’s chair. Perhaps that would explain, at least in part, why he is so “dialed in” as a writer to the essence of who these characters are. I am not usually a fan of “Elseworlds”-style stories, but I found this one touching nonetheless.

I’ve heard it said more than once since its release that the stories in Watch How I Soar are supposed to represent the final thoughts that fly through Wash’s mind in the moment of his death. (Spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen the motion picture Serenity— even though you’ve had 16 years to do it!) While that could easily be one interpretation, there is nothing in the OGN that specifically indicates that, and I choose not to assign such a morbid theme to this collection of tales. Instead, I prefer to look at the book as five stories that exist as snapshots in the life of Serenity’s beloved pilot… along with one vision of what could have been.

The volume is attractively bound with some shiny cover art and a backup preview of “Outlaw Ma Reynolds” from the trade paperback Firefly: New Sheriff in the ‘Verse Vol. 1, a collection that originally appeared as individual issues of the Firefly ongoing series.

In truth, there is not a whole lot about this book I didn’t like, but my biggest criticism would have to be the inconsistency of the artwork, which varies drastically in style from story to story and might seem a little rough at times to Browncoats who might have grown accustomed to the gorgeous painted realism of the artwork in Dark Horse Comics’ most recent Serenity comics and graphic novels. Another thing that tends to damage my calm is that much like Boom! Studios’ ongoing Firefly comics, this OGN also features very little Chinese, which will sometimes leave hardcore Browncoats with the feeling that there is something missing from the dialogue and cause it to feel slightly less genuine. It would also have been nice if the other members of Serenity’s crew would have appeared just a bit more often, but I’m willing to concede that this wasn’t supposed to be that kind of book.

Overall, this Browncoat gives Firefly: Watch How I Soar an A-, and I would say without hesitation that it is the best offering in the Firefly ‘verse from Boom! Studios to date. With the notable exception of the recent series of Firefly novels from Titan Books (I’ll be reviewing the latest one here soon), I have not enjoyed a new Firefly story this much in years, and I can only hope that there will be more collections like this one from Boom! Studios in the future.

(Firefly: Watch How I Soar is available from major booksellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, as well as many local comics shops, which this Browncoat would always recommend you support. The manufacturer’s suggested retail price is $19.99.)

Latest Release from Titan Books Is Perhaps the Best Firefly Novel Yet

Posted by Chris Tobias on December 29, 2020
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by Chris Tobias

Firefly: Generations is the fourth original Firefly novel from Titan Books, and the first by an author other than New York Times bestselling author James Lovegrove. For this novel, Titan called upon award-winning British horror and dark fantasy author Tim Lebbon, whose novelization of the film 30 Days of Night, along with three of his original works, also landed him on the New York Times bestseller list. Generations was originally scheduled to be the third Firefly novel to be released by Titan, but saw its publishing date pushed back for reasons that were never explained. For Browncoats, though, the wait was well worth it, as this latest tale of the adventures of Captain Malcolm Reynolds and the crew of Serenity is Titan’s best offering to date.

The cover of Titan Books’ Firefly: Generations (image: Amazon.com)

Generations begins as many Firefly episodes do, with the crew of Serenity desperate to find work. While in search of a job on one of the moons of the Outer Rim, Mal ends up in a card game in which he wins an old map covered in mysterious symbols. The map’s former owner insists it’s worthless, but when Mal brings the map aboard Serenity, River Tam is able to interpret it, and claims it will lead to one of the legendary ships that originally brought humans from Earth-That-Was to the ‘verse.

Knowing that the salvage potential alone is staggering, Mal and the crew can’t pass up the chance to find the ship. And find it they do, but when they approach the aged, floating hulk, they quickly discover that it is not the derelict it had initially appeared to be. Not only that, but the closer they get, the more agitated River becomes. She keeps saying that someone is on board, and that she and he are somehow connected.

Lebonn’s reputation as a horror writer might lead one to expect this novel to be a suspenseful thriller with a tone reminiscent of the Firefly episode “Bushwhacked.” But while there are definitely suspenseful moments, as well as more than a few creepy elements, readers might be pleasantly surprised to find the pages filled with action. Throughout the story, Mal and the crew find themselves “trading injuries” with local gun thugs on a border moon, security drones, Alliance soldiers, and even those mysterious Alliance agents who appear two by two with hands of blue.

Lebonn takes Browncoats closer to those enigmatic blue-gloved agents than they’ve ever been before, and he expands their role in the Firefly mythos in ways that are clever, innovative and unexpected. Fans who have always wanted to learn more about who these agents are and how they operate will probably be far more satisfied with their role in this tale than they were with what little was offered by Joss Whedon himself in the Dark Horse Comics series Serenity: Those Left Behind. (As with all of the Titan novels, Whedon is credited as the consulting editor of this book.)

Perhaps Lebonn’s greatest strength, though, is his understanding of the various members of Serenity’s crew and their individual voices. The dialogue in the novel sounds so similar to the original series that it’s almost uncanny, and the thoughts, actions and motivations of the crew are always consistent with what Browncoats have come to know from the series and the movie.

The plot doesn’t leave room for the full crew of nine, and very early in the novel Lebonn sends Inara and Shepherd Book away in one of Serenity’s shuttles– Inara to meet with a client and Book on an errand to try to generate a little bit of cash in a manner more befitting a shepherd. Fans who have read all of the Titan Books Firefly novels might find this a bit odd from a continuity standpoint, since the two had already left the crew more permanently in the previous novel, James Lovegrove’s The Ghost Machine, which was originally scheduled to be released after this one but ended up on bookstore shelves eight months earlier instead.

For the most part though, Generations is a page-turner that starts out interesting and gathers momentum with each passing chapter. There may not be any doubt as to the fate of our big damn heroes, since this story takes place pre-Serenity, but Lebonn’s deft handling of plot and skillful development of the ancillary characters he’s created still make the book very difficult to put down as the story progresses.

If there is a weak spot in this novel, it would have to be the way the story fits into the overall continuity of Firefly and Serenity. The events of this story, if taken as canon, would make it highly unlikely that Mal and the rest of the crew would still be as in the dark with regards to the full extent of River’s abilities as they seemed to be at the start of the motion picture Serenity. But then, both the Titan Books novels and the most recent Firefly comics published by Boom! Studios create a bit of a conundrum with regards to the continuity of the Firefly ‘verse just by virtue of the sheer volume of storytelling that is going on in what is supposed to be the period of time between the conclusion of the TV series and the start of the movie. At one point in the movie Serenity, Mal reminds Simon that he and River have been aboard the ship for eight months. That means that if they are to be regarded as canon, then all of the events of the TV series, the Boom! Studios comics and the Titan Books novels have to have taken place in a span of time that is less than or equal to eight months in duration. Given all of the events in these various stories, it’d be a minor miracle if the crew had time to eat or sleep, let alone have any “down time” between adventures!

After being starved for any additional stories from the ‘verse at all for years after Serenity’s release, we’ve now reached the point where Browncoats are literally inundated with Firefly stories and ultimately need to decide for themselves which ones they believe to be reasonable within the larger canon and which ones just make for entertaining yarns. (This may soon become even more necessary, as rumors of a more family-friendly, PG reboot of the Firefly series for the Disney+ platform have recently surfaced, much to the chagrin of many Browncoats, this one included.) As these stories go though, Browncoats would be hard-pressed to find better ones than the Titan Books Firefly novels, all of which read like lost episodes of the original series (and don’t need to be read in sequence like Boom! Studios’ ongoing comics series does). And of these novels, Generations has set a new standard. This Browncoat gives it an A+.

Firefly:  Generations has a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $24.95, and is available now from major booksellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The hardcover edition is packaged attractively, with shiny ‘verse-themed cover art on the dust cover and a built-in bookmark of a brownish color.

The next Firefly novel in Titan’s series, James Lovegrove’s Life Signs, is scheduled for release in March of 2021.

Third Firefly Novel from Titan Books Offers a Very Different Take on the ‘Verse Browncoats Know and Love

Posted by Chris Tobias on July 6, 2020
Posted in: Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

by Chris Tobias

Firefly:  The Ghost Machine is the third original Firefly novel from Titan Books, and the third by New York Times bestselling author James Lovegrove (The Age of Odin).  Much like Lovegrove’s previous two novels set in the Firefly ‘verse, 2018’s Big Damn Hero and 2019’s The Magnificent Nine, this latest effort reads for the most part like a lost episode of the series.  Unlike the previous two books, however, this novel takes a unique and somewhat bold approach in that the vast majority of the story takes place only in the unconscious minds of Serenity’s crew, in alternate realities of their own design.

ghost machine

image courtesy amazon.com

This story, which takes place after the events in Firefly but before the events of Serenity, begins as most tales of the ‘verse do.  Malcolm Reynolds and his crew (minus Shepherd Book and Inara Serra, who at this point have both already left the ship) are hired by Badger to retrieve illegal cargo from Canterbury and transport it to Persephone, where a buyer is waiting.  When the crew arrives at the rendezvous, Mal sees that the cargo is a flightcase stamped with the Blue Sun logo that likely contains Alliance-funded tech that was stolen from a nearby R&D facility, and decides to scrub the mission.  He and his crew are desperate, but not desperate enough to risk smuggling an item this hot out of an area that’s swarming with Alliance ships that are almost as keen to regain the stolen property as they are to find the two fugitives that have been hiding aboard Serenity for several months.

Unbeknownst to Mal, Jayne Cobb isn’t willing to pass on the potential payday, and sneaks the cargo aboard Serenity in the hopes of bringing it to Badger and securing the payment for himself.  When Jayne stows the case in a secret compartment in his cabin, however, its contents begin to have a strange effect on the crew.

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Charting a Course

Posted by Chris Tobias on June 29, 2020
Posted in: Articles, Launches. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

by Jeff Cunningham

When Chris and I hatched this harebrained scheme, we didn’t know if anyone else would hop on board. After all, no one had really noticed when the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011, who’s to say they’d notice us, a single voice in the void, let alone sign on with us?

To an extent, no one did — or at least, we didn’t get the reaction/following we’d sought: one last, grand Browncoat fan uprising like the one that showed Universal Studios that there was an audience for them to make a Serenity film. We kept at it, though, covering the launches in person when we could, going to any con that couldn’t keep us out and approaching people with the very weird proposition, even by comic-con standards, of getting involved in spaceflight advocacy.

I’d like to think that we succeeded in that way without intending to: informing the public about the goings on in the black. We’ll never know how many (or few) of the millions of people across the world who watched the live broadcast of the first  launch of astronauts aboard an independent spacecraft did so because of our efforts, but that’s okay. “Mission accomplished,” I say. And I do mean that. Yeah, it would have been shiny if the crew of the Dragon spacecraft had opted to name it Serenity, but it’s more important that people actually paid attention either way for a change.

I saw Behnken and Hurley’s broadcast on my phone while out on a quick shopping jaunt, which feels more like an excursion into a zombie-infested ruined city in the tense rush to get in, get the goods and get out while minimizing exposure in the age of COVID-19. In spite of that, when the cameras went live, I stopped in my tracks in the middle of the aisle. There was just something hauntingly… familiar, intimate. Their broadcast was more of a fireside chat, like the kind the Apollo crews used to do. The backlighting on the capsule walls was clearly designed to look like the soft lighting of an airliner cabin, and looked all the more “homey.”

I was positively riveted by these two men who had welcomed me and the human race into their humble home away from Earth. When they showed how their touchscreen control panels worked, I was suddenly transformed back into a 6-year old fascinated by the shuttle’s controls. Those controls, like Apollo, were riddled with analog switches, dials, buttons with warnings not to push them unless you meant it, harsh angles… almost seeming like it wasn’t hospitable for human life, or was at least something you could easily get lost in. It added to the mystique of the Astronaut Corps, that these men could navigate that maze while we mortals would never be able to.

Contrast that with the simple touchscreen controls we can see aboard the Dragon, and one gets the impression that it’s like any new app on our mobile devices that we could teach ourselves to use. It made the craft seem all the more “approachable,” and I suspect many a child has been inspired anew by it. The cycle continues.

shuttle

It does for me, too, of course. Those of you who’ve been with us from the start may recall that Shuttle Endeavour is what started me on this trajectory in my life — so, of course I’m not bummed out that they went with it as the name for their craft. It has meaning to them, personally, named for a ship they both loved, and there’s no finer reason in the ‘Verse.

Chris has already written at length about our past; I’d like to say a bit about our future at Take Back the Sky.

First off, we have one.

We spoke at length with each other, batting around more crazy ideas like the good old days. What we concluded was:

  • Keeping the Firefly and Serenity fandom alive is reason in and of itself.
  • There’s still more good we can do in the realm of educating people about space, about the real-life ‘verse.

We’re taking this site in a new direction, one we think you might actually like more. In addition to the geekdom and nerdery you know and love, we have some ideas and plans to share with you, not just to inform you about what’s going on in space, but to enable you to participate in what goes on up there, in ways that just weren’t possible for us in years past. It’s not ready for prime time yet, but suffice it to say that it’s in the true, independent spirit of the Browncoats, and I can’t wait to share it with you in the days to come.

The ending panels of the Serenity: Those Left Behind graphic novel see Zoe asking her captain for a new course for her pilot husband to chart. Mal replies, “The same way as always… forwards.”

“May Have Been the Losing Side…”

Posted by Chris Tobias on June 8, 2020
Posted in: Articles, Launches, Press Coverage. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

by Chris Tobias

COMMANDER HARKEN:  “Seems odd you’d name your ship after a battle you were on the wrong side of.”

MALCOLM REYNOLDS:  “May have been the losing side.  Still not convinced it was the wrong one.”

— Firefly, “Bushwhacked” (2002)

The event that we here at Take Back the Sky and many others in the aerospace community had been eagerly anticipating for close to a decade has finally came to pass.  At 3:22pm EDT on May 30, 2020, a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and carried NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon, the first private spaceship to take human beings out to the black.

For just shy of eight years we have been doing everything in our power to lobby SpaceX, its CEO and founder Elon Musk and its president and COO Gwynne Shotwell to name the first Crew Dragon after Serenity, the Firefly-class transport ship in Joss Whedon’s sci-fi TV series Firefly and subsequent motion picture Serenity.  We created online and paper petitions, hosted panel discussions and tabled at science-fiction and comics conventions and science fairs and maintained a steady social media campaign.  We also encouraged members of the space community as well as Browncoats and fans of science-fiction in general to mount a steady letter-writing campaign asking for the name, just as Star Trek fans succeeded in doing in 1976, when it was announced that the first Space Shuttle would be named Enterprise.

As launch day approached, the name of the Crew Dragon remained a closely-guarded secret.  Astronauts Behnken and Hurley announced that they had selected a name for their ship, but they would only reveal it the day of the launch.  Those of us who were still holding out hope for Serenity were somewhat encouraged when the crew used a plush dinosaur as their zero-G indicator, the object in the cockpit that is traditionally left untethered so it will float when the ship reaches orbit.  After all, Serenity’s pilot Hoban “Wash” Washburne famously played around with toy dinosaurs while at the helm in the pilot episode of the TV series Firefly.  When the crew held their first media event from orbit, however, they welcomed the world aboard Crew Dragon Endeavour, a name they had chosen because it held deep personal significance to both of them since both men had previously gone to space aboard the Space Shuttle of the same name.  It was also revealed that the zero-G indicator, a plush apatosaurus named “Trimmer,” was chosen for the flight because both of their sons have an affinity for dinosaurs.

Out to the Black

Two Demo-2 launch dates meant over 15 hours of #NASASocial events and #LaunchAmerica coverage– and a whole lot of coffee.

It was hard not to be disappointed when the crew revealed that the ship’s name was Endeavour, not only because it meant that our campaign of 7+ years was unsuccessful, but also because they had chosen what could only be described as a traditional name for such a shiny new class of spaceship.  It was also hard to argue with their reasoning though, and at the end of three days of covering #NASASocial events as part #LaunchAmerica and nearly fifteen hours of following launch coverage across two launch dates (the mission had to be scrubbed due to inclement weather on May 27), whatever disappointment we felt was naturally overshadowed by the fact that the NASA Commercial Crew Program had succeeded in returning American astronauts to space from American soil, and we had backed the right horse to do it first in SpaceX.  It was also impossible not to be thrilled for Doug Hurley, who won the ultimate game of “Capture the Flag” by being the US astronaut to claim the very same American flag he himself had left aboard the ISS at the end of the final Space Shuttle mission with the understanding that is was to be brought home by the crew of the next US spaceship to dock with the station.  In the midst of a worldwide pandemic that had left millions out of work and virtually everyone stuck in quarantine and a week of the most widespread protests and riots the country had seen in decades, the story of Crew Dragon’s Demo-2 flight provided a beacon of light in some very dark times.  SpaceX and NASA had given us reason to be hopeful for America.

And yet, that didn’t change the fact that the Crew Dragon was not named Serenity, and that left me asking:  “What now?”

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“Firefly: The Sting” Original Graphic Novel Is a Tale That Didn’t Need Tellin’

Posted by Chris Tobias on April 14, 2020
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by Chris Tobias

If you are a fan of Joss Whedon who has been starved for more tales of the thrilling heroics of Captain Malcolm Reynolds and his crew, then the past few years have been a good time to be a Browncoat.  Fans have seen a whole passel of print hit the shelves– initially in several volumes of Serenity comics and graphic novels published by Dark Horse Comics, and more recently in the form of Firefly prose novels and reference works published by Titan Books and Insight Editions as well as a new ongoing Firefly comics series (and its accompanying one-shot stories and graphic novels) published by Boom! Studios.

The ongoing Firefly comics series from Boom! Studios made its debut in November of 2018, and is set between the events of the Firefly TV series and the motion picture Serenity.  It has introduced a number of interesting new characters and landed the crew in more than a few exciting situations in the 15 issues that have been published so far.  Despite some minor shortcomings (like the fact that it took no less than 13 issues for any of the characters to utter even a single syllable of Chinese), for the most part the plots have been entertaining and have managed to maintain the spirit of Joss Whedon’s original stories and characters– even though the creator of the Firefly ‘verse has had very minimal personal involvement in the project.  (Whedon is officially listed as a “story consultant” for the series.)  The same can be said of Boom! Studios’ Firefly spin-off comics… with one notable exception.

sting amazon

Image:  Amazon.com

In November of last year, Boom! Studios released Firefly:  The Sting, an original graphic novel (OGN) written by New York Times bestselling writer Delilah S. Dawson, whose numerous writing credits include several books set in the Star Wars universe.  (Dawson collaborated with no less than five different illustrators on this project, one for each of the book’s chapters, though it’s worth noting that the illustrators have similar pencilling styles and the book’s artwork is visually seamless from one chapter to the next.)  The book was announced in June of 2019 with a solicitation that included the following synopsis (as reported on newsarama.com):

“Saffron and the women of Firefly pull the ultimate heist! Saffron– the enigmatic rogue who captured the hearts of Firefly fans worldwide– returns to Serenity.  But this time, she’s got no time for Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, as she’s there to recruit the women of the ship to join her on a heist that has personal stakes for all involved.”

It’d be hard for any dyed-in-the-wool Browncoat not to be intrigued by a story involving Saffron, the criminal-minded opportunist played so deftly by Christina Hendricks in the Firefly episodes “Our Mrs. Reynolds” and “Trash.”  But a heist for which she only recruits the women of Serenity? Sure, she and her “kinda husband” Malcolm Reynolds share a somewhat adversarial past, but if she’s desperate enough to include any members of Serenity’s crew in a scheme she’s conjuring (especially after her last attempt ended with Inara locking her in an automated trash bin), then what reason could she possibly have not to want a skilled pilot like Wash, or someone like Jayne who’d obviously be useful if things turned violent? And if things did go sideways and her gang ended up various degrees of bruised and bloodied, wouldn’t a man like Dr. Simon Tam be just the sort of person she’d want to have around?

This Browncoat was already skeptical, but I still ordered the book.  After all, for the past ten years, no single pop culture brand has meant more to me than the Firefly/Serenity ‘verse.  I have devoted countless hours to the Browncoats fandom, both as a local event coordinator for Can’t Stop the Serenity charity screenings and as co-founder of Take Back the Sky’s ongoing campaign to convince Elon Musk to name SpaceX’s first Crew Dragon space capsule after Serenity.  I count myself among the most passionate of Browncoats who, nearly two decades after Firefly’s debut on Fox, will greet each new official story or officially licensed Firefly or Serenity product with enthusiasm.  Besides, Boom! Studios’ Firefly books had a solid track record of good stories up to this point, and the writer was a best-selling author.

My copy arrived in time for me to take it along on a cross-country flight to the West Coast in mid-December 2019.  Our family was headed to Southern California so my son could play lacrosse in the Legends National Cup, which afforded me the opportunity to read the OGN in one sitting on a nearly five-hour flight from Chicago to San Diego.  I assumed that reading the story uninterrupted from cover to cover would allow me to appreciate the overall narrative better than if I read the chapters as installments.  Ultimately though, I’m not sure it mattered, because from the very onset, this Firefly tale just felt… off.

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One Browncoat’s Opinion: Please DON’T Bring Back “Firefly!”

Posted by Chris Tobias on August 27, 2019
Posted in: Articles. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

by Chris Tobias

If you spend any time at all online, you’ve probably seen speculation every so often about a possible return of Joss Whedon’s space western Firefly, the Fox series that was cancelled in 2002 after only 11 of its 14 episodes had aired– mostly out of order and with gaps in its weekly broadcasts due to Major League Baseball playoffs and holiday programming.

Fireflyopeninglogo.JPG(1)

image credit:  the Firefly and Serenity Database

And why not? The series only grew in popularity after its cancellation.  Its devoted fan base, who came to be known as “Browncoats” (taking their name from the Independent forces in the series who fought for their freedom against the corporate super-government known as the Alliance), spurred brisk sales of the series’ DVD box set, and Universal Studios greenlit a major motion picture, Serenity, that was helmed by Whedon himself and reunited the series’ original cast to tie up most of the show’s loose ends.

Serenity debuted in theaters in August of 2005, and although there was never a sequel, both the movie and the TV series that inspired it have spawned a number of additional stories set in the Firefly ‘verse.  There have been several comics series published by Dark Horse Comics and Boom! Studios that follow the exploits of the crew of Serenity, and publishers like Insight Editions and Titan Books have published numerous volumes covering every detail of the Firefly ‘verse, from handbooks and episode companions to prose novels and cookbooks.  It also seems as though Firefly- and Serenity-licensed merchandise is at an all-time high.  A quick online search will reveal clothing, board games, prop replicas, action figures and much more.

It’s obvious that the love of Browncoats the world over has kept Serenity relevant for nearly twenty years, so with reboots and revivals being all the rage in Hollywood these days, you’d think it would only be a matter of time until the executives at 21st Century Fox (now owned by the Walt Disney Company) decide to send Malcolm Reynolds and his crew back to the black.  I’m sure if that happened, there’d be more than a few Browncoats that would be all manner of glad to see it.

I just wouldn’t be one of them.

I know what you’re thinking:  “How could you say that, Chris? You’re a hardcore fan.  There aren’t many folk out there whose coats have a more brownish color than yours.  You’ve even spent the past seven years spearheading a movement to convince Elon Musk’s company SpaceX to name its first Crew Dragon after Serenity.  Why wouldn’t you want to see Firefly on the screen again?”

Well, read on and I’ll explain.

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Second Firefly Novel from Titan Books Is Another Enjoyable Read for Browncoats

Posted by Chris Tobias on July 3, 2019
Posted in: Articles, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

by Chris Tobias

I recently flew out to Los Angeles and back on a bargain airline.  I’m sure you know the type– the seats don’t recline, there is no such thing as free snacks on board, and the idea of “in-flight entertainment” is laughable.  To make the flights of nearly five hours a little more bearable, I took the opportunity to read the second Firefly novel from Titan Books, Firefly:  The Magnificent Nine by James Lovegrove (who is best known for The Age of Odin and several Sherlock Holmes novels).

If you read my review of Lovegrove’s first Firefly novel (Big Damn Hero,  which he wrote based on an original concept by Nancy Holder), you may recall that I said it read like a lost episode of the series.  Although the events of this book are supposed to take place between the end of the TV series and the movie Serenity, it still has that same overall feel.

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The Magnificent Nine, James Lovegrove’s latest Firefly novel (image courtesy Amazon)

The plot is a tried-and-true Western standard:  an old flame of Jayne Cobb’s contacts him with a desperate plea for help because her town, a desert outpost on a planet called Thetis, is threatened with being overrun by a gang of savage outlaws.  The crew of Serenity represents their only hope for salvation, and although Captain Malcolm Reynolds initially has no desire to get involved, his crew eventually convinces him that coming to the aid of the oppressed townsfolk would be the right thing to do.  When they arrive, they soon find themselves standing alone against a trigger-happy army, their only assistance coming from Jayne’s ex-girlfriend, Temperance McCloud, and her daughter– a girl who was born less than a year after she and Jayne parted ways– a girl named Jane.

I’ll let you do the math…

To be honest, this book is full of tropes, and borrows very heavily from things we’ve already seen in Firefly and Serenity.  Even its title is a direct rip-off of the classic Yul Brynner Western The Magnificent Seven.  The book’s premise is kind of a rehash of the Firefly episode “Heart of Gold,” and Lovegrove admits as much by having the characters refer to that escapade in the story.  Bar fights involving the crew are reminiscent of the episodes “The Train Job” and “Shindig” from the TV series.  There is a 1v1 confrontation complete with references to the duel in “Shindig,” and a high-speed chase reminds the reader of the crew’s narrow escape from Reavers in early scenes from Serenity.  One might think that this “been there, done that” aspect of the story might be a turn-off (I know it was one of the biggest issues I had with Star Wars:  the Force Awakens), but here’s the thing– it works!

If you are a fan of the Firefly TV-series, then this book is a lot of fun.  You can tell that Lovegrove is growing more comfortable with the characters, because their dialogue (including Chinese) and their interactions with one another seem even more comfortable and genuine in this book than in the first.  There was hardly ever a moment that felt forced or an Easter egg that was so obviously planted that it pulled me out of the narrative.  The pacing of the story is excellent, and unlike the first book, this novel gave every member of Serenity’s crew an equal opportunity to shine in a way that even Joss Whedon himself (who serves as a consulting editor for this book series) would be proud of.

Another thing that made this book so enjoyable is the cast of supporting characters that Lovegrove has imagined.  The antagonist, Elias Vandal, is a very worthy Firefly villain, and his second in command, Shem, has more layers than your typical evil henchman.  Temperance and Jane McCloud are a couple of feisty, strong-willed, tough fighters who fit right in with other female characters of the Whedonverse, and young Jane’s interaction with both River and Jayne is as endearing as it is entertaining.  Throw in a bumbling mayor and a mysterious character from Inara’s past, and you have a very fine mix of characters that provides a certain freshness to the story despite any tropes that might otherwise have inspired a sense of déjà vu.

firefly generations

Firefly:  Generations by Tim Lebbon is due out in October 2019.  (image courtesy Amazon)

I read most of this book in one sitting, so for me it really did play out as if I were watching an episode of Firefly in my head.  There were a couple of plot points that I found predictable, but that really didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment of the story.  James Lovegrove is proving to be a writer who is becoming increasingly adept at adapting the Firefly universe to prose, much like Nancy Holder and Christopher Golden were known for doing with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Although he is not the author of the next installment in this series (Firefly:  Generations, which is scheduled for release on October 15, is written by British horror and dark fantasy writer Tim Lebbon), I would definitely welcome the chance to read more tales from the ‘verse by Lovegrove.  If I had to give a grade to his latest work, I’d say Firefly:  The Magnificent Nine deserves a solid “A.”

Overall, these Titan novels are achieving a certain “Firefly feel” that takes me back to those days when the show and the movie were still relatively new experiences for me.  They’re enabling me to “get lost in the ‘verse” again in a way that the new Boom! Studios comics haven’t quite managed.  I look forward to reading the third book in the fall, and I sincerely hope that Titan considers more Firefly and Serenity novels in the future.  If you consider yourself a Browncoat and have been starving for more adventures of Serenity and her crew, then I highly recommend you give these books a try.  They are available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other major booksellers.

Peace, love and rockets…