During this year’s New York Comic Con Dark Horse Comics revealed that the adventures of Mal and Jayne and Zoe and River and Simon and Kaylee and Inara will finally continue past the movie Serenity…in comic form! The first issue of Serenity: Firefly Class 03-K64—Leaves on the Wind hits shelves on January 29th, 2014.
Now that we’re getting new adventures, what do we want to see happen? The Tor dot crew has some ideas….
Inara and Saffron Take on the Alliance (Alternately: Inara and Saffron Kick Ass and Make Out)
I don’t know how many other people are rooting for the return of YoSaffBridge, but I’d like to see Christina Hendricks return to her pre-Mad Men roots and find out what became of everyone’s favorite polygamous con artist when she finally escaped from that trash bin in the desert. Pairing Saffron with Inara would allow us to get more of both women’s backstories—there were intriguing hints that Saffron had trained with the Companions’ Guild, at least for a time, and that Inara suffers from a terminal, hidden illness (a rumor confirmed by Morena Baccarin at DragonCon 2008).
Inara’s loyalties to both the Guild and the Alliance have evolved during her time on Serenity, and we’ve seen cracks in her cool, collected façade that will undoubtedly deepen as her time grows shorter. I’d like to see her and Saffron thrown into a conflict where they have to work together against the Alliance, Saffron for money or her own self-preservation, and Inara for nobler reasons—possibly to protect the Firefly crew she left behind, though without their knowledge (offering all sorts of heart-wrenching possibilities). Honestly, though, I’d accept a story arc where they both just sit around and play a really manipulative game of checkers, as long as we get more Saffron-Inara interactions. – Katharine Duckett
Zoe Hates River
River’s weird mix of telepathic, empathic, and reflexive capabilities instantly make her an even better pilot than Wash, and thanks to her famous lack of social filter, she’s not shy about sharing that information with the crew. This rubs Zoe the wrong way, naturally, and worse still, it keeps coming up as Serenity gets into scrape after scrape.Zoe realizes she actually really hates River and that she blames River for nullifying Wash’s history on Serenity, even though that’s not entirely logical. Zoe is seemingly professional about it, but her stance comes out in small ways regardless: pointedly not trusting River with even the smallest tasks and generally confusing the crew. In the end, it’s up to River to realize what’s happening, to grow emotionally, and to make amends. – Chris Lough
Jayne Would Be the Best Babysitter
Jayne should be the person who is most excited about Zoe’s baby. You know he would be. That is, he would be completely freaked out by the kid until he was forced to hold it for more than five minutes, and then he wouldn’t want to give it back. Jayne with a baby. With a baby and Vera. Uncle Jayne. Yes. – Emmet Asher-Perrin
Kaylee Gets Offered a “Real Job”
Someone in a position of authority recognizes Kaylee’s obvious skill with machinery and offers her a once-in-a-lifetime position or project that she could never obtain if she remained on Serenity. It’s not a choice as to whether this new person or project is bad, rather, Kaylee has to come to grips about her capabilities and how she wants her future to unfold. For someone as gifted as her, is Serenity just a phase in her life? – Chris Lough
Jayne in Charge Actually Becomes a Viable Scenario
Jayne needs to be given more responsibility on the ship. This will have the dual result of allowing Jayne to grow as a character, and giving him more opportunity to screw up in a big way if/when he falls back on old behaviors. He should come to blows with Zoe (which would make sense as Zoe is grieving and in no mood for his bullshit), but should make some good command decisions, even when it disagrees with Mal and Zoe’s party line. – Emmet Asher-Perrin
Saffron Obtains a Position of Power Within the Alliance
One of my favorite jokes from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is during season 4, when Spike gets kidnapped by The Initiative. As he wakes up and looks around at his sterile white cell, his first assumption is to assume that Buffy is responsible. “I always worried what would happen when that bitch got some funding.”
Now imagine Mal saying that about Saffron. And it being true. – Chris Lough
Wash is Ghost Dad
Zoe seems fine on the surface, but she dreams about Wash almost nightly and weird things are happening around the ship seemingly without explanation. Finally, after everyone clears out of the kitchen after dinner, a ghostly version of Wash (in one of his Hawaiian shirts, of course) falls through the ceiling and lands on the floor. The fall itself is silent, but he reacts like he’s landed hard, the camera zooms in, he delivers a hilariously deadpan Alan Tudyk line, and we cut to black.
He hangs around the ship, makes jokes, moves things around (especially his dinosaurs) messes with Jayne’s head a little, and tries to spend as much time with Zoe as he can. He spends some time trying to get River’s attention, thinking that Serenity’s resident psychic is the most likely candidate for otherworldly contact, but in great TV-land tradition, the only person who sees him is his own baby.
He becomes her ghost babysitter, trying to alert the crew when she gets into trouble, amusing her with shadow puppets, making faces so she’ll laugh. Zoe, unfortunately, still has no idea he’s still around, although she grows more and more irritable. Finally, her anger at Mal, her memories of Wash, and the guilt she feels over putting Mal’s needs above Wash’s finally win out over her loyalty to her Captain. After all their arguments, she chooses her family with Wash over Mal and leaves the ship, with no idea that she’s also leaving Wash.
He assumes that he’s tied to her, and expects that he’ll either disappear or follow her as she leaves, but neither of those things happen. He waits as she walks down the ramp, and as the ship embarks he starts running through walls to try to get to her, but as they break atmosphere we have a callback to his initial scene. He falls through the ceiling and and hits the floor of the cargo hold, realizing finally that it’s the ship he’s tied to, not the woman he loves. – Leah Schnelbach
We had even more ideas, but we should probably clear the podium and give ya’ll a chance to chime in with what you’d want to see. Now that there are post-Serenity comics coming, maybe we’ll see these things play out after all!
Stubby the Rocket is the mascot of Tor.com. It would waggle wings with Serenity any time.
I would read all of these storylines with glee.
Obviously, Jubal Early needs to return at some point. We last saw him spinning off into space with a dwindling oxygen supply. Does that seem right to you?
A passenger named “Billy” portrayed by Neil Patrick Harris comes aboard. He looks nervous. He blinks a lot. Has some large luggage he wishes to have easy access to, but Jeyne says no. River starts to toy with him, then befriends him. Mal turns the corner, locks eyes with him. Hilarity ensues.
Badger’s criminal empire falls and he goes looking for River, who begins toying with him mercilessly.
I also wouldn’t mind if a cook joins the crew. You can’t be a proper ships Captain unless you have a cook to bellyache to. In my own meta fanfic mind, it would be a survivor of the Battle of Serenity Valley, but one from the Alliance side.
Zoe wakes up from a nightmare and the shower is running. SHe cautiously approaches it and — it’s
Bobby EwingWash!!! “Serenity” was all a terrible dream and I can’t stop being reflexively angry whenever Joss Whedon’s name is mentioned.Saffron coming back would be great. Also, they should hire a new pilot to replace Wash. If they don’t replace departing comrades, they run the risk of becoming like Torchwood is these days, or should I say, the Jack and Gwen show.
Hopefully, they won’t let the story to date suffocate the stories in the comic–we need new characters and new situations to keep things fresh.
I am really looking forward to this one!
Wash is alive, somehow, I don’t care how. Make it so.
Since they’re not limited by actors aging, I don’t know why they didn’t do a proper second season of Firefly, set before the events of Serenity.
@5. Testify! Only for me, it’s Buffy who wakes up and Spike who steps out of the shower (oh yeah, baby).My hope for you is that the Firefly comix are better than what they’ve done to my beloved BtVS.
What Sean Bircher and ThePendragon said. I don’t care how they do it. Wash needs to be ALIVE!!!!
There are some really good ideas expressed in the article. I’m not going to try to top them off-the-cuff (because I can’t) but I am going to think about it. Meanwhile, have you thrown some of these ideas at http://whedonesque.com/ ?
Also the suspicion that there’s something else amiss with Inara… such as an unusually long lifespan.
And clearly, clearly we need to finish off that unfinished business with Adelai Niska, Torturer of Relatives By Marriage. (“Eh, my wife’s brother. At dinner I am getting earful.”)
Joss Whedon once said in an interview that he would’ve found a way to make Wash come back, so yeah, let’s hope they do that
source:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379786/trivia?item=tr1614824
Saffron returns with a child she claims is Mal’s after having a little fun with him before starnding him in the desert during ‘Trash’ and won’t let him be in the child’s life unless he lets her stay on Serenity
1. River develops an infatuation for Mal and awkward moments between the two and the rest of the crew ensue.
2. we see more of River’s time before the Academy and during the Academy.
This actually based off a fanfic I read a while back… ‘The Cobbs bride’ by Jmbrowning1112:
– Jayne gets married to a woman he met online/mailorder wife.
River comes face to face with some of her classmates from the Academy
I am beyond happy! *zooms away*
I was devastated when Wash bought the farm, but was no-one else cut up about Book too? I can see plenty of milage in giving Wash & Book a “greek chorus” role.
However, I’m ambivalent about bringing back either – they both had marvellous death scenes which would lose something if either re-appeared. I definitely agree that the sequels need new passengers/crew and non-circular character arcs for the original crew. Continually reverting to type is going to get old quickly.
But mainly, I’ll just be happy (super-excited) to get more story whatever happens.
The idea of bringing back Wash as a ghost, tied to the ship, and not to Zoe and their baby, is the saddest and cruelest thing I’ve read about any kind of Serenity return storylines.
Wash is dead. We live with it.
All of this sounds wonderful, including the conflicting destinations of Wash.
As long as there’s at least one panel where Captain Mal is holding twine. (Jenny Lawson (www.thebloggess.com), this one’s for you.
Wash is Ghost Dad
that idea for a plot is the cruelest thing I’ve ever heard. I WANT IT. it’ll hurt like a bitch, but it’s so perfect!
I really dislike that last theory.
1.) The closest thing we have to magic in Firefly is River’s mindreading, and even that seems to be more neuroscience-based. I think it’s a far to olate to add a ghost, given what that would imply for the setting.
2.) Wash says (in Serenity, I think) that he’s more interested in Zoe than the ship and without her he wouldn’t still be Serenity’s pilot. There’s no good reason to think otherwise, his character makes a lot more sense with his current motivation.
Wash died, get over it.
It would be interesting to find out what happens between Kaylee and Simon. A bit hilarious since Simon is romantically awkward.
I want them to do more on the men with the blue hands.
I almost agree with idea # 17 in the comments. However, I do believe that in the movie the scientist/shish-kibob said that River was their greatest success. So in order for it to work it would have to be an improved version of the same idea. Or I suppose it could work if maybe Simon had rescued her before the process could be completed. Maybe that would explain why she had such a badly fractured psyche also.
will we get a season 2 tv spin off from the comic i hope so season 1 was the best thing on tv miss it lots
The oppretive from the movie shows up as a Shepherd and eventually joins the crew…Dropping more hints about sheherd Book’s past and the link between the Soouthdown Abbey and former allinace insiders…
I think there should be an episode where Jayne and Kaylee have a… ‘thing’, because Jayne hates the doc anyway, and in the first series, he says it’s because he wants to protect the ship and the crew, or to make money by selling out Simon and River, but what if it was because he was jealous? Remember the first episode, where there was a spat over jaylee and the doctor at the dinner table? he definatly wasn’t doing that to protect the ship or for the money.
Then kaylee’s and Simons relationship are on the rocks, perhap he’s neglecting her and spending too much of his time with river, then Jayne seizes his chance, and we get another sneak glimpse into him being a softer kind of guy than we first thought.
of course kaylee goes back to the doctor, but now their relationship can never be quite the same, now she knows what Jayne thinks of her, which could cause Jayne to want to leave the ship, and it takes all of Mal’s people skills to keep him aboard.
I just wanna see Kaywinnet and Simon’s relationship get a chance to develop more! And maybe River’s being able to fly Serenity really pissing Jayne off that he can’t imply she’s a burden any more!
Of course Zoe is pregnant with twins. Remember when she argued with Wash about having children. So, new players, people had kids, Inara was kidnapped by the rich guy from Shindig. Some how Mal winds up in jail and the kids have to go break Mal out of jail and rescue Inara.
Erm kaylee and Simon are married, jane and river are together. Wash and Zoe had a boy (Zoe was pregnant when wash died) mal is married aswell
What possible harm could come from releasing another series of Firefly? The producers and backers are all filthy rich, and the amount of crap on tv atm wouldn’t come close to a new set of these shows. There are enough fans and interested parties to renew, and simply not enough RAW science fiction shows. Reading all these comments just proves that there is plenty of material to make it work. Fingers crossed that the commics spark a renewed interest, you never know :)
I’d like to see a storyline where due to a falling out with Mal, Jayne leaves the ship, only to get a typical western gunslinger’s “retirement job”. In other words, he becomes a Sheriff on one of the backwater moons. All’s good, and he’s figured out how to make a pretty decent living, until Mal and crew get a job where they have to hit something in Jayne’s town…all of a sudden Jayne’s the respectable one protecting ‘his people’. Can he resist temptation? Are the Serenity crew hitting the wrong town (ie, are they being duped like they were when they hit the train for medical supplies)? Anyway, might be interesting to see what happens when Jayne tries to “fly straight”.
Get Bruce Campbell on that ship! Lol