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Review: Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale

By | November 5th, 2010
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Plot by: Joss Whedon
Written by: Zack Whedon
Arted by: Chris Samnee

One of Serenity’s greatest mysteries is finally revealed in Shepherd’s Tale, filling in the life of one of the show’s most beloved characters–Shepherd Book!

Who was Book before meeting Mal and the rest of the Serenity crew, how did he become one of their most trusted allies, and how did he find God in a bowl of soup? Answers to these and more questions about Book’s past are uncovered in this original graphic novel by rising stars Zack Whedon (Dr. Horrible, Terminator, Fringe) and Chris Samnee (Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps, Daredevil). A pivotal chapter in the ongoing Serenity saga, Shepherd’s Tale is also a rollicking, action-packed epic in its own right!

I know that even as I type this incredibly expository opening sentence that this will be the hardest review I’ve ever written. The Firefly-verse is a fictional world that is very near and dear to my heart. When the original show was cancelled I was let down, when certain untimely events happened in the movie I cried (like a baby), when I found out that comics were going to start coming out taking place in that ‘verse I was overjoyed and when I found out that those comics would not be telling stories that CONTINUED from where the movie left off, at least not at first, I was, well…pissed. My anger subsided a bit when the first two mini-series (Those Left Behind and Better Days) were actually thoroughly entertaining and well composed “within the cracks” stories that added to the overall Serenity tapestry. Following that, we had the fantastic Float Out one-shot paying tribute to one of the, in my opinion, best characters to come out of the series and its surprise ending that, at long last, added something NEW to the ongoing saga. And now we have The Shepherd’s Tale, the long awaiting revelation of the mysterious origin of Shepherd Book. This book should have been a slam dunk for me, which makes its imperfections that much more glaring.

In order to at least open with a compliment, I’m glad they opted to tell this one as an original oversized graphic novel, since telling this story, especially in the way they told it, serially would have just been bad news bears. The story opens with Book’s death and proceeds in reverse chronological order to represent, assumingly, his life flashing before his eyes (though that is me reading into things as a fan…Joss could have just wanted to tell the story backwards.) It, in a lot of ways, reminded me of the fantastic “Out of Gas” episode from the series, which used a series of flashbacks to flesh out the back stories of several members of the Serenity crew. But unlike that episode, which bounced BACK AND FORTH through time, thereby creating a compelling “what will happen next” vibe, this story just keptbouncing back to different “money shots” in Book’s long life. While we certainly did get to learn more about the character, which was the point of this story, we’re provided with very little context for each time jump, simply thrown into the action in the middle of it then taken out of it just as quickly. To me, this took out the personal connection that stories from this universe have sought to make with its audience, reading almost like a condensed play-by-play of Book’s life rather than a meaningful story.

This, really, is the crux of my issue with the book. After all this time all we get is, essentially, the cliffnotes version of the story. Like Whedon and his brother had some better party to get to, so they sauntered in late, summarized the story real quick, threw a hard cover on it, grabbed some pigs in a blanket and bolted without taking their coats off (which, given that he is directing The Avengers, may not be an inaccurate analogy.) While, yes, we learn where Book is from, how he found God, what his much-hinted connection to the Alliance was, how he spent his youth and even what his real name is (hint: it isn’t Derrial Book), none of these reveals are done with any kind of substance or feeling. Yes, it’s nice to finally know, but it could have been done with the love and care that was put into the live action stories or even that Patton Oswalt put into Float Out. It’s kinda just…there now…and I am underwhelmed.

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The art too was a little bit a letdown, which is very out of character for Chris Samnee. His usually crisp line-work seems a little shaky here, a little more rushed than usual. This might be due to the sheer number of pages he had to churn out this time around, but his usually well composed, classically tinted (read: Ditko-esque) work that appeared in the likes of Area 10, Siege Embedded and Thor: The Mighty Avenger were absent here. On top of that, Samnee just did not bring the ‘verse to the page with as much reverence and attention to detail when compared to Will Conrad and Patric Reynolds’ work on the previous Serenity comics. This universe has a VERY distinct visual aesthetic and having that not carry over into this book took me out of the action in a very big way. Simply put: it was good, but it was not Serenity.

So like I said, this was the hardest review I’ve ever had to write. A major reason for that is because I really, almost desperately wanted to like this book. I wanted to rave about it and shout its virtues from the rooftops even more than I did with Float Out…but I couldn’t. The book just did not deliver in the way I wanted it to…and for a book that primarily exists to please long-time fans of the ‘verse, that it a serious problem.

Final Verdict: 7.0 — Buy If You’re a Super-Fan Only In Order to Complete Your Collection. If Not, Browse.


Joshua Mocle

Joshua Mocle is an educator, writer, audio spelunker and general enthusiast of things loud and fast. He is also a devout Canadian. He can often be found thinking about comics too much, pretending to know things about baseball and trying to convince the masses that pop-punk is still a legitimate genre. Stalk him out on twitter and thought grenade.

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