Firefly

Joss Whedon-creator of TV’s SF series Firefly and its upcoming movie, Serenity-told SCI FI Wire that he has penned a prequel comic series, based in part on an animated project that never got off the ground. The three-issue Dark Horse Serenity miniseries hits comic shops on July 6.

"We had talked about doing an animated Serenity prequel, because Universal was into that," Whedon said in an interview. "Brett Matthews [Whedon’s comic co-writer] and I worked on a story, and then Universal decided not to go ahead with the project. We thought, ’Well, we have exactly the story we want to tell, and it’s almost like a prequel to the Serenity movie.’ And so we said, ’Comics might be the place to tell this story.’"

The Serenity comics tell the story of a heist gone wrong and old enemies out for revenge. Along the way Capt. Malcolm Reynolds (played in the film by Nathan Fillion) finds himself the target of a conspiracy between government and mercenary forces, and Reynolds’ ragtag crew must try to unite behind their compromised leader. The comics will feature art by Will Conrad and Laura Martin. Each issue will also feature three different covers by such top artists as John Cassaday, J.G. Jones, Bryan Hitch, Joe Quesada, Josh Middleton and Jo Chen.

Whedon said that it was a challenge to bring the Firefly/Serenity universe to the printed page. "You want everybody who has never seen the show to be able to enter this universe and get these characters," Whedon said. "But the big challenge was to find a compelling reason to put this between covers. We wanted to tell an adventure about these people that doesn’t just say, ’They did this, and then they shot at these guys.’ We needed a story that would let you know something about these characters that you might not already know."

Whedon added that there might be a future for Serenity comics, whether or not the upcoming movie does well. "It all depends," Whedon said. "The comic is kind of a bridge between the TV show and the movie. For the truly faithful, this comic will take them from one place to the other. Hopefully it will be fun for those who never got into the TV show and don’t know much about the movie. If the film does well, then there might be interest in more comics. If the movie doesn’t do so well, and the comic is a big hit, that might be the place where the Serenity story will be told from now on." The big-screen Serenity, which Whedon wrote and directed, hits theaters on Sept. 30. Universal Pictures, which is releasing Serenity, is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM.