Round And Round They Go — Reviewing ‘Firefly: The Fall Guys’ #5

Tempers are flaring, buildings are turning, and things are exploding with the Serenity crew trapped smack dab in the middle. Let’s be honest though, right in the thick of things is generally where this crew of thieves with hearts of gold thrives.

Things continue to move in Firefly: The Fall Guys #5 from Sam Humphries, Jordi Pérez, Francesco Segala, Gloria Martinelli, and Jim Campbell.

By moving, I might mean more of in a circle. Which is still movement. Our crew is still split into three groups, still trying to outrun the Alliance, trying to find the Archambeau gang, and trying to clear their names. The Alliance is still hunting for them and causing trouble in the town of Beloved. As for the Archambeau gang, they are still around.

To be fair there is progression in things as we get the Prime Minister out in the open, and all the paths are about to collide in the final issue. I love these characters and their world, so it all works out. It just feels like this issue and the previous one were the name brand and store brand of a product. Pretty much the same just the packaging and the flavors are a bit different.

Humphries gets the characters and has some fun with them. River having one of her flashes that scrambles her words is a bit of a flashback at this point but it works. Honestly, I’m a bit tired of the Archambeau gang. But that’s mostly because they are pretty much hollow cutouts at this point, since there isn’t room to really explore them beyond surface-level traits.

With the plot still split into so many areas there is still a lot of things for Pérez to deliver. Nailing that perfect amount of rough grit needed for these characters, every panel really soaks up those Western vibes. We get a bit of action here and it has solid movement, though I wish we could have more of the space stuff because that just looks so good. Even though most of this planet is very much a dusty old West town, Pérez finds a way to pull out their personality.

Dusty is fitting in many of the panels, played up quite well by the colors. Segala and Martinelli employ a more toned-down natural sort of palate, letting the environments do all the speaking. This too hits that rough aspect. Part of the world setting is that these worlds are poor and struggling, compared to the Alliance’s better living. These color choices give things the worn, older, trying their best appearance.

At the same time, a uniqueness is at play. Space feels appropriately dark and cold, compared to how bright and hot the sunny points of Beloved feel.

Peppering in little visual flairs alongside the beats of emotion and personality helps the voices resonate. Characters have tons to say here, and it all fits on the pages in a way that never piles up or slows things down. Campbell knows how to milk every bit of energy out of the letters, allowing the characters to really sing and sound as we expect them to.

Firefly: The Fall Guys #5 is now available from BOOM! Studios.