Mal is a character from the show Firefly and from the film Serenity. A graphic novel of Serenity came out bridging the show and movie together.
Mal was born on
September 20, 2486 and was brought up on a ranch on the planet Shadow. Raised by his mother and "about 40 hands", Mal apparently received a fairly decent education whilst growing up. Though Mal usually seems more practical than intellectual, he occasionally surprises his friends by displaying familiarity in a wide range of literature varying from the works of
Shan Yu (a fictional psychotic dictator) to poems by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (he does, however, have no idea "who"
Mona Lisa is).
Mal volunteered for the
Independents army during the
Unification War against the
Alliance, gaining the rank of sergeant during that time. His loyal second-in-command
Zoë was by his side for most of the war, surviving many dangerous conflicts with him. The show mentions three such battles, including the Battle of Du-Khang in 2510 (featured in "
The Message") and a long winter campaign in New Kashmir (as told by Zoë in "
War Stories") where he commanded a platoon. Mal was also involved in the ground campaign during the Battle of Sturges (
Serenity: Those Left Behind comics), which according to
Badger was the "bloodiest and shortest battle in all the war", although Mal considers it a distant second. Mal fought in many more battles, but the turning point for him and the Independents came with their physical and emotional defeat at the
Battle of Serenity Valley on the planet
Hera. On-screen information from the film
Serenity suggests that Mal was given a brevet promotion to Captain during the Battle of Serenity Valley to take command of the ever-increasing number of Independent troops who were losing their officers at the hands of the Alliance. This might explain why, in one of the deleted scenes from the
Firefly pilot, Mal is described as having commanded at least 2000 men. On-screen information in
Serenity shows him to have been attached to the 57th Overlanders Brigade; in the series pilot, Badger calls it the "Balls and Bayonets Brigade", though it is unclear whether that was a disparaging nickname coined by Badger himself or the actual unit
sobriquet (According to Alliance records shown in a deleted scene in the film Serenity it is the unit's sobriquet). [
citation needed]
After the war, Mal acquired his own ship, an old (broken) 03-K64
Firefly-class transport whose previous owner was a man named Captain Harbatkin (Mal never got around to changing the registration papers). The ship was christened
Serenity after one of the most decisive battles of the Unification War. On board
Serenity and during his various travels, Mal continues to wear his brown coat and wields a standard issue officer's
pistol as his weapon of choice, a gun which he has had since the war and which he has modified extensively.
V is a romantic, anarchist revolutionary, well-versed in the arts of explosives, subterfuge, computer hacking, and others; also has a vast literary, cultural and philosophical intelligence. Throughout the novel, V always wears his trademark Guy Fawkes mask.
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