The Nevers Joins the Whedonverse

The Nevers has arrived. Some of us, who heard Whedon describe his plan for the comic book Twist, or “female Victorian Batman,” years back, have been waiting for quite some time. True, Whedon is off the project now (and indeed, he quickly left the prior Agents of SHIELD after that one was started). Still, he wrote and directed the first episode, and Jane Espenson wrote the second. The episode title, “Touched,” is also a Buffy title. It’s not just the language: the character lineup and worldbuilding are very recognizable to fans of his other franchises.

In their earliest scene, sweet Penance the perky intuitive inventor and competent Mrs. Amalia True go out to help Myrtle, who’s been chained by her small-minded keepers. This combination suggests aggressively kind Kaylee and warrior-matriarch Zoe nurturing mad teenage River, who they similarly discover in their first episode. They even speak Chinese. “Penance tenderly tells her, “There’s plenty of girls who’ve been shown a strangeness of some kind, a turn. But Mrs. True and I, we’ve worked with hem and they come up fine. Would you like that?”

Amalia True is a damaged leader who’s been through far too much and been disillusioned. Her closest parallel is Melinda May, the damaged leader who was forced to kill a superpowered child before events of the story. Like Mrs. True, she’s frighteningly competent, protective…