with him. The show mentions three such battles, including the Battle of Du-Khang in 2510 (shown in "The Message") and a long winter campaign in New Kashmir (as told by Zoe in "War Stories") where he commanded a platoon. Mal was also involved in the ground campaign during the Battle of Sturges (as seen in the comic book Serenity: Those Left Behind), 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 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". A deleted scene in Serenity indicates that this was a nickname given to the unit. After the war, Mal acquired his own ship, a derelict 03-K64 Firefly-class transport. Mal named the ship Serenity after the Battle of Serenity Valley, the decisive battle of the Unification War. Reception Fillion won the "Cinescape Genre Face of the Future Award — Male" award by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA for his role as Malcolm Reynolds. Fillion also won the SyFy Genre Awards in 2006 for Best Actor/Television and was runner-up for Best Actor/Movie. The character was named #18 in TV Guide's "Greatest Sci-fi legends" list in 2004. In 2008, Empire ranked Mal as #34 on their list of the 100 Greatest Movie Characters. In 2011, SFX Magazine voted Mal Reynolds #1 on their Top 100 Sci-Fi icons of the century. In her review of the film Serenity for The New York Times, Manohla Dargis had this to say about the character and Nathan Fillion: "Mal is no Neo redux; he's closer to Indiana Jones, if absent Harrison Ford's rakishly handsome looks and star magnetism. Like the rest of the cast, Mr. Fillion is a charming performer, but he borrows rather than owns the screen, which dovetails with Mr. Whedon's modest aspirations for this film." Notes References Fictional mercenaries Fictional master sergeants Fictional ship captains Fictional smugglers Firefly (TV series) characters Male characters in television Science fiction film characters Space pirates Television characters introduced in 2002 Western (genre) gunfighters Western (genre) heroes and heroines