Review: Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight (volume 2)
This volume collects comics 6-10. The first four are make up an arc called No Future For You, written by Brian K. Vaughn and the last is a one off called Anywhere But Here, written by Joss Whedon. This review is spoiler free if you’ve seen the series, not so much otherwise. If you haven’t read my review of volume one, you should check it out first. If you haven’t seen the show, I’d highly recommend you check it out, but if you missed season 3, the relevant bits are shown as flashbacks.
No Future For You
Faith was put forward time and again as an example of what Buffy could easily become. The power of the slayer is derived from darkness and it takes a very strong will to use that darkness for good. The odds are, with as many slayers as there are running around after the end of season 7, some were bound to be bad apples. This story arc follows one that’s rotten to the core, and throws both Faith and Buffy into the mix against her. I love seeing Giles in action and I love where this arc leaves Faith.
Aside from the setting in an England mansion, the majority of these 4 comics could have been filmed for TV. It feels a lot like the show, but a few spectacular exceptions remind us how much easier “special effects” are in comics.
These 4 comics tell a tightly self contained story, but set up quite a bit for the rest of season eight. If you’ve been on the lookout for this season’s Big Bad, the mysterious hovering legs from comic 1 are a good candidate, and by the end of this arc we get a glimpse of what they’re attached to. That and a sunset. I suspect we’ll be seeing more than our fair share of comics in this series ending with a sunset.
Anywhere But Here
In my intro, I called this a one off and it does tell a solid self contained story, but it reveals quite a lot about the season. Joss wrote this quite playfully. Buffy and Willow spend a good deal of the comic trading fantasies back and forth. The baddie in this episode is like nothing we’ve encountered before and would not have been possible on the show’s budget. However, it’s mostly there so that Buffy and Willow have something to fight while they’re chatting.
It’s some pretty important chatting. Lots of questions are answered, more are brought to the fore and this story also ends with a sunset. That pretty much seems to be the running metaphor for this season’s apocalypse.
For more yummy goodness, check out Joss Whedon’s “Astonishing X-men” comic book series. I’m not even a fan of the X-men, but I do love his work on the books. 🙂
Oh yes. I treasure the first 2 collections. Makes me want to check out some of the OTHER comics stuff Joss has written, like Runaways.