After Buffy the TV show, a travesty to the Buffy community hit the comic book stands; Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic book. With no Joss Whedon, or any of the writing crew from the TV series, the comic book was only recognizable in title, and even the most hardcore fans found it hard to read.
But, in 2007 Joss Whedon showed interest in comic books. First, he released a Firefly comic book that tied together some loose ends between the movie and his TV show.
After that, he went to reclaim his original brain child, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, taking over as lead writer, and bringing in the original TV show writer staff along with him. To recognize him as the writer and the new direction the comic book was taking, the comic book went with the title recognizing the continuation of the TV show: Buffy, Season 8.
As not to alienate the thin crowd that stuck with the comic book before Whedon's return, Season 8 does start off from where the comic book had and doesn't simply do the Marvel thing of black-listing unwanted issues. Most of the storyline for the TV show watcher will just seem like a believable jump into the future from the TV show, with limited "WTF?"s going on (like, "WTF, why is Dawn gigantic?"). Whedon and the crew take a few pages at the end of the first few issues quickly recapping what occurred and where they plan to take Season 8.
To quickly bring the crowd that didn't feel like reading the travesty of writing that occurred before Whedon's return, Whedon brings the comic book to where we left off: Sunny Dale. By bringing in old, memorable characters, the TV watching crowd could quickly identify and place themselves back in the Buffy world. On top of that, Whedon takes no time to re-establish his humor into the issues (man does Xander look like Nick Fury now, glad they mentioned it for the nerds of us out there), giving us the feel of the old TV show in a written format.
Season 8 will soon be releasing issue #12, the 1 year marker of Joss Whedon's return. Already the comic book is going strong, releasing multiple omnibuses of the past issues and even quick handlings of the TV Show before Whedon's return, and helping spring forth the Angel comic with Whedon as writer as well (and rumors that he may do the Spike comic too...so hot, so Billy Idol). For those that were unaware of Whedon's return, and look forward to reading Whedon's return, issues #1-5 (The Long Way Home) was just released together for $15, and Issues #6-10 (No Future For You) will be released in the coming month, which will bring anyone upto speed until the point of Buffy's new Arch-nemesis, Twilight, a masked super-power occult villain who will gladly stop to throw steeples at our heroine Buffy. The comic book promises to entertain in all the ways the TV show did, just a little less frequently (One issues a month). But hey, every comic book has two variant covers to enjoy...so you can spend twice the money for the full collection!
So Buffy fans, or just comic book readers, keep on reading! The new "Wolves at the Gate" story-arc will be starting up soon with Buffy!
2 comments:
There is a really surprising amount of fan-based literature (and fan-produced literature, like "slash fiction") dedicated to this show. Academic studies and conferences dedicated to Buffy are also still going strong...
and massive news coverage when the lead character wakes up naked with another girl in her bed. I really didn't see that coming...I mean the news coverage, the sex thing was kind of obvious last issue. But jeez, bulletins and headlines about it! Because the show hadn't previously had entirely plot lines centered around lesbian relationship.
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