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After the four-part False Memories story, it's back to one parters with a story that ties into both the Buffy TV series and Dark Horse's comic series. As someone who's long complained about Dark Horse (and, for that matter, Pocket Books) using the vague "this story takes place during Buffy the Vampire Slayer's xxx season" notes, it's good to see them fitting a story in a much more defined part of the TV series' continuity, in this case, soon after Forever (Buffy mentions Joyce's funeral). It also has links to a couple of comic stories. There's a flagged up link to Cemetery of Lost Love, as well as a reference to Bad Blood (the book Verena's mother uses). Personally, I didn't think either story was crying out for a sequel, but Dark Horse have given us one anyway. Apart from a telephone conversation between Buffy and Willow and then a graveside scene at the end, we've effectively got two separate stories here as the Scooby Gang tries to cope with Joyce's death. Alone - literally - a restless Buffy goes out in search of some vamps to kill and runs into "that crazy voodoo chick" Verena's mother, who blames Buffy for her daughter's death and wants revenge. One obvious criticism I'd made is the idea that it needs to be midnight for the spell to work, which smacks of the sort of silliness you'd expect from Charmed rather than Buffy. Meanwhile, Anya, Tara, Willow and Xander discuss ways that they can cheer up Buffy. Tara is the best one here, picking up on Willow's willingness to use magic to help out her friend, and sharing her own experience of her mother's death (another reference to the TV series). However, as so often happens, Xander comes across as rather annoying - it's almost as if the writers don't have anything useful for him to do so fall back on punning or cracking jokes. I suppose it could be argued that his behaviour reflects the fact that the Scoobies don't know how to handle Joyce's death but since he's always the same, I'm not particularly inclined towards that view. I actually quite like these little interludes between larger events, and it's good to see the comic taking time to reflect Joyce's death. Shorter stories also tend to fit in with my desire for the spin-offs to be part of the franchise's continuity rather than being no more canonical than a piece of fanfic. Artwise, the cover is nothing like the comic itself, which is a shame as I quite liked the Buffy on the cover. To be fair, there are a few good panels of Buffy inside (liked the high kicking one), although Anya and Tara could be just about anyone (Willow is obvious because of her red hair and Xander is the only male in these scenes). Overall, not great, but not bad either. BACK TO THE TOP |
NIGHT OF A THOUSAND
VAMPIRES |
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