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According to
the pre-release blurb, Part II of The Heart of the
Slayer has Buffy discovering "why is being stalked
by a nightmare creature from fourteenth-century France."
Well, not quite.
We do learn what the demon thingy from part one is, but
exactly who sent it remains a mystery. Personally, I'd hope
that it's part on some ongoing thread, but sadly that does seem
rather unlikely. Minus
marks to the blurbwriter also for the part about "the ultimate
sacrifice" - let's face, it ain't gonna be Buffy, is it?
Anyway, after
Part I set things up, we get to learn just why the mysterious
girl, Adja, is in Sunnydale, and what the demon thing is. And
- quelle surprise - the "ultimate sacrifice"
turns out not to be Buffy's.
The story mostly
concerns Buffy and Adja, with Giles getting to play with his
books and the rest of the Scoobies virtually absent. This is
no bad thing, given the space wasted on Willow and Xander in
the Bronze last time out.
However, since
none of that has any real bearing on the plot, it could have
been scrapped in the first place, so that either the whole story
ran as a single parter, or we got some more background. The
blurb implies that Adja is French, and Giles says she speaks
some sort of "Gothic" language, which at least implies
some sort of European origin, but we never really learn anything
more. Who sent them? Did the portals bringing them to present
day Sunnydale take them to eleventh-century Sunnydale first,
and then through time (since we first meet them in 19th century
Sunnydale) or not? Of course, there's no need to explain everything,
but it's frustrating that these sorts of things don't get answered
when we get Willow stuffing up some pointless spell instead.
The blurb pretty
much gives things away, which is rather annoying, although the
final couple of panels do provide it with a suitable ending,
even though two parters are always going to struggle getting
the story balance right.
And I'm still
not convinced about the artwork though, especially Giles.
BACK TO THE TOP
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THE
HEART OF THE SLAYER, PART II
Writer: CHRIS BOAL
Pencils: CLIFF RICHARDS
Inks:
JOE PIMENTEL
Cover: CHRISTIAN ZANIER
RATING: 6/10
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