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After two cracking Spike and Dru comic stories, expectations for ALL'S FAIR were running high, but sadly it doesn't really live up to them. The pair's long history provides plenty of dramatic possibilities, and we open with one that's been mentioned in the TV series - Spike's killing of a Slayer during the Boxer Rebellion. Then we jump forward to Chicago in 1933 where the pair are visiting the World's Fair. Also present are plenty of walking Happy Meals, a fanatical scientist, a gateway to another dimension and the Slayer's brothers, hellbent on revenge. Spike and Dru are always entertaining, even though like the writers of the television series, Golden hasn't really got the hang of Spike's more Anglo-Saxon expressions. To anyone on this side of the Atlantic, these can occasionally jar - and would he really have used the expression "two strikes against us" in 1900? That's a minor quibble and wouldn't really have detracted from the overall comic had the story been better. Unfortunately, there's rather too much space devoted to them being nasty at the World's Fair than the main storyline. The scientist doesn't really do anything than the average inhabitant of Sunnydale calling forth unimaginable horrors that we've all seen before - and how his invention fitted into the overall story was perhaps a little too obvious. One of the more distinctive elements of the first two Spike and Dru stories was Ryan Sook's art. ALL'S FAIR sees Eric Powell taking over these duties, with the result that the artwork falls a little flat in places. There are also a couple of sloppy lettering errors which Dark Horse really should have been picked up. All in all, a rather average story and artwork, and a bit of a disappointment after Spike and Dru's previous outings. BACK TO THE TOP |
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