By Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza, Jen Van Meter, Christopher Golden, James Marsters, Doug Petrie, Daniel Brereton, Jeff Matsuda, Cliff Richards, Luke Ross, Ryan Sook, Hector Gomez, & various (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-826-3
A hunger to be frightened is imprinted inn our genes and courses through our surging blood. Psycho-killers, ravening monsters, unsuspected epidemics, funfair rides, overdue bills, undeleted search-histories and a host of other things – daft and not – all trigger our visceral, paralysed fright, fight or flight response and thus always feature highly in our mass entertainments.
These days however the slow-building tension and cerebral suspense of the printed genre has been largely overtaken and superseded by the shock-values and sudden kinetic action of both small and big screens, with the entire oeuvre also liberally doused in a hot sauce of teen alienation, unrequited love and uncontrollable hormones – all making for a heady (if often predictable and flavourless) brew.
The transition was very much the result of a landmark American TV show and assorted media spin-offs which refocused the zeitgeist. However, even decades later, Dark Horse Comics’ clever, witty graphic interpretation of the cult global mega-hit TV franchise Buffy the Vampire Slayer remains a superbly enjoyable fear-feast, so here’s another look at that comics landmark via the publisher’s economical and engaging Omnibus Editions series.
Once the company secured the strip licensing rights, they began producing a regular series, a welter of impressive original Graphic Novels, numerous miniseries, spin-offs and specials. They even featured assorted cast and characters in their own anthology titles such as Dark Horse Presents. Long after the beloved TV show died, from 2007 onward comics delivered creator Joss Whedon’s never-broadcast, continuity-canonical Season Eight and beyond to the delight faithful fans and followers.
Buffy Summers lived in small California hamlet Sunnydale, built over a paranormal portal to the Nether Realms dubbed The Hellmouth. Here, she and a small band of buddies battled devils, demons and all sorts of horror inexorably drawn to the area and whom/what/which all considered humanity an appetiser and planet Earth an irresistible eldritch “fixer-upper†opportunity.
With Rupert Giles, scholarly mentor, father-figure and Watcher of all things unnatural, Buffy and her “Scooby Gang†sought to make the after-dark streets of Sunnydale safe for the largely-oblivious human morsels, ably abetted and occasionally aided by an enigmatic stud-muffin calling himself Angel…
Collected here in the second of seven big bad Omnibus editions are the contents of Buffy the Vampire Slayer #60-63, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Spike & Dru #1-2, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Ring of Fire and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Dust Waltz plus pertinent material from anthologies Reveal and Dark Horse Presents Annual 1998, (collectively spanning 1998 to 2003), presented for your delectation as a chronological continuity rather than in original publishing order: well-nigh 300 pages of full-colour mystery, merriment and mystical martial arts mayhem.
As explained in series Editor Scott Allie’s Introduction, although printed sagas and spin-offs were created in a meandering manner up and down the timeline, this series of books re-presents them in strict chronological continuity order, before apologising for the fact that back then an initial lack of up-to-date information often led to a few hairy moments and false starts.
This collection begins with outrageously experimental and enticing strip ‘Angels We Have Seen on High’ (by Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza, Jeff Matsuda, Hakjoon Kang, Nolan Obena & colourist Dave McCaig from Reveal, November 2002) wherein Buffy – still not settled into her new home – reluctantly takes little sister Dawn to a funfair. When the Slayer is distracted by a pack of feeders, she leaves the brat with a responsible adult who proves to be anything but…
Happily a mysterious leather-clad figure proves to be her guardian angel…
Next up is ‘A Stake to the Heart’ (Buffy the Vampire Slayer #60-63, August-November 2003 by Nicieza, Cliff Richards, Brian Horton, Will Conrad & Michelle Madsen) wherein the family is sundered after Buffy’s dad leaves for a new, less complicated life. Taking out her feelings on Sunnydales’s undead legions, the Slayer is unaware that she is being observed by Angel and his demonic sponsor Whistler as well as malignancy spirits ‘Deceit’, ‘Guilt’, ‘Abandonment’ and ‘Trepidation’ which feed on misery and negative emotions.
Meanwhile in another part of town, a dowdy British scholar arrives and begins his new day job as the librarian at Sunnydale High School…
Despite their cruellest efforts the malignancies have never contended with someone like Buffy before, nor her still-hidden future allies…
Whimsically concocted by Jan Van Meter, Luke Ross, Rick Ketcham & Guy Major, ‘MacGuffins’ originated in Dark Horse Presents Annual 1998, and focuses on fun as Buffy gets a unique educational gift from new Watcher Giles: dutiful agent of the venerable cult tasked with training and assisting Slayers in their anti-arcane endeavours.….
All she has to do is catch the damned things before they wreck her house and life…
Although Buffy was a hot, hip teen monster-killer, as the TV series developed it became increasingly apparent that the bad guys were the true fan-favourites. Cool vampire villain and über-predator Spike eventually became a love-interest and even a suitably tarnished white knight, but at the time of this collection he was still a jaded, immortal, immoral psychopath… every girl’s dream date.
His eternal paramour was Drusilla: a demented, faithless libertine precognitive vampire who killed and turned him. Dru thrived on a constant stream of fresh decadent thrills and revelled in baroque and outré bloodletting.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Spike & Dru #2 – from October 1999 – saw the twisted lovers gradually making their way to Sunnydale, roaming the American South in ‘Queen of Hearts’ (by Christopher Golden, Ryan Sook & Major). Arriving in St Louis they board a gambling palace on a paddle-steamer, just wanting to waste some time and test their fortunes. Unfortunately the enterprise is being operated by a sinister luck-demon with as little concept of fair play as Dru and Spike…
When they finally realise the real stakes, all the forces of elemental supernature can’t prevent the river running red – and sundry other colours – with demon blood…
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Ring of Fire was scripted by screenwriter/producer Doug Petrie (in his time a writer, director and co-executive producer on the TV show). The art comes from Sook, Tim Goodyear & colourist Dave Stewart. It was originally released as a slim, full-colour, all-new graphic novel which established the artist as a major comics talent.
The tale is set during TV Season 2 (which ran from Autumn 1997 to Spring 1998) when Buffy’s enigmatic vampire boyfriend Angel had reverted to a soulless slaughterer of innocents. His latest victim was High School computer teacher Jenny Calendar, who moonlighted as a gypsy witch and practising technopagan. She was also the one true love of Buffy’s mentor Giles…
One dark and stormy night twelve miles off the coast in ‘The Rising’ a Japanese cargo ship transporting ancient Samurai armour weathers staggering waves and a visit from a ghastly horror calling himself “Angelusâ€â€¦
The 500-year-old war suit once belonged to warrior demon Kelgor, whose power was tied to it and enabled him to raise an army of undead killers in 16th century Japan. Angelus and his unwilling allies Spike and Drusilla intend sparking the necromantic apocalypse designated “The Ring of Fire†and all they lack is Kelgor’s corpse (hidden by Watchers half a millennium ago). They’re expecting the Slayer to find that for them…
Cool vampire villain Spike was severely wounded and confined to a wheelchair at this time and Dru exulted in tormenting him by playing up to Angelus …
With Giles all but paralysed by grief, “Scooby-Gang†stalwarts, Willow, Xander and Oz are left to search copious reference files for information, but as their painstaking study bears dark fruit Giles is ambushed by Angel and Dru at Jenny’s grave. Buffy is there to rescue him, but that just gives Spike the opportunity to follow the merely human vampire hunters and activate the dead Samurai’s blazing revival spell…
Rushing to their side Buffy manages to (mostly) destroy freshly resurrected Kelgor, but as the Slayer pursues she is arrested by Federal spooks who know exactly what she is…
Frustrated but not thwarted, the terrible trio are at each others throats until Dru realises there is still some life in Kelgor’s remains. Moreover, the demon wants to share his centuries-old back-up plan with them. Hidden with the remains of ‘The Seven Samurai’ graves scattered throughout the state is the secret of true resurrection, and if the vampires gather the contents of those hidden tombs, all their wicked wishes can still come true…
Meanwhile, locked in a covert detention centre, Buffy faces exposure to the world and worst yet her mother. Giles is gone: fallen far off the deep end and reverted to his old, manic persona of “Ripperâ€, but that’s not a bad thing since he knows the people who arrested Buffy aren’t government agents… or even people. Yet even before he can get to her, back-up Slayer Kendra busts her imprisoned predecessor out.
(Long Story Short: when Buffy briefly died the next Slayer was activated, and even though the Blonde Bombshell was subsequently revived, Kendra, once here, wasn’t going away…)
The action goes into overload as the Japanese hell-lord is finally fully reconstituted to form an alliance with Dru, leaving Angel and Spike twisting in the wind. The “Feds†are then exposed as opportunistic demons trying to secure the resurrection spell for themselves in ‘Kelgor Unbound’. They are ultimately frustrated in that diabolical dream as Ripper has taken off with it, madly determined on bringing back his Jenny…
Across town Buffy, Kendra and the gang are too late to stop the final ritual. Dru and Kelgor exultantly awaken a colossal flame-breathing devil-bird to expedite their conquest of humanity and, forced into a tempestuous alliance with bad boys Angel and Spike, the vastly overmatched Buffy and Co need more magic than young witch Willow can conjure.
They need Giles back or the world is lost…
That cataclysmic clash is followed by the first issue of the miniseries Buffy the Vampire Slayer Spike & Dru: ‘Paint the Town Red’ from April 1999. It was co-written by James Marsters, who played the laconic Spike, with Christopher Golden. Illustrated by Sook & Stewart, the tale is set just after the undead couple split following a terrific love-spat, and follows the heart-sore Cockney Devil to an isolated Turkish village where he establishes a private harem and hunting preserve. Everything is perfect until Dru comes looking for him with her latest conquest, a recently-resurrected necromancer.
Koines is her love-slave, a wizard capable of controlling corpses with but a thought. Until she set her death-monger against Spike it hadn’t occurred to anybody that vampires are just another kind of cadaver, but once the mage realises he decides to renegotiate the terms of his rather one-sided relationship with the inventively psychotic vampire virago, and Spike discovers that he is not quite over Dru yet…
The story portion of this immense collection concludes with Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Dust Waltz from October 1998
Scripted by Dan Brereton and illustrated by Hector Gomez, Sandu Florea & Major, it was the very first Buffy comics offering; released as a full-colour, all-original graphic novel which set the tone and timbre for the forthcoming series.
It all begins in ‘Promenade’ as twin ancient vampiric horrors slowly cruise towards California and a showdown in Sunnydale. At school Buffy is still insolently resisting the stern admonitions of Giles to keep training, but a merciful interlude is offered when the Watcher invites Buffy and her gang – Willow, Xander and former mean girl Cordelia – to accompany him to Baytown Port and meet his niece Jane, imminently due to disembark from a world cruise.
It also inadvertently affords the squad their first, albeit unsuspected, glimpse of Vampire “Old Ones†Lilith and Lamia, who have made a pilgrimage to the Hellmouth with their bloodsucking Champions to indulge in savage ritualistic combat.
That night Buffy, on monster patrol with (once more reformed and benevolent) vampire boyfriend Angel, encounters and destroys one of the Champions. Deprived of her tool for the ritual, Lilith decides Angel will be his replacement – whatever it takes…
Tension intensifies in ‘Moondance’ as Buffy hunts for the vanished Angel, with Jane tagging along in defiance of Giles’ wishes. The Bloody Sisters have an army of infernal beasts and creatures with them, however, and the gang is captured and dragged to the Hellmouth even as the Watcher frantically seeks the true purpose of the dark combat ceremony…
Buffy, however, is far more direct and simply marches straight into the monsters’ midst to deal with the threat and save her friends “Slayer-style†in blistering, action-packed eponymous conclusion ‘The Dust Waltz’.
Of course even after trashing the vampire hordes there’s the small problem of un-summoning the colossal elder god the battle was designed to awaken…
Supplementing this compilation of chthonic confabulations are copious photo, Title Page and Cover Galleries with material from Matsuda & McCaig, Horton, Ross, Ketcham & Major and Sook, to complete the eerie excitement experience
Visually impressive, winningly constructed and proceeding at a hell-for-leather pace, this arcane action-fest is utterly engaging even if you’re not familiar with the vast backstory: a creepy chronicle as easily enjoyed by the most callow neophyte as every dedicated devotee.
Moreover in this era of TV binge-watching, with the shows readily available on TV and DVD, if you aren’t a follower yet you soon could – and should – be…
Buffy the Vampire Slayer ™ & © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.