Fray

 

By Joss Whedon, Karl Moline & Andy Owens (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN: 1-84023-448-2

I haven’t yet met anyone who didn’t like Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, and most people liked the Angel spin-off too. I’m writing of course, about the TV show. Both the original movie and the various comics have their fair share of detractors.

So when Joss Whedon himself wrote a comic book follow-up to those shows, a continuation of the franchise and universe set centuries in the future, introducing a new Slayer into a world that had seen no kind of magic since the end of the 20th century, expectations could be described as uncomfortably high.

It worked though. The future as constructed for Melaka Fray is as clichéd and familiar as Sunnydale and for exactly the same reason. Horror and action work better when settings are comfortable and realistic – whether that’s the suburbs of Smalltown USA, or the cargo bay of the starship Nostromo.

By her lights Fray is just another poor girl trying to get by in a tough world. She doesn’t see herself as anything more than resilient until a giant red goat Demon turns up and tells her she is the latest in a long line of female supernatural warriors. And then it’s nothing but action and snappy one-liners right through to the end.

There’s nothing deep or life-changing to be had here. For fans of the franchise it is simply one more bite of the cherry. For readers of comics it’s a cracking good read, beautifully illustrated by Moline and Owens. The shows made an old genre fun. The fun’s still here.

™ & © 2003 Joss Whedon. All Rights Reserved.