Well, well…things are never easy in the Buffyverse? Are they? This book makes me think of that Whitesnake song “Here I go again, on my own…” Damn, Buffy never gets a break, does she? She only likes bad boys, she has a pain in the ass sister, a one eyed friend, she’s pretty much stopped the flow of potential Slayers, sealing her already sealed fate.. As a person who’s seen every episode (fine, I have them all on DVD) I know her deal…but still.. I don’t want to trade places with her, ever.

Now, with that being said, I have to say that reviewing comics for metalmachine.net has changed a bit for me, not because my job has changed…but because the media has changed. Instead of my usual lovely package of comics/books… I was handed a flash drive with my assignments on them. Fine..whatever, I pay money to have my comics/books live in storage, so maybe this is for the best…but, fucking Darkhorse has “Promotional copy, not for sale” on every pixel. I usually like to review both the artwork as well as the story (which is REALLY interesting and will keep me reading…). Well, guess what kids.. I sort of can’t. I’d like to apologize to Karl Moline (pencils), Andy Owens (inks) and Michelle Madsen (colors) because DH sort of covered all of your work and I am not headed out to the comic shop with my laptop to re-read this book. It’s supposed to snow today.

Onward to the story line. This comic has been written by Andrew Chambliss, and of course, Joss Whedon gets the Executive Producer credit. I still think it’s sort of funny that they are making sure you remember that this was a television show that was on for 7 TV seasons and is now onto it’s 2nd comic season.

Short synopsis: Buffy has stopped magic in the world of Sunnydale and well, the world. Dawn, her fake-but real-but fake little sister is dating a now one eyed Xander. Willow is still gay and she broke up with a Slayer who’s power was stripped when Buffy made it so she was the only one (Remember Highlander?) alright..well, there’s Faith but let’s not go there. SO! Buffy keeps having those “Slayer dreams” where the first Slayer comes and fucks her shit up. In addition to nightmarish scenes, she tells Buffy that she’s “Not the real Slayer!” OH SNAP! Fast forward a bit.. we realize that these spooky dreams are being passed on by a dream/nightmare faerie (how’d she sneak in past the magic barrier?) and is passing a message along to Buffy AND Willow..leaving them both to take on future dimension changing quests…alone.

So that’s the deal. I really enjoyed this comic in terms of the story progressing and making Buffy look like a semi-villain. Can you imagine a world with magic…then running into the one who made the executive decision that took it all away? “Fuck that bitch!” seems to be an underlying theme of this season. Even Willow is sort of mad at her and makes a passive aggressive comment about it. I want to read more, just to see who the real “Big Bad” is and what Willow (who goes to restore magic in the world…ohh! Will she have black eyes again?!?!?!) does about it. We’re going to see what happens. Of course, you all, my dear confidants will be able to see it much more clearly than I will. I’ve missed you…man I’ve fucking missed you. I hope you’ve all been well.

ENJOY OR DIE…
Loud! Melissa