Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Who She Is!! What’s To Come!!

Hercules Has Seen BUFFY 8.1!!

A long time ago ...

A few notes on a comic book that came out today titled “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home, Part One,” by Joss Whedon. It’s magical, and represents the best $2.99 you’ll spend this month.

BE WARY!! UNINVISOTEXTED SPOILERS LURK ABOUT EVERY COMING PARAGRAPH!! GO BUY AND READ THE COMIC FIRST!! IT’S ON SALE NOW!!

THE COVER. The words “Season Eight” appear in the tiniest type just below the Dark Horse logo. Super-cool. Buffy holds that stake-axe thingie she used to create an army of slayers in 7.22, but I didn’t notice it inside the issue.

PAGES TWO AND THREE. It already looks like “Buffy: The Motion Picture.” Not the Luke Perry teen comedy. Like the Willow/Xander/Giles TV show, but BIG. The start of the $300 million “Buffy” movie you crave in your heart. Our first glimpse of Buffy Summers in years depicts the slayer holding a weapon - but it is not a stake, not a crossbow, not an axe and not the aforementioned stake-axe thingie. It looks like a Love & Rockets ray-gun. There are three teenage girls behind her. It’s beautiful.

PAGE FOUR. Fascinating reference to a third Buffy.

PAGE FIVE. Buffy remains cavalierly ignorant of Spike and Angel’s Roman torments.

PAGES SIX AND SEVEN. Our first glimpse of Slayer Central Command. Again with the bigness. Cooler than The Initiative. Xander Harris runs the place, and displays typically laudable leadership banter.

PAGES 10 & 11. More bigness and swell dialog. And prepare, readers, to be seduced by the slayerettes.

PAGE 12. Oh! Something in the bottom panel! What the fuck is that??

PAGE 14. Sunnydale, Calif., was an inland municipality.

PAGE 17. Buffy and Xander together again, looking a little lonely, a long way from the Sunnydale High School library. The librarian isn’t around, but the funny remains, as do the books.

PAGE 19. Are Dawn and Buffy in a room or a big carport or an amphitheater or what? How do these castles work?

PAGES 20 & 21. MacBeth fans! In the mood for an angsty Scotland monologue? Because we get a great one here.

PAGES 22 & 23. What’s with that old-school Tony Stark/Howard Hughes facial hair on labcoat-clipboard guy?

PAGE 24. Nice visual with the reveal!

PAGE 25. Letters pages?? Oh, they reference “Tales of the Vampires”! Neato!

Whedon and some of the other “Buffy” writers made sort of a dry-run at season eight by authoring these two volumes. They don’t focus on Buffy Summers, but they’re all about her universe. And they’re kinda cheap!