Buffy : Season 8

First you got Fray, then Dark Willow, and now a return to Oz is next, Joss Whedon told MTV News.

As the time-traveling “Time of Your Life” arc in Dark Horse Comics’ “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight” wraps up, we’re going to start seeing a lot of the characters in the Buffyverse dealing with what’s in store in the future, and the question of whether Buffy’s activation of all the potential Slayers was a good thing.

“Is this like a ‘Terminator’ thing where we can change it?” Whedon asked. “Are things going to be like that in the future, or is it a ‘Terminator 3’ thing where we can’t change it? That’s the question. Can Buffy preserve the world she’s created, or is it going to come crashing down?”

Whedon told MTV that after the events of the next comic out October 1, the series is going to diverge from the arcs and go into a stretch of single issue stories for a while.

“The single issues are really where we start to get the momentum for what’s going on in the season,” said Whedon. “There are hints in the Fray arc, but it really starts trucking in the single issues, because it’s all played from different people’s perspectives. They’re all dealing with the same world issue.”

One of the points-of-view stories will combine how Buffy and Andrew react to the events unfolding around them, another will be Xander and Dawn, another will be Satsu and Kennedy, and yet another will involve Giles and Faith.

“And there’s one that I’m not going to reveal because that will really surprise people,” Whedon said. “The first one is the one, the person who is really going to start things, bring things down, and it’s not the person you might expect. I know I’m right about that.”

Hmmm. Based on the advance solicitation, we’d have to guess that the one about to bring discord is Harmony.

And following the single issues, Oz will get his own five-issue arc written by Jane Espenson.

“It’s not like he was dead,” Whedon laughed. “He just went away. How and why will have to wait for the comic. But the whole world of demons and monsters and magic is starting to boil over and the werewolf community is going to be a part of that. I just saw Seth [Green], and I think I mentioned it to him. He’s the only cast member who actually reads the comics. He gets it, he loves them.”

“Let me be clear,” Green told MTV, “I love that character. I loved playing it, and I love Joss Whedon and his interpretation of it, so anything he sees fit to elaborate on with that character, I’m excited to see.”

And then Whedon (with the aid of Brad Meltzer) will wrap up the season with two more arcs to be revealed. “Brad was my most surprising ‘yes,’” Whedon said. “He’s coming on at the very last stage with me because that’s where we have to do the big sort of everything coming together wrap-up, and I don’t know anyone who’s better at that then he is — really playing all the mythos of the universe and all the pain that the big event can cause.”

“Buffy and Xander don’t need me for a new twist,” Meltzer said. “You love the characters already, because they’re terrific. My job isn’t to show you what’s not there, but what you’ve always seen before but never thought was there. I’m going to try my best not to screw it up too badly.”