By Joss Whedon (writer), Karl Moline (pencils), Michelle Madsen (colors)
The Story: After being doublecrossed by Fray and her sister, Buffy struggles to find her way home while Future-Dark Willow moves her plans to their final stages. Present day Willow, with the help of Kennedy, prepares a spell to bring Buffy back. All while Xander and Dawn fight off an army of frog-looking men with the help of the woodland creatures. It’s an action-packed issue with a lot going on, so don’t blink!
What’s Good: The quality of writing remains incredibly high. The characters, world, and relationships are just as rich as they were on the show. The series really feels like the next logical step in the progression. It makes me wish that Whedon had time to spend some attention to the other comic series based off of his shows.
What’s Not So Good: Three separate and seemingly unconnected stories are a little hard to follow. Xander and Present-Willow’s stories get wrapped up in a handful of pages, while the bulk of the book follows Buffy in the future. It just seems like the spacing is off. Another gripe is Dark Willow. She obviously knows much more of the story than she’s telling, which is fine. But her “you’ll find out soon enough” dialogue leaves without the finding part. But it’s gotten a little tiresome since she’s been doing that for four issues or so without much of a reveal.
Conclusion: Season Eight has been fantastic for fans of the show. However, I’m ready for things to move back to the present. Not that this portion of the story’s been bad. But having two separate stories, two centuries apart from one another was just a little harder to follow than I would’ve liked.
Grade: B
-Ben Berger
Filed under: Dark Horse Comics, Reviews Tagged: | Buffy, Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 19, Darkhorse Comics, Joss Whedon, Karl Moline, Michelle Madsen
I’m with you, the two stories was a great idea, but now I’m looking forward to them merging back into one cohesive story.