Faith’s arc now finished, Buffy creator Joss Whedon returns to Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 for a this one-shot tale of relationships and consequences of choices long past. Here’s the review for “Anywhere but Here.”
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #10
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After the Faith arc from Brian K. Vaughn (read more about that here) the season shifts back to our main heroine and the relationships which are at the heart of the Buffyverse.
Joss Whedon returns as well to pen this stand-alone issue which, although it contains action, horror and adventure, its true purpose is to get back to the characters and relationships of Buffy and Willow, and to a lesser extent Xander and Dawn.
Starting out with a humorous dream sequence, the tale jumps into Willow and Buffy’s trip to talk with a demon known as the Sephrilian who can tell them about the future and help them understand the unbalance and coming Twilight. But be careful what you wish for, especially in the Buffyverse.
What is revealed is a simple truth and stabbing at old wounds. The death of Tara and Willow’s response bring back issues of trust, friendship, and love as Willow admits to Kennedy and Buffy the worst mistake she ever made, and her reluctance to do anything like it again.
The B story of the issue finally reveals the events which caused Dawn’s growth spurt, although, as with the main tale, the real interest here isn’t the revelation but the reconnection between the two characters who have had some nice moments together including one of my favorites of the entire series involving Xander’s speech to her at the end of “Potential”.
Although the story doesn’t do much to move the season’s main arc along, it does give us a better understanding of the characters and the state of their relationships since the Scoobies left Sunnydale. The melancholy ending, though foreseeable, fits well with the format of the show and Willow’s discussion here is an important event in the lives of these characters which we finally get to see here on the comic page. She has come to terms with the choices she’s made (much like Buffy at the beginning of Season Five‘s finale “The Gift”) and realizes the limits of how far she is willing to go in the future. We’ll see how if her decision holds up, and if Kennedy (nice to finally see her) survives the season. Anyone want to take odds?