- Title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Omnibus #1
- Comic Vine: link
This new definitive comic collection of Buffy Summers’ adventures begins at, where else, the beginning. In “Buffy: The Origin” Joss Whedon’s original screenplay is used as the template to tell the tale of how Buffy Summers became a vampire slayer. Re-imagined as the Gellar Buffy, the story has a more serious tone than the over-the-top campiness of the film.
“Viva Las Buffy” follows Buffy and Pike’s trip to a Las Vegas casino which contains more than a few secrets (and vampires). The plot involves a side-story of Angel along with the “first” appearance of Rupert Giles. We also see the end of Buffy and Pike’s relationship.
The last of the three main stories, “Slayer, Interrupted,” focuses on Buffy’s incarceration in a mental institution after Dawn finds Buffy’s diary about her slaying and shares it with her parents. It’s a nice look back at events that were suggested in the Season Six episode “Normal Again” as Buffy contemplates the absurdity of her life.
This first collection also has a solo Dawn story “Dawn & Hoopy the Bear” and a Spike and Drusilla adventure from the 1930’s “All’s Fair.” Both are more curiosities than anything else as they don’t add much, other than some dark humor, to the collection.
One of the intriguing choices here is including Dawn as a character in these early stories. Although divisive among fans I like the idea of showing “new” stories with Dawn included. It’s a nice twist to see how her involvement makes slight changes to the tale and continuity of the Buffy ‘verse. I hope this trend continues in later volumes.
Though not outstanding the artwork and quality of the edition is uniformly good. Although I would have preferred a hardcover edition series for the “definitive” collection, but this nicely packaged 320 page and modestly priced [$24.99] edition gives you all you could hope for in a trade paperback volume.
I came to the Buffy ‘verse late, I wasn’t a full-time viewer until season six, and so have missed out on many of the comic adventures of Sunnydale’s heroine. This collection makes a nice primer for those like me who haven’t followed the previous Buffy comics (before this current Season Eight run), and for fans of the comics it’s a nice jumping off point to chronologically capture and collect all of Buffy’s adventures. It’s definitely worth picking up.
For more BtVS fun check out our link page to our “Whedon Week” from way back in 2005. There you will find a list of our reviews for all the seasons of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly on DVD.