Buffy

• Title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer #8
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Jordie Bellaire
• Artist: David López

“Hellmouth Prelude” moves away from the recent storyline involving Willow and Xander and instead offers a little of Buffy‘s not-so-glorious Halloween Dance experience (although she does end up trading a few barbs with a tall stranger) and offering a glimpse at a night out for Giles and Jenny which turns dark quickly thanks to Joyce Summers‘ awful taste in art (in a nice holdover from the television series).

Joyce having stocked a little trinket vital to Drusilla‘s plans to open the Hellmouth doesn’t turn out well for anyone at the art opening, not even Spike whose better half stabs him with the dagger heating up the Hellmouth (which is never something the locals in Sunnydale want to happen).

[click to continue…]

{ 0 comments }

• Title: Angel #4
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Bryan Edward Hill
• Artist: Gleb Melnikov

The first arc of the re-imagined spin-off comes to a close in Angel #4 as Angel is transported to a demon realm to do battle with Amarkax (who has been feasting on victims in California through social media). Despite being haunted by his past and visions of a future featuring a certain blonde Vampire Slayer, Angel is able to take down the demon after learning his name and providing the final ingredient in a spell to bind him for the next 10,000 years or so.

The issue doesn’t include any flashbacks to Angelus to help further explain the mysterious woman who the vampire turned. With the comic moving forward to a big crossover event with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I guess we’ll have to wait and see just what role she may play down the road.

[click to continue…]

{ 1 comment }

• Title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chosen Ones (One-shot)
• Comic Vine: link
• Writers: Mairghread Scott, Celia Lowenthal, Alexa Sharpe
• Artists: Ornella Savarese, Celia Lowenthal, Alexa Sharpe

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chosen Ones offers three separate tales of Slayers who came before Buffy Summers. “The Mission” involves the arrival of a new Watcher in the Sunnydale mission in 1808 after the death of his cousin by vampires and the rise of a new Slayer from the Chumash tribe named Hutash (who isn’t all that keen on the Spaniard mansplaining Slayer lore to her on their way to prevent the opening of the Hellmouth).

The first of the back-up stories, “The Eating of Men,” centers around the young Silvia Placida Ramberti who is curious about the man-eater discussed in the village… until it turns out to be her nanny.

[click to continue…]

{ 0 comments }

• Title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer #7
• Comic Vine: link
• Writer: Jordie Bellaire
• Artist: David López

The focus of Buffy the Vampire Slayer #7 stays mostly on Willow following her sacrifice to prevent Xander from becoming a full vampire. The result of the ritual has left them both with half of her soul, left Xander as some kind of half-human/half-vampire hybrid, and bruised the carefree Willow’s usually sunny disposition.

Along with a case of the blues, Willow is also haunted by bad dreams and visions of a darker self who she is forced to confront. Has the choice to save Xander prevented Willow from becoming the powerful witch she was destined to be? Or has it made her more, or less, susceptible to becoming “Dark Willow” at some point in the future?

[click to continue…]

{ 0 comments }