Patching up.
We reconnect with a few of the major players last season as
Buffy and co try to find out what the hell is going on.
Taking off from last issue, the Slayer’s team quickly
overpowers the vampires despite the latter getting new enhancements. From
there, it’s a series of introspection and awkward reunions.
Gage deftly manages to juggle multiple threads, though the
transitions are a bit jarring and feel rushed. Issacs is competent without
over-extending herself, and brings in some good visuals.
SPOILERS FOLLOW………………..
As the Scooby Gang, with some help from Kennedy’s slayer
team, overwhelm the new age vampires led by Vicki the Vampire (lol), the latter
beat a hasty retreat.
In the middle and aftermath, we get some reunions. Kennedy
and Willow reconnect
while Giles is the main feature as his return to the world of the living is
handled with great humor by former and new members of the Gang.
As seen in Angel and Faith, Faith leaves with Kennedy’s
group and it’s a bittersweet parting. Faith has improved emotionally under
Giles and his loss with keenly felt last season. So, to leave him and remember
that Buffy remains the number one in Giles’ heart is more than a little sad.
Koh arrives after the party’s over and after learning that Illyria, the one who knew the person who betrayed him, is
presumed dead, goes off in search of the Old One.
Giles reveals that the Slayer handbook, which has been blank
for a while now, has been rewritten with apparently a new set of rules.
Shedding light on both why men can now suddenly become ‘slayers’ and the
vampires exhibit new powers including ability to walk in sunlight and
shape-shift, the group divides trying to find solutions after Giles exorts them to not depend too much on him for these situations (even though he seems sad when they do exactly that.)
The new pseudo-Slayer Billy, his 'watcher' Billy and a slayer Anaheed (Buffy's roommate) watch as Kennedy's plane leave the Santa Rosita airport.
While Buffy and Spike visit Dowling, a cop who was an ally
last season and got ditched by Buffy after landing up in the hospital, Xander
and Dawn travel to Transylvania.
What follows is a very easy breakup for Dowling and Buffy
(with references to Riley as her last human boyfriend) that actually Buffy
isn’t so okay with. Elsewhere, Xander discusses his ‘Dawn’-related problems
with the ghost of his dead ex-girlfriend Anya, before falling back into his
possessed servant routine with his old master and now ‘friend’ Dracula.
Unless you’ve read most of last season and thoroughly
followed the tv series, most of these interactions will be lost of you. Anya
neatly packages what she and Xander went through, and without proper background
knowledge, all of this (including the above reunions) will fly over the
reader’s head.
But for people like me, who have been following Buffy for
years, all of this comes off quite well and Gage handles it beautifully.
The humour element is something that is used well by Gage, with both physical and spoken forms easing the tension all around.
SPOILERS END…………………
While divisive on the new reader friendly nature, this book
serves as a foundation for this season’s exploits (Buffy herself goes meta when
she says to Giles ‘How do we find the Big Bad’).
Gage deftly manages to juggle the various interactions and
provide some great character moments for the cast. But this sadly creates
problems as well, leaving the book feeling overcrowded and rushed.
Issacs doesn’t exactly bring her ‘A-game’ this time but is
competent enough, though more work could have been done with the facial
expressions.
So, I give it 8.0 out of 10.
+Gage handles character interactions very well
+Some great usage of humour
+For those following Buffy for a long time, some good
moments…..
-But not for new readers, as most have little to no base
here
-Artwork isn’t exactly one of Issacs’ better works
-Feels a little rushed
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