I hate to say it, but I think Issue 7 is where Season 9 jumps the shark. Issue 6 tempted us with a potentially juicy plotline with plenty of character development. But in this issue, Buffy and Spike kvetch about their relationship for the billionth time, giant bugs fly around in spaceships, and the issue ends on a truly facepalm-worthy note.

At the end of issue 6, Buffy decided to have an abortion after discovering that she had become pregnant. Rather than follow up on that dramatic decision right away, Issue 7 opens with a pointless scene involving Buffy’s inane roommates (apparently, their names are ‘Tumble’ and ‘Anaheed,’ but I prefer to think of them as ‘Hipster Chick’ and ‘Guy Who Looks Like Stephen Stills from Scott Pilgrim’).

Earlier, they freaked out when they learned that they were living with the Slayer and decided to vote her out of the apartment a la Survivor. But lo and behold, both of them ended up voting in Buffy’s favor when push came to shove. They go to tell Buffy about her reprieve, only to find her stuff in boxes.

It turns out that Buffy has found some new digs. She is now living on an alien spaceship belonging to Spike, her on-again/off-again vampire sex toy. Not only does Spike have a spaceship, but it is crewed by a bunch of giant talking bugs. After some more pregnancy angst (which seems like more of a plot device than genuine emotion), Buffy segues neatly into relationship angst with Spike.

Buffy whines about her desire for a normal life, Spike complains that Buffy is using him, and I roll my eyes because we have all heard this conversation a billion times before. Seriously, these two are stuck in some sort of emotional Groundhog Day where they are doomed to have the same arguments over and over — and over again. Come to think of it, that pretty much describes all of Buffy’s relationships.

Since this is, after all, an issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there has to be a battle. Sure enough, Detective Dowling soon comes under attack by a bunch of zompires. Like all law enforcement officials in the Buffyverse, he is incompetent and unable to defend himself, so he radios Spike for help. Spike naturally obliges (he is, after all, the new Sensitive Spike™, complete with soul), though he makes Buffy stay behind because of her ‘condition.’ Buffy watches the battle from aboard the spaceship until she remembers that she is the title character and jumps into the fray.

Naturally, she kicks butt, and afterward she and Spike end up having a romantic scene amidst the carnage, and we get to see them natter on about their relationship some more. *Sigh* Just as it is revealed that they both want normal lives, Plot Contrivance rears its ugly head, and a random zompire jumps up and rips Buffy’s arm off. Instead of screaming frantically before passing out due to blood loss, Buffy just stands there looking confused. No, it is not because of her hardy Slayer constitution. Apparently, Buffy is a robot!

This issue felt like a gigantic letdown. Having Buffy grapple with an unexpected pregnancy could have interjected a strong human element to the comic. Instead, we are subjected to a mélange of tired tropes. Spike’s spaceship and its bug crew seem like they were lifted from the pages of a bad sci-fi comic, and Buffy-like robots were done to death on the TV show. To series newcomers, the ending might have been a shock, but series veterans are liable to roll their eyes at yet another Buffybot.

In one of the last panels, ‘Buffy’ says that “I think this means I’m not pregnant,” which suggests that writer Andrew Chambliss could be using the Buffybot as a way to extricate himself from the Buffy-is-pregnant plotline. I suppose it could have been worse: she could have woken up and realized it was all just a dream. Still, it will be a shame if such an intriguing plotline is cut short so abruptly.

The article Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Season 9, Issue 7 appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Series creator Joss Whedon brought Buffy the Vampire Slayer back to life with this comics-only follow-up to Season 7 of the television show. Now the wait is finally over for Buffy fanatics everywhere as Dark Horse announces the deluxe, oversized, dust-jacketed hardcover collection of Buffy Season 8.

This hardcover edition contains the first two arcs of the series (Buffy Season 8 #1–#10), written by Joss Whedon and Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, Runaways), with art by the acclaimed Georges Jeanty. It includes two one-shots, a cover gallery, and exclusive, never-before-seen sketch material.

After the destruction of the Hellmouth, the Slayers—newly legion—have gotten organized, but it’s not long before new and old enemies begin popping up. Buffy, Xander, Willow, and a very different Dawn are introduced to the season’s big bad, Twilight, and are only beginning to understand the incredible reach of this mysterious threat. Meanwhile, rebel Slayer Faith teams up with Giles to handle a menace on the other side of the Atlantic. It’s a dirty job, and Faith is just the girl to do it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1 is on sale May 30, 2012.

Meanwhile, Whedon has teamed up with Andrew Chambliss (Dollhouse, ABC’s Once Upon a Time) and Season 8 artist Georges Jeanty for the life-affirming, world-changing Buffy Season 9. Dark Horse Comics has announced the first collection of the season with Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 Volume 1: Freefall.

Season 8 ended with a bang that cut the world off from magic—culminating in another set of world-ending problems. Buffy has left her best friend, Willow, powerless, and brought an end to a millennia-long tradition of super powered girls. By day, Buffy is a twenty-something waitress with no real direction, and even though magic is gone, she’s still a vampire Slayer by night. Bigger problem? Vampires are becoming an epidemic . . . of zompires.

Written by series creator Joss Whedon and Andrew Chambliss of the CW’s The Vampire Diaries, Freefall collects Buffy Season 9 #1–#5, on sale August 1, 2012.

The article Buffy Season 8 & 9 Make Exclusive Release 2012 appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

This week saw the release of the latest installment in Dark Horse Comics’ popular continuation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past fifteen years, BtVS was a cult TV show that aired from 1997 until 2003. Sarah Michelle Gellar played Buffy Summers, a high school student with a supernatural calling.

As ‘the Slayer,’ she had the duty to protect the world from vampires and other supernatural nasties. Buffy’s friends, Xander (Nicholas Brendon) and Willow (Alyson Hannigan), were in on her secret, too, and they were often called upon to help Buffy out each week as she battled the forces of darkness.

As the seasons wore on, Buffy romanced not one, but two vampires, Willow became a lesbian, and the Summers family was enlarged by the addition of younger sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg), who was actually a sophisticated hiding place for a magical MacGuffin known as The Key.

When the series ended in 2003, Buffy was finally able to destroy the Hellmouth that had turned her hometown of Sunnydale into an evil-magnet for seven seasons. Although Buffy vanished from the small screen, series creator Joss Whedon decided to continue her saga in comic book form.

Teaming up with Dark Horse Comics, he produced a popular series of comic books that functions as an eighth season of the TV show in paper form. Season 8 ran for 40 issues until it came to a dramatic end in January 2011. At the end of the series’ final arc, Buffy smashes a powerful artifact that acts as the source of all magic in the world.

In Season 9, Buffy must adjust to a radically different life. The line of Slayers will come to an end with the demise of the present generation. With magic gone, Willow (who had evolved into a powerful witch during the course of the TV show) can no longer use her spells. Buffy’s life takes a turn for the mundane, and she now works as a waitress in San Francisco, while the other members of the Scooby Gang have scattered.

Although much has changed for Buffy, vampires are still a problem. In Issue 3, Buffy encounters a mysterious stranger named Severin. He has the ability to kill vampires by generating bolts of energy with his hands, something that should not be possible since magic has supposedly vanished from the world.

It soon becomes apparent that the demise of magic is affecting vampires in an unusual way, and newly-sired vampires are even more terrifying than the older versions. Eager for answers, Buffy tries to reconvene the Scooby Gang, but her old friends are reluctant to return to the fray.

The events that ended Season 8 have allowed the writers to ‘reboot’ Buffy in Season 9. Without magic, the characters get to experience something resembling a normal life for the first time in ages, and the new emphasis on mundane life is reminiscent of  Season 1  of the TV show.

Back then, Buffy was a high school student trying to juggle the supernatural business of fighting evil with the more pedestrian demands of life as a teenager.  You can also see echoes of that in Season 9. At one point in Issue 3, there is a nifty callback to the first episode of the show, which I really appreciated.

Overall, I think Issue 3 was quite well done. The story unfolded at a brisk pace and left the reader eager to read the next installment. Scriptwriter Andrew Chambliss has done a decent job of imitating the writing found in the TV show. The only complaint I have is the artwork.

Georges Jeanty’s ability to make the characters look like the actors who played them seems to vary from page to page. He does a nice job of making Willow look like Alyson Hannigan, but Dawn does not really look anything like Michelle Trachtenberg. Also, on some pages, Buffy ends up looking like she is twelve years old. Although these hiccups are fairly minor in and of themselves, they do distract from the overall effect.

OVERALL GRADE: A-

The article Comic Review: Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 9, Issue 3 appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.