What Can't We Face from Once More, with Feeling

Buffy Season 8, Volume 1:
The Long Way Home

Author: Joss Whedon
Illustrator: Georges Jeanty
Pages: 130
Acquired From: Dark Horse Comics via NetGalley

If you thought Buffy ended after seven seasons, you're wrong. Buffy and the gang, well most of it anyway, are back. Of course, the gang's a bit bigger these days, what with there now being over a thousand slayers and all. Now though, the enemy might be harder to fight in a new way. It could be that humans, those the slayer was made to protect will be a bit uncomfortable with all of these superwomen running around. Backfire.

This first volume was pretty much like watching Buffy, only with subtitles. The characters look eerily like the actors that portrayed them in the show, only just a little off. Honestly, that is both cool and creepy. Some time has passed since the end of the show, so the slayer army has been organized, Willow's been coming and going doing magic things and Dawn has made a poor dating choice (who's shocked?) and is now a giant (apparently, shtupping certain demons will make you very large, and not in an eating a lot of Ben & Jerry's post breakup kind of way). Pretty awesome though, because I am amused by tall, whiny Dawn.

The final chapter in this volume was a bit boring, largely because it followed an unfamiliar character and does not yet have any meaning for the reader. Presumably, this will come later in the form of yet another foe for Buffy and the gang to kill. Otherwise, you can expect pretty standard Buffy fare, meaning completely ridiculous but in a rather nice way, even if there is someone I would rather not have seen again, especially with that person's new look.

Overall, I am happy with my reading experience; the graphic novel had the same balance between dark and silly as the show. "Great Muppety Odin" commands you to try it if you like the Buffster (29).

"What can't we face if we're together?
What's in this place that we can't weather?
Apocalypse
We've all been there
The same old trips
Why should we care?"