Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home (Season 8, #1) by Joss Whedon - Ashley's Review

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Title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home (Season 8, #1)
Author: Joss Whedon, Georges Jeanty, Andy Owens, & Jo Chen
Publication Date: October 31, 2007

Synopsis: Collects: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight, #1–5

Since the destruction of the Hellmouth, the Slayers-newly legion-have gotten organized and are kicking some serious undead butt. But not everything's fun and firearms, as an old enemy reappears and Dawn experiences some serious growing pains. Meanwhile, one of the "Buffy" decoy slayers is going through major pain of her own.

Buffy creator Joss Whedon brings Buffy back to Dark Horse in this direct follow-up to season seven of the smash-hit TV series. The bestselling and critically acclaimed issues 1-5 are collected here for the first time, as are their covers by Jo Chen and Georges Jeanty.


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Review: I started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer pretty late. Somehow I missed it when it first aired on TV, and was introduced to it when all of the seasons were added to Netflix. I'm so glad my friends made me watch it though, because it's probably one of my favorite shows of all time. You can imagine that I was pretty excited to find that, after it was cancelled, Joss Whedon decided to continue the series in the form of comics!

This comic was a little confusing at times, and I think it was because there was too much information crammed into only a few chapters. The "Big Bad" for the season is briefly introduced, and there's also a "monster of the week." It almost felt like Joss didn't really know where to take this season now that its a comic and it took me a little bit to get into it and actually figure out what in the world was happening. 

I really enjoyed seeing old characters and meeting the new ones, especially since there are so many active Slayers now. One of the villains was someone I never expected to see again, and I really enjoyed how there's a flashback to explain how he's still around. I also thought it was kind of hilarious that Dawn has grown up... quite a bit... I actually like her a lot more in these comics than I ever did in the show. 

The comics still follow the continuity of the show, which was really nice. Things are referenced that wouldn't make sense unless you've watched all of the show and things are added that reinforce events that happened in the show. I hope that the next volume feels more like the Buffy I know and love, but this one still felt like it was getting there and I still very much enjoyed reading it. The artwork is fantastic, and it's easy to figure out who is who before they're even called by name. 

I would definitely recommend this to fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you haven't watched the show, this comic probably won't make much sense at all... so I don't think it's something you can just pick up if you aren't familiar with BtVS. I'm excited to read the next installment! 4/5. 


--Ashley

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