Review : Buffy the Vampire Slayer #32

Buffy Comics #32 : Twilight (Part 1)
Writer : Brad Meltzer
Pencils : Georges Jeanty

First a quick catch up. With this being issue 32 we’re now closing up the third year of Season 8 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. No real reason to mention it, just thought you might like to know.

So, assuming that you’re new to the series (and why are you, if you liked the TV show you’ll love this), it’s well written and the artwork, well let me put it this way, unlike a lot of other comic adaptations you read you can easily recognise the characters facially from when you watched on the TV.

To catch up, since Sunnydale went under there have been a few changes going on, most notably that vampires and slayers are common public knowledge due in no small part to Harmony and her MTV show Harmony Bites, where she turns public opinion against slayers on a weekly basis. So now the slayers are hiding in pockets of around the world.

Most recently in Buffy, Willow, Xander (in serious action army man mode) and the rest are hiding out in Tibet with Oz, his wife and child. The new big bad guy, in the form of a masked villain going by the name of Twilight, and his partners in the form of Amy (witch and ex-rat), Warren (dead, not dead and completely skinless) and some interchangeable army general engineered a massive attack on the Slayer holdout.

The battle raged for two days dragging in hundreds of army guys, slayers, werewolves and three giant flying indiscriminately destructive gods. Eventually the slayers were triumphant, though not without considerable loss, and the gods were planted way, way underground in the way these things usually go.

Now, following on from the epic battle Buffy has superpowers in the form of flight, super-super strength and is even faster than a speeding bullet (It’s true, they test it). Nerd knowledge is important here as Xander runs through his catalogue of known superpowers for Buffy to test, Dawn and Willow argue about the Karma involved in gaining a massive boost to Buffy’s slayer abilities and Faith, Giles and Andrew are involuntarily taken on to find some answers.

Amy, Warren and The General are not to be counted out, with them now within the castle’s magical defences and studying Buffy’s new powers as closely as Xander and Buffy are themselves. Oh, and in case you’re wondering there is a reason for the new powers and they’re revealed in close order.

It’s a good read and not too bad a jumping off point for new readers, just remember to brush up on your geek knowledge or some of the pop culture references might just fly by without being spotted.

Go look it out.