BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER - SEASON EIGHT - #16
If “Time Of Your Life Pt. 1” were an actual episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, it would squarely put the series at the midseason point. Then again, this being a Joss Whedon experiment, who knows how long the comic book series comprising “Season 8” of BUFFY will go on, so Midseason might be jumping the gun a bit.
Yet, for all intents and purposes, the sort-of Big Bad were thwarted or sidelined after the end of the last arc penned by Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon and now we’re in the “calm after the storm” phase that leads to the next big arc and the re-introduction of Whedon’s future slayer Fray (from her own comic book many vampire stakings ago).
The calm after the storm part, which will likely lead to an even bigger storm, has our mainstay trio of Xander, Willow and Buffy recovering from the spoils of war (and deaths of close ones) in anticipation for their next big challenge. Apparently Buffy’s magical scythe which is the power source for her entire slayer army has been told it will be found in New York – even though Buffy has it in her possession.
Naturally, Willow and Buffy head off to New York (resulting in some very funny fish-out-of-water moments for Buffy) as Willow hooks up with her Wiccan friends (and one in particular concerned about Buffy’s lez-faux phase and making sure the slayer doesn’t put the moves on Willow in another moment of romantically-confused weakness).
Soon, the source of where the scythe will appear ends up transporting Buffy to the future where she comes face to face with future slayer Fray – not surprising, the book ends before we get to the good stuff.
Many other spoilers pop up through this thoroughly entertaining arc – Dawn transforms again, shrinking from her giant form and morphing into a centaur. Xander, being the world-fumbler he is, doesn’t do the best job of consoling her, but we are teased that the spell Dawn is under falls into the “rule of three” category, so before Season 8 is over, there’s probably a whole other incarnation of Dawn on the horizon.
And finally, if things couldn’t get worse, skinless Warren has created a bomb that’s headed right toward Slayer Castle in Ireland.
While the series reunites FRAY penciler Karl Moline with Whedon, his interpretation of the Buffster is not as Sarah Michelle Gellar-esque to my liking, though he does capture some of Buffy’s more flighty moments expertly, particularly when she’s in New York.
In fact, Whedon himself, has scripted some of the better, lighter Buffy moments we’ve yet to see in Season 8 to date. Saving the world, death, destruction, giant Dawn, lesbian trysts certainly do bring weightier moments to the comic series for our titular hero, so it’s nice when she can just be who she is – a young woman who is still concerned about what kind of clothes she needs to wear to be hip in New York.
As always, it’s going to be a long monthly wait until Part 2 arrives in comic book stores, but anyone who doubted Whedon could successfully bring the vibe, feeling and anticipatory rabid-ness to the comic book field that he brought to the TV series were seriously wrong.
