PRE-SAN DIEGO BLOG EXTRA: FRIDAY

Since there won’t be regular site updates while I’m gone at Comic-Con International (there will, however, be updates here), I’m taking this week to do a little bit of advance catch-up on the large pile of books awaiting my attention.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER OMNIBUS VOL.1
Written and Drawn by Various
Published by Dark Horse

Dark Horse’s omnibus series delivers its first collection of stories about Joss Whedon’s pop culture masterpiece heroine, and it turns out to be a much better book than I genuine thought it could be. The first series go-around featuring the slayer and her friends was never really a standout, mostly reaching levels of “ok” during its publication. But a big part of that was due to two reasons: one, the book was a terrible monthly read, damned near incoherent at times; and two, it seemed to lack direction, bouncing from one threat to another with little regard for character flow. This book, at least, fixes one of those problems.

Volume one doesn’t begin by reprinting the first issue of the series; instead, the Omnibus begins by collecting the tales the series told that took place before Buffy landed in Sunnydale and met Willow and the gang. We get a Spike & Dru tale, then lead in to the adaptation of Joss Whedon’s original BUFFY film screenplay. And that gives the book an early jolt; Whedon’s original, un-tampered with script, is damned fine, and foreshadows exactly what the TV series would accomplish so well. After that, we get two flashback stories, one which follows Buffy and Pike (from the film) and functions as a sequel to the true origin tale and one which finds Buffy institutionalized before her parents divorced and Buffy wound up at the Hellmouth (an excellent callback to a classic episode of the TV show). We also get a subplot in that tale that shows how Rupert Giles drew the assignment to head to California and become our heroine’s new Watcher.

Like I mentioned above, the first monthly BUFFY book read horribly in floppy format. But the collections were always better, and this one was no exception. In fact, by bringing together an entire era of slayer stories, it becomes a far more compelling read. I’m not sure how the next couple of omnibuses will turn out, but this one is well worth your dollars, especially if you love the character and/or show.

/Mason