Season 9 of BtVS motors towards its conclusion as all parties fight their way to the core…
Script by Andrew Chambliss
Pencils by George Jeanty
Inks by Dexter Vines
Colours by Michelle Madsen
Purchase your copy at Forbidden Planet now.
Beware of spoilers!I realise that coming in to this series at issue #23 of 25 is a little late but going back to review the 22 issues that came before this seemed like too much of a mammoth task.
For me season 9 has been a massive improvement over season 8 which I felt got massively lost in the scope of the visuals that a comic book can produce in comparison to what is available on the modest budget of a TV series. All credit to the writers and artists on season 8 for the ambitious scope but BtVS was always about the character at heart and when the characters get lost in the story the magic (apologies for the pun/reference) is lost.
Whedon himself has admitted in interviews that perhaps season 8 wasn’t quite the product that the team expected it to be and so season 9 started out by scaling back the action and scaling up the character.
Several mini-series and small arcs later and we have reached ‘The Core’ part 3 and find Buffy, Willow and Xander heading towards the centre of the ‘Deeper Well’ former home to Illyria and the Old Ones in a race against Severin, Simone and a whole butt-load of demons who all have a stake (pun #2) in either taking away or bringing magic back to the world.
It’s interesting that we’ve reached issue #23 and Simone is looming large over the story considering she also featured on the cover of season 8 #23 in much a similar status. In comic world some of our villains and secondary characters are experiencing a much slower burn than they would on TV again probably due to budgetary constraints.
After 7 seasons on TV to develop one of the most rabid fan bases its safe to say that 95% of those reading this series have pre-conceived ideas about how that expect the characters to behave and also how they expect them to be treated. All this makes for a massive weight to carry as the scriptwriter on this book but Chambliss has yet to disappoint and this issue feels right for where we are in the story in relation to the ‘season’ finale.
Episodic TV formats translate well in to comics and BtVS is a shining example of this. Whedon does many (MANY!) things well but building up story arcs over time and bringing them to climactic conclusions is one of his finest traits in TV and the season 9 comics are no different.
This book crams in a fair amount of action, some solid story development and yet still has time for smaller character moments. Although some fans are displeased with the relationship between Xander and Buffy’s sister Dawn but in this issue it’s the two of them who are packing the emotional punch that reminds us just why we got on this ride in the first place.
The artwork by Jeanty has also never ever let us down. There’s a great balance of making the characters recognisable to their TV counterparts but also evoking the feeling of where they are in their lives. The demons in this series, particularly with so many in this issue alone, also reflect their TV versions without making a mockery of the design work which went in their makeup.
This may not be the right place for new readers to jump in to this series but if you’ve been a casual reader then ‘The Core’ arc which began in issue #21 is a great place to come back to BtVS.
8/10
