Buffy the Vampire Slayer Volumes 1-6 by Joss Whedon (and others)

I decided to combine all the volumes I've read so far of Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 8 into one review, mostly because I read the first 3 before I started this blog, so never wrote reviews for them.

Buffy season 8 takes place (obviously) after the end of season 7 of the show. OK, this is gonna be impossible to do spoiler-free, so if you haven't finished Buffy (the show) yet you should just stop reading now because there be SPOILERS ahead!

OK, so Buffy is at the head of a huge army of Slayers that has bases and squads all over the world and it's pretty awesome. They're up against an Initiative-like military organisation, as well as a mysterious masked Big Bad named Twilight. Those guys might all be working together? I tend to get confused about people's allegiances. There are various subplots along the way, including Buffy going to the future and meeting Fray (awesome) and the Slayers going to Tibet and making what I feel was the most stupid decision in the history of the Buffyverse (not so awesome).

The writing is amazing. Even the parts that are written by people who didn't write for the show are great. The characters talk exactly how you would expect them to, with just the right amount of wittiness.

The art is of mixed quality. I tend not to keep track of who the artists are for each chapter (I'm not a big comic person), but I do know that there are some parts where everyone looks like they should, and others where they're unrecognizable. There were a couple times when a chapter would end by just showing a character and you're supposed to be like "omg it's him!" but instead I was all "wait, who is that?" Because the guys all look the same, except for Xander and Giles.

 

Honestly, I think that if the plot and the writing and everything were exactly the same, but it was in the form of a tv episode (or maybe a novel; I haven't read any Buffy novels yet, so it's hard to say), I would have nothing bad to say. I think all my issues stem from my confusion, which is largely caused by difficult-to-recognise characters. This is the problem I have with comics.

So, the first three volumes were my favourites, and they all get 5 stars. No complaints there. The next three were confusing for me, though I think the sixth one was less so than the fourth and fifth. I'm hoping for more awesome ahead with the last two volumes in the series, which I'll hopefully be getting for the Winter Holidays!