New Slayer, New World, Same Old Problems: Reviewing ‘Buffy The Last Vampire Slayer’ #1

Once upon a time, the world changed and crumbled around Buffy The Vampire Slayer, making her the last slayer ever. Thanks to the help of some old friends and the emergence of a new slayer, Thessaly, the daughter of Willow and Tara, the world was saved once again. It’s time once more to return to that future world as the new slayer begins to find her own way.

First issues have a lot to do in many cases. They must set things up so that the reader knows where the world might be and where the story is headed. There is, even more, to do when many years have passed since the last time the world was visited. That’s where we find ourselves with the first issue of the second volume of Buffy The Last Vampire Slayer.

This is very much a setup issue. Which is far from a bad thing.

Casey Gilly spends a lot of time reintroducing the characters, their dynamics, and where life now stands for the slayer and her watcher. Various pieces are introduced and moved around the board to give us clues about where it all might go. At the same time, there are bits of fun and very Buffy-like elements sprinkled in so that it’s not just exposition or clip show beats.

We saw the saving of the world in the first volume, putting vampires back down to their usual status quo. So, I’m very cool with the world being different following that but I will say it feels a little too normal in a way. Essentially the world is fully back to one that feels like today and like Buffy’s old stories, just with Thessaly in the young adult slayer role. Again, not a bad thing, but just sort of takes away a bit of the flavor that the first volume had.

Oriol Roig has a naturally whimsical and outlandish sort of art style. It is more exaggerated in some respects while also nailing the emotion, depth, detail, and heaviness needed for this story. It allows the scenes with people talking and emoting to breathe and own the space. Every page is chock full of panels because a ton is thrown onto every page, but it never feels overwhelming or tacked on. Every beat has plenty of room to do what it needs to do.

There are only a couple of familiar characters around at this point, with tons of new ones filling in the gaps. Roig makes sure that those we know feel familiar without having to be carbon copies of their actors, giving Buffy and Spike their own energy.

With a lot of the pages taking place in homes or normal spaces, there is an overall toned-down grounded color palette in effect. That’s not the case all the way through, as Gloria Martinelli drops in plenty of darker or brighter colors in at the right time. Many of the battles call for those darker tones, while the more emotional/talkative pages get lighter ones. It sets the tone and makes sure that we accurately feel whatever emotion the page should be evoking.

As mentioned before, there is a lot of talking going on here. So there naturally are a lot of words and letters flying around, both in bubbles and boxes. Ed Dukeshire does what he does best in these Buffy-related books, and others at BOOM! Studios. Filling all those words with energy, emotion, and power while making sure they flow around the pages in a smooth and easy-to-follow way. A bunch of little flairs are sprinkled in to give them that power and make them pop even more on the page.

Overall, this is a solid first issue that gets all the parts moving once more for this world. It allows us into the minds of the characters while creating some familiar but interesting mysteries.

Buffy The Last Vampire Slayer #1 is now available from BOOM! Studios.