Slaying Ain’t Easy: Reviewing ‘Buffy The Last Vampire Slayer’ #3

Thanks to technology, lying to others about our lives is much easier. Too bad lying to ourselves isn’t so easy. No matter how much one might wish it, trauma and emotional issues can’t just be wished away.

These are hard lessons that Buffy The Last Vampire Slayer #3 ponders for its main characters. A very emotion-focused issue from Casey Gilly, Oriol Roig, Nicola Izzo, Gloria Martinelli, and Ed Dukeshire.

This is a very interesting series. There are so many plotlines happening right now, it’s a bit hard to follow exactly what the main threat to our protagonists might be. It’s not confusing mind you, just there are a lot of balls being juggled. All of them are still being unraveled even though there are only two more issues remaining in this series.

The strength of the series though is just how deep the character beats are. We’re witnessing the struggles that Thessaly is going through, alongside those of an older, directionless Buffy. Themes of trauma, loss, hormones, deep love, betrayal, and so much more have gone down. A lot of it is the stuff that made Buffy such a solid franchise. While much of this took many episodes and even seasons, we’re getting it all jam-packed into five issues.

I think Gilly is doing a really good job on that end of things. Personally, I think a bit more time on the side could be used to fully flesh out just what the overall threat is. The flashbacks tell us a lot about the magic used and the demons enslaved to create this town. The present-day seems to be connected to that, perhaps the demon is finally getting that revenge. But it’s not clear.

Most of the time is spent on the character stuff, which isn’t bad. If this was an ongoing series stretching things out in a way might work better. Now, I reserve the right to change my tune by the last issue (as if you all could stop me) if things all come together smoothly. Often that is the one flaw of reading these stories monthly, we judge things before we have the full picture.

Unfortunately, no matter what people say, that is what will naturally happen when you only get one piece of the story spread out across five to twelve or more months.

Overall, there is very little slayage or action again here. That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of solid movement and framing that Roig and Izzo pull off here. Characters are very much in motion, walkin’ and talkin’, and it’s all smooth and set up so well. There is a sort of abstract exaggerated nature to the artwork alongside a very heavy darker weight. It creates that feeling of fun but also danger always lurking, which it most certainly is in that world.

Heavier colors make that weight even more, alongside colors that tend to remain somewhat toned down in a more middle-ground space. Allowing the bits of vibrancy that pop up to hit harder. Even those toned-down colors have some exaggeration to them to play into that more whimsical feeling on hand. It’s not concerned about being overly realistic, capturing a mood and tone more so than what we recognize. Which works.

With all the talking referred to, both out loud and to themselves at times, there is tons of lettering to play with. So much exposition can often become too much and overwhelm a page or space. Not with Dukeshire leading the way. It flows smoothly through the pages and any time there is room to play with things a bit, he takes it.

One of my favorite sections comes from a very smooth collaboration of this team. We get pages that have Thessaly and Buffy’s text conversations and photos to one side and panels of reality beside them. It tells us so much about the characters without having to fully tell us. They use their texts, as many of us do with social platforms, to tell a story about their current lives that doesn’t mirror their actual physical or internal realities. Putting on that face for each other even though they are a great distance apart.

It’s pages like that that really hit home the emotional journeys of the issue and make it work.

Buffy The Last Vampire Slayer #3 is now available from BOOM! Studios.