BTVS - The Long Way Home: A Review

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon is the continuation of the TV series in comic book form. The consequences of what Buffy and Willow did, activating all of the potentials slayers, are now being recognized as they are rounding up the newly realized slayers, and dealing with the backlash from those who are unhappy by this new superhuman race of girls.

Whedon stays true to his characters through and through, and brings in some old characters thought to be gone just for fun (although there is one little loop hole he admits to forgetting about when bringing one of them back). Buffy is overwhelmed by her new position as Leader of the Slayers, is lonely and desperately horny (poor girl!) Xander is still quirky, funny Xander, except now he is a Watcher/Sergeant of the Slayers, and he looks pretty bad ass with that eye patch. Dawn's going through some "growing pains" as all the book descriptions like to cutely put it and Willow is still a pretty wicked Wicca. The arc is great and is left unfinished, making you look forward to its continuation and the TPB also includes a standalone of one of the newly activated Slayers that was pretty cool.

While I think they might be pushing Buffy a little further than they would have in TV format with the whole menage-a-trois dream sequence, I think the stories fall in line pretty well with the flavor of the TV show (they did have the whole Spike throw down sex in the TV show after all...) It's good to see the old characters come alive again, after being a fan of the show since high school it feels like seeing old friends again!

I really loved this Buffy comic and can't wait to read the Faith arc, which is in the next couple of issues and sadly not in TPB yet. I've heard great things about them. Are you sick of vampires yet from all my reviews? I'm not!

5*