Creative Staff:
Script: Christos Cage
Art: Megan Levens
Colors: Dan Jackson
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt
What They Say:
“Love Dares You Part One”
Buffy and the gang struggle with their newfound responsibility—rewriting the rules of magic. Between that and trying to understand the regular ol’ rules of love, things are a little heated for our heroes. But this rock-solid group of friends are still enjoying adulthood in a thriving city (oh, er…except Giles), until a seriously bad, bad guy comes to roost in the most unexpected place.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Buffy’s got a new villain in town and he wants a body. I don’t blame him, he’s kind of disgusting. Andrew apparently fought him with the “after” Chris Evans body he got from the Asclepian Vial, so I don’t know what to believe. He looks like bad news though.
Everyone else but Buffy seems to be failing at love. Even Andrew! He, like the actor who played him, is gay. But Andrew is just coming to terms with it, so maybe he’s not gay. Maybe he’s bi. Andrew is a very confused person that loves to read people (poorly) and sucks even more at reading himself.
Giles, meanwhile, just wants some companionship, but not many hookers will screw a 12 year old. And those that would, you probably wouldn’t want to screw. He calls on an old flame that says she won’t be a pedophile for him, so good on her. They’re just friends now, but strike one Giles. Sorry kid. Things have changed since you came back to life.
Willow’s trying to make it with her mentor again, but the mentor is a trickster. Aluwyn’s specialty is deceiving, which is why Willow picked her as a mentor. It parallels exactly with Dawn and Xander’s relationship right now, which teeters between terrible and slightly less than terrible. They both want to be with each other, but neither is really ready for it. Same with Willow and Aluwyn.
Basically all of this information is presented exactly like this. They tell it to each other and, while trying to write this, I wondered why it was so hard. So much happened, yet all of it was told. It all felt very wooden because so much was happening that it simply had to be presented that way to fit it within 24 pages.
The good news: Now that all of that is out of the way and presented, the next issue has free reign to go straight into the good stuff. The good stuff being that last sequence with Buffy and Angel which was brilliant. Actually, the first part with the speed dating was pretty good too. It got straight at what Buffy dislikes about dating and then it comes full circle with Spike at the end.
There’s a new artist on this issue, Megan Levens, who is definitely the high point of the whole thing. Her artwork gives it a very juvenile feel, which I think is what they were going for. It’s very adolescent what they’re all feeling right now and the type of relationships they’re going through and the artwork adds a special ambiance to that. She’s gonna be around for the rest of the story too, so huzzah!
In Summary:
After the last story of Buffy, I’m glad we’re back into Big Bad territory. I’m a little disappointed that there wasn’t a HUGE one for this entire season, but what can you do. I think the short stories work better immediately following the entire rules of magic being rewritten. It gives them the opportunity to address separate parts of the rules of magic without having one central villain have to do it all. It just happened to not work in this issue.
Content Grade: C+
Art Grade: A-
Released By: Dark Horse
Release Date: January 21, 2015
MSRP: $3.50
Agree with most of what was said here, but one small thing, you said Buffy and Angel! Did you mean Buffy and Spike?
Shinkey! I did. Thank you.