Love is complicated.
Creative Staff:
Script: Christos Cage
Art: Rebekah Isaacs
Colors: Dan Jackson
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt
What They Say:
“Love Dares You Part Four”
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):
Love is one of the weirdest, most beautiful, and totally unexplainable things in life ever. Possibly more than such pressing questions as what is morally good and morally evil and how do dogs really know they like each other. It’s something that’s only overcome by something as strong as…instinct. Instinct over instinct.
This storyline has been one of my favorites in a long time and, if I were to compare all Buffy storylines, this may very well be near the top. It’s the same kind of poignant that the Buffy of old has been. It’s delving into Buffy and Spike’s relationship like they used to with Willow and Tara. It’s a bit on the nose, but it strikes right at the heart and what anyone in a relationship needs to hear. Every relationship has trepidation and every relationship has hatred, annoyance, and a bunch of other negative adjectives attached to it. But the positive ones outweigh it. The love that you feel for that other person can tip the scales in the other direction like a bowling ball against a feather.
That’s what everything has been leading up to. This moment of realization and acceptance of everything good and everything bad that comes with a relationship. Because the one you love is the one that you would have every doubt about and be able to rebuke every single one.
Besides that there’s some cool lore I guess.
I mean, totally actually writing more now…As it turns out, the original demon that first put its essence into humans to make them a vampire still exists, because of course it does, still exists within the vampires it sired that they sired that they sired and so on…It goes back from Spike to Druscilla to Angel to Darla and all the way to Archaeus, which literally means “the old one.” He’s the big bad and the one that, inadvertently or not, is sending visions to Spike’s brain. Likely to lead the Slayer to him.
In Summary:
I just want to hug every character in Buffy and tell them it’s going to be alright. Especially Andrew and ESPECIALLY Buffy and Spike. The stuff they’re fighting is never really the monsters in every storyline, it’s themselves. It’s their relationships and internal conflicts that always drives Buffy. Truly, the monsters are just what happens in between arguments.
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: B+
Released By: Dark Horse
Release Date: April 22, 2015
MSRP: $3.50
