In addition to the main series and miniseries, in the early days of the “Buffy” license, Dark Horse was good for at least one one-shot per year. Here’s a look at three of the early ones (reviews of others are coming in later posts):
“Annual ’99” (August 1999)
On the TV show, Buffy usually fought humanoid monsters, owing to the fact that men in demon suits were more affordable than CGI baddies of other sizes. The books and comics made up for that shortcoming – boy, did they ever. The first YA novel (“Halloween Rain”), the first adult novel (“Child of the Hunt”), and the first comic book story (“MacGuffins”) all featured teeny-tiny baddies pestering our Slayer, and many others followed.
But if there’s a good reason for it, I’ll excuse a cliché. Such is the case with “The Latest Craze,” a sharp satire of the Beanie Baby trend from writers Christopher Golden and Tom Sniegoski set in Season 3. Hooligans look like small stuffed animals, but they are actually the uglier version of “Harry Potter’s” nifflers: They steal stuff.
Ethan Rayne is behind it all; his regular pop-ins on Sunnydale are also a cliché of the early books and comics, but I’ll forgive anything with a good one-liner, and “The Latest Craze” closes with a zinger:
Giles: Frankly I wonder if he isn’t beginning to enjoy your beatings.
Buffy: Great. Thanks for the nausea.
“Bad Dog,” written by Douglas Petrie with art by Ryan Sook, is less successful. While it’s neat to see Buffy use a muzzled werewolf Oz to track Willow, Sook’s art is out of place. His ugly versions of Spike, Dru and Angelus are wonderful for Gothic stories, but strike me as inappropriate for our cute Season 4 Scoobies.
3.5 stars
“Giles: Beyond the Pale” (October 2000)
Toward the end of “Buffy’s” TV run, there was buzz about a Giles miniseries starring Anthony Stewart Head. Perhaps it would’ve also dug into Giles’ teen years as a sorcerer. That never happened, and to this day there are fewer Giles-centric stories than you’d think, but “Beyond the Pale” makes up for the lack of quantity with quality.
Written by Golden and Sniegoski, this issue finds the former Watcher visiting London in the back half of Season 4. Like Giles, Micaela Tomasi (Giles’ brief love interest in the “Gatekeeper Trilogy”) has disappointed Travers and the Council, but rather than being fired, she is given a second chance. She risks squandering that by enlisting Giles’ help.
While Giles’ characterization is all over the place in the novels and comics, here we get the Giles who would respond to a taunt with “I’d like to test that theory.” He’s both British and awesome. While I’m not big on the Lovecraftian monsters, Guy Major’s colors work with Eric Powell’s pencils and inks to emphasize the gloomy and rainy stereotype of London. A drenched scene at a Watcher’s funeral is particularly great, and we also get a nicely washed-out flashback page to when Giles worked in the archives in 1980.
4.5 stars
“Lover’s Walk” (February 2001)
This Valentine’s Day special borrows its title from a Season 3 episode (adding an apostrophe), but is unable to tap into its greatness. “One Small Promise,” by Tom Fassbender and Jim Pascoe, captures the boringness of Buffy and Riley in Season 4 as they multitask by having a brief lover’s spat while fighting vampires.
“Punish Me with Kisses,” another Season 4 story by first-time writers Jamie S. Rich and Chynna Clugston-Major, is more effectively breezy, enhanced by Clugston-Major’s anime-tinged art. This is perfect for Willow and Tara as they banish a bickering ghost couple from a bed-and-breakfast, dropping cute lines like “My Scooby-sense is tingling.”
The best is saved for last: “Spike & Dru: Who Made Who?,” from writer Golden and artists Powell (pencils) and Keith Barnett (inks), illuminates “love’s bitch” Spike’s frustration with Drusilla, who isn’t feeling romantic at the moment.
Spike: Why the hell did you make me?
Drusilla: Just wanted someone to play with, I guess.
It gets bonus points for being a rare comic that ties directly into the TV show. We see Spike trying to torture Dru till she loves him again, an intention he announces in “Lovers Walk” (3.8). Of course, the next time we see him on TV, there’s still no Dru in his life, and he has settled for Harmony. In “Who Made Who?,” Spike aims to get his self-respect back: He tosses a corpse from a car and says “Sorry. Just think I need a little time to myself.” I know he doesn’t succeed just yet, but I still root for him.
3 stars
Click here for an index of all of John’s “Buffy” and “Angel” reviews.