Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus Vol. 1
Writers: Joss Whedon, Christopher Golden, Dan Brereton, Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza & Paul Lee
Art: Eric Powell, Joe Bennett, Cliff Richards, Paul Lee
Genre: Graphic Novel/Action
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best]: B
My Thoughts: My girlfriend and friends just recently began inducting me into the Cult of Buffy, and I’ve been making my way through the TV show slowly. But as I can’t seem to restrict my fandom to just one medium, I’ve also been getting into the Buffy comic books from Dark Horse. The Buffy Omnibus series will eventually reprint all of Dark Horse’s Pre-Season 8 Buffy comics in thick, relatively cheap paperbacks. The stories, it should be noted, are collected in chronological order, not in the order that they were published.
This first volume collects all of the pre-TV show exploits the comic produced, and while there aren’t many, the ones they give us are pretty good. After a so-so Spike and Drusilla short story, the volume begins in earnest with The Origin. The original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, starring Kristy Swanson, was really very much a butchery of the script that Joss Whedon wrote. In this story, Christopher Golden took the original, pre-butchered script and massaged it into a strong storyline that brings Buffy’s first adventure more in line with the version of the character we watched on television. Next up is Viva Las Buffy, which takes place right as the movie ends. Buffy and her boyfriend, Pike, run off to Las Vegas together, only to discover that the lifestyle of the slayer will follow her anywhere. There’s a short story featuring Dawn (which was apparently pretty controversial, considering the characters origins… the controversy wasn’t in the story itself, but in the fact that the story existed), and the book closes with Slayer, Interrupted, in which Buffy comes home only to find herself tossed in a mental ward. Las Buffy and Slayer, Interrupted also both feature a subplot with Rupert Giles, the man destined to become Buffy’s Watcher, on his quest to do so.
Although I’ve been told many of the Buffy comics varied wildly in quality, these first few comics (again, chronologically - they were actually produced pretty near the end of the run) are actually pretty good. It’s nice to have a more solid origin story for Buffy, and nice to see more of the circumstances that ultimately led her to Sunnydale. While this is by no means required reading, even for die-hard fans of the show, for folks looking for a little extra to satiate their Buffy cravings, this is a pretty good book.