In "Wolves at the Gate", even more comic-ish type stuff goes on; Dawn, Buffy's little sister, is still giant size and fights a giant mechanical version of herself that the vampires in Tokyo had made. Also, those vampires can turn into jaguars. These issues continued into more fun elements that the show couldn't explore, possibly financially because a lot of their adventures are on a bigger spectrum. So, story-wise, Buffy begins the story by being very stressed and having lesbian sex with a slayer colleague. Her giant sister founds out and then vampire jaguars attack the abandoned fortress they now inhabit. Their fortress is fortified with gadgets and magic at the financial expense of their multiple slayer robberies (from 'villainous' sources) but also justifies the governments reason for wanting to hunt them down: they take what they want to get to the level of power and authority they desire. The vampires that stole the scythe go back to Tokyo where they are forming a major half-magic half-tech device atop a building that will send out a sonic blast undoing the spell that gave all potential slayers the 'slayer' power (disturbing the balance). Buffy destroys the vampires and uses her former nemesis Dracula to help her. Despite the incorporation of Dracula, I was most surprised at the mecha-Dawn. If this was seen in the show, it would have been a little overwhelming. In the comic, it felt natural. And a little overwhelming. It's a giant Dawn! But like many other elements the season 8 comics incorperate that former Buffy comics didn't, the larger scale of mythology and redefinition of the entire Buffy series has been due to the shift from '"Buffy the show" to "Buffy the show comic'" to "'Buffy: THE COMIC". Now, things that go on the comic lives especially in the comics because it is now competing with comic tropes when it formerly competed with tv show and female action hero tropes only-- now we see fortress of solitude type castles where Buffy and 500 other slayers train, we see secret identities, Xander with an eye patch, a giant robot Dawn, a flying Willow who is bashing though buildings fighting a Japanese witch working for the Tokyo vamp gang. The entire comic works like a comic alone, not a mere show comic, and it seriously has me hooked.
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May 2015
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