Buffy, Season 8 #13
This review written by James Hunt on Apr.07, 2008.
Last night, I watched a Buffy episode where, a mere 6 years into the program, she reveals that the first time she told her parents about vampires, they freaked out and put her into a mental hospital. Then, conveniently, nobody mentioned it ever again up until the point where Buffy needed to bring it up. It’s an undeniably damaging retcon that puts otherwise good episodes where Buffy’s mother finds out about Buffy, in a new, poorer light.
As much as I love Buffy #13, I’m not exactly thrilled by a similar piece of retconning that goes on in its pages. Did you know, for instance, that during Seasons five, six and seven of Buffy, Xander and Dracula kept in touch by writing letters to one another? What the hell, Goddard?!
Now, that aside, it’s an amusing idea that Xander went to stay with Dracula for a while after Season 7, and it’s never anything but hilarious when Dracula throws around terms like “moor” and “manservant” – as ever, the dialogue in Buffy: Season 8 is as sharp as the TV series ever was, and the heavy focus on Xander in this issue makes for entertaining reading. It’s just a pity they had to retroactively invent a Xander/Dracula friendship to make these scenes work.
The plot of the issue is more straight-up fare – the Japanese vampires that stole Buffy’s scythe and Dracula’s powers have apparently come up with a way to remove slayer-powers, and they’re planning to take the slayer-army down with it. Unlike other villains in the series, this seems like genuinely credible threat to Buffy. While supporting slayers are occasionally reduced to the level of cannon-fodder, Buffy herself is largely untouchable, and even with the knowledge that she’s the star of the show, there’s still some chance that she might lose her powers – stranger things have happened in the Buffyverse, after all.
There are other subplots ging on – Dracula gets an interesting scene showing him dishevelled and dejected fifteen minutes before the climax of last issue, that could imply an interesting story there, but could likewise be left in for no extra reason than for the comedy and a little bit of character-building. It works alone to suggest why Dracula is so welcoming of Xander, or as a clue to a bigger story yet to be told.
Not Season 8’s finest hour, but it couldn’t really hope to be after the Buffy/Satsu bombshell last issue (and yes, that development is followed up.) If nothing else, it’s worth getting for those who are eager to see more of the Buffyverse Dracula.
April 8th, 2008 on 3:42 am
Actually, it’s not a retcon – Xander became Dracula’s thrall in his appearance in the TV series, and he really did spend a year with Dracula as his manservant – click here to see that story.
April 8th, 2008 on 10:14 am
Ah, now, I never read the other Buffy comics because, Fray aside, they weren’t technically canon, even when they were written by the TV writers. If Goddard’s referring to his own comic, that’s fair enough, but it’s still a retcon certainly, we saw no letters from Dracula during season 5, 6 and 7, he’s just said “Oh, in S5/6/7, you saw one thing, but what also happened was this!” which is the very definition of retcon ;-)
This getting nerdy even for me, but thanks for pointing this out, I’ve been trying to find a copy of Tales of the Vampires for a while (having recently bought Tales of the Slayers) so now I’ve got even more reason to go find it!
April 9th, 2008 on 2:37 pm
Well, it would appear that the non-Fray Buffy comics have better canon status than the novels. So far, none of them have been contradicted in the Buffy Season 8/Angel Season 5 stuff – and elements from them, such as Spike’s supporting cast of telepathic fish and snarky ninja from his mini-series, have started showing up in the “main” comics.
And the “Tales of the Vampire” Dracula story seems to be set post-Season 7, but before Season 8 rolls around – note that Buffy rescues Xander with Rona and another Slayer as back-up. So as a Retcon, this isn’t too bad. As retcons go, it’s not too bad – it’s only a category 1 retcon, by these standards: http://www.websnark.com/archives/2008/01/retconning_just_1.html
Anyway, I expect that as the Buffy and Angel comics continue, they’ll begin to acknowledge more elements from the earlier Buffy comics.
April 9th, 2008 on 2:42 pm
Oh, and regarding the first retconned you mentioned in the TV series with the mental hospital – that one paid off when they showed the episode where Buffy wakes up in a mental hospital, where she’s told that she’d made up a life of vampire slaying the past 6 years… one of the best episodes of the series, I think.
April 9th, 2008 on 4:25 pm
It’s true that the line is blurring now that Goddard and Lynch are referencing their own Buffy and Angel comics (respectively) that were previously considered out-of-canon.
Likewise, there are plenty of other things in Tales of the Slayers and Tales of the Vampires that can be considered canon because they either happened in the past, were written by an “official” Buffy writer and haven’t been contradicted. Certainly, that Fray story in Tales of the Slayers is in-canon, so why not the rest of the book? Like I say, the line is blurring.
And yeah, that episode, “Normal Again” is great, besides for two scenes – the one with the pre-Season 1 asylum retcon, and the one where Dawn discovers she’s not in Buffy’s delusions and screeches at Buffy that it’s her “perfect life” and it doesn’t include her. Er, hello? Perfeclt life? She’s in an ASYLUM. Yeesh.